Interview with Miani, Harry, Reka and Kai, 3WBC
E&OE
MIANI
Now to celebrate the 15th anniversary this year, the Australian Government has release a great resource and e-book called ‘Recipes for Harmony’ and we’re very honoured to welcome the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social Services, Senator the Honourable Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, to chat with us about World Harmony Day and ‘Recipes for Harmony’. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your undoubtedly hectic schedule Senator – I’m Miani and you’re also on the line with Harry, Kai and Reka. How has your day been so far?
SENATOR FIERRAVANTI-WELLS
Well thank you first of all for the kind invitation to join you this afternoon. Well it’s been another busy day in Parliament because we’re sitting. But today I have to say was rather special because we started off with our annual Harmony Day football game between the pollies and SBS and I’m very pleased to say that the Pollies won 8-6, for the first time in five years.
MIANI
Wow!
HARRY
Congratulations. Broke the streak!
SENATOR FIERRAVANTI-WELLS
We’re very pleased because considering the SBS team had players like Craig Foster and Jason Culina and Tony Vidmar and David Zdrilic who have all played for Australia. Meanwhile the humble pollies didn’t really have anybody who’d played for Australia, certainly not for Australia, but very suburban players.
HARRY
Sounds like you had the upper hand.
SENATOR FIERRAVANTI-WELLS
Yes we did. And tomorrow we’re playing netball which includes some of the Diamonds players so for the rest of the Harmony Week we’ve got basketball, touch football and tennis. It’s a busy week this week.
MIANI
Very sporty week.
HARRY
So this is Harry here Senator and we’d like to start by finding out a bit of history around World Harmony Day and how it has evolved over 15 years, particularly here in Australia?
SENATOR FIERRAVANTI-WELLS
Well Harmony Day is celebrated throughout Australia on the 21st of March and as you’ve correctly said the theme is everyone belongs. It’s basically a day for all Australians irrespective of their backgrounds to embrace our cultural diversity and to share those things which are very common to us. It’s a community celebration and since 1999 when Harmony Day was first established under the Howard Government we’ve had over 60,000 Harmony Day events held across Australia and in fact last year we had 6,600 events just in Harmony Day last year.
HARRY
6,600
MIANI
Whoa!
HARRY
That is a lot.
SENATOR FIERRAVANTI-WELLS
Yeah. No it’s become very much an integral part, not just of the cultural-social calendar, it’s very much now part of our nation’s history and our character.
HARRY
Yeah.
KAI
I’m Kai, Senator, and I see the ‘Recipes for Harmony’ e-book gives some great snapshots of different cultures, including recipes, cooking tips and even some language phrases. Who came up with the idea for this project and how was it all brought together?
SENATOR FIERRAVANTI-WELLS
Well, ‘Recipes for Harmony’ was co-funded by our Department of Social Services and an organisation called the Scanlon Foundation and what it does is it complements another programme that’s been long-running called the Taste of Harmony Week which is part of the Harmony Day celebrations. Harmony Day has been over the 15 years been very, very strongly supported by the primary education sector so this year what we wanted to do on the 15th anniversary was to give back to the primary schools and basically, that’s why we we’ve extended the Taste of Harmony which is basically about reaching into Australian workplaces and we wanted to broaden the reach of a Taste of Harmony to a younger audience and hence we’ve now launched a ‘Recipes for Harmony’ e-book.
MIANI
Oh sounds great.
HARRY AND REKA
Yeah
REKA
Hello Senator, I’m Reka and my family is originally from Hungary. With so many amazing cultures in Australia, I was wondering how the foods featured in ‘Recipes for Harmony’ were chosen – and are you planning further editions of the e-book?
SENATOR FIERRAVANTI-WELLS
Look the book was put together by an organisation called Cultural Infusions and what we hoped to do from this e-book is to introduce not just cultures and food, but to do so in an interactive and a fun way and so what we’ve tried to do is feature videos and audio recordings as well as the recipes and the cultural profiles, but most importantly include personal stories from everyday and high-profile Australians. I mean people like Bachar Houli, Masterchef contestant Alice Zaslavsky, with whom I was the other day when we launched the Recipes for Harmony book which was really good at the Collingwood College and basically there’s a number of high-profile people, but not only are they sharing their stories but we’ve put it together in a way that helps teachers. It’s a resource with lesson plans, ice-breakers, classroom activities. Cultural Infusions wrote and designed the content including the recipes. They did the profiles and the personal stories.
REKA
Wow, that sounds like a great book. I’m looking forward to reading it myself.
SENATOR FIERRAVANTI-WELLS
Yes, now you can go off and download it at Recipes for Harmony through the Harmony Day website. Can I give you that website?
REKA
You can indeed.
SENATOR FIERRAVANTI-WELLS
REKA
Sounds great. Everyone should go to that and have a look at the great e-book.
REKA
Now Senator before we wind up our chat, could you please explain what the term ‘social cohesion’ means, and why it’s so important for creating a prosperous and equitable Australian society?
SENATOR FIERRAVANTI-WELLS
Look, social cohesion is about stronger Australian communities. It’s about building resilience and strengthening in particular the capacity of our communities that are more in need. And as a government in Australia, successive Australian governments have supported programmes and policies that help people, especially those that are newly arrived to Australia. Not only to settle but to become an integral part of a multicultural Australia. For that reason we provide grants to community groups to raise awareness, to promote understanding, respect fairness and very much develop that sense of belonging for all Australians. And especially in times when there are certain groups that do face pressures, because of their cultural or religious diversity, this becomes very, very important to build that resilience and most especially in terms of combating racism.
HARRY
Yeah well that’s incredibly important for creating a good Australia.
REKA
Yeah it is.
MIANI
It’s been an absolute honour to be able to chat with you today Senator. ‘Recipes for Harmony’ certainly is a great initiative and all the work you guys are doing is absolutely fabulous. As both food and music are said to be part of the universal language that transcend boundaries, so we think this great e-book will be very successful within the curriculum for achieving its aims. Thank you again for your time and we hope you have a wonderful World Harmony week with all the great things that are happening!
SENATOR FIERRAVANTI-WELLS
Thank you very much. It was great to be with you.
ALL PRESENTERS
Thank you.