The Indian community’s festivals and Victoria’s election campaigns are now in top gear. Last Sunday, as Melbourne’s Indian community congregated to celebrate Dusshera at Australia’s biggest Hindu temple, the Sri Durga Temple at Rockbank, Victoria’s Leader of Opposition Matthew Guy made his election pitch laced with a proposal to fund this temple with $500,000, if he gets elected as the state’s new premier this November.
Shortly after greeting the crowd with “Jai Shri Ram” ( a greeting attributed to the Hindu deity, Lord Ram) and making this announcement, Mr Guy told SBS Punjabi: “If I come into government in a month’s time in the elections, we’ll make sure this temple receives seed funding for their community centre. So we’ll commit $500,000. Also, $300,000 to help out the ISKCON Temple in Albert Park, which I know, people here also, are close to. We want to help them both out to get a proper location for a community centre here in the western suburbs of Melbourne… so it’s not just a place in a park... We’ll work with the community to get a proper location. So, there’s a bit to do but we are, hopefully, going to do it after the election,” he said.
Earlier this month, SBS Punjabi had reported a similar announcement made by Victoria’s Premier Daniel Andrews, in which he had proposed to fund the 550th birth celebrations of Guru Nanak –the founder of Sikhism – in November 2019. Premier Andrews had offered to contribute $200,000 to make the celebrations of this landmark event the biggest outside of India. Along with that, he also promised to pump in $70,000 for the Vaisakhi festival next year along with having ongoing celebrations of Guru Nanak’s birthday each year. Earlier this year, Premier Andrews had also announced to provide $100,000 for next year’s Annual Sikh Games to be hosted by Melbourne.
When asked whether he has kept himself abreast of these announcements made by the incumbent government, Mr Guy said: “Yes, I have. Some of them appear to be very, very late. They are in four or five years’ time. I don’t want to make commitments in four or five years’ time, I want to make commitments for now. So that people know that if there’s an election and I’m the premier, people get the commitments I’ve made and they get them soon, not in four-five years,” reasoned Mr Guy.
After greeting the hundreds of people from the Indian community at the festival, Mr Guy also expressed his grief at the train accident that claimed many lives during a Dusshera function in the north Indian city of Amritsar. “Ladies and gentlemen, can I say, how sad I was to see what happened in Amritsar, and how terrible the circumstance was there. Our condolences and love goes out to everyone in Amritsar for that tragic event,” Mr Guy said.
In August this year, at an event organised by the Indian Consulate in Melbourne on the occasion of India’s Independence Day, Mr Guy had also made an announcement to contribute $5 million towards the establishment of an Indian community precinct in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburb of Cranbourne, wherein Indian art and culture will be promoted. It is said to be the biggest funding announcement ever made for Victoria’s Indian community.
It is worthwhile to mention that Mr Guy has served as the state’s minister for multicultural affairs and citizenship in 2014. Also is interesting to note that Victoria is home to Australia’s largest population of people born in India. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the 2016 census revealed that nearly 170,000 such people live in Victoria followed by roughly 145,000 in New South Wales.
To listen to this feature in Punjabi, click on the player at the top of the page.
