Maria Vamvakinou, Federal Member for Calwell has suggested that a funding program worth $10 million, put in place to counter extremism in Australia’s Muslim communities, should not be administered by the Federal Attorney General’s office.
The program was conceived as a device for preventing the radicalisation of young Muslims who are at risk of becoming home-grown terrorists.
Ms Vamvakinou’s electorate in Melbourne includes suburbs with high populations of Muslims such as Broadmeadows and Dallas.
The MP who chairs the federal parliamentary inquiry into multiculturalism, told a recent hearing that surveillance of her community was likely to have negative effects on its young people.
The Attorney-General’s office told the inquiry that the main terrorist threat to Australia remained a minority who followed a “distorted, militant interpretation of Islam that espouses violence as the answer to perceived grievances”.
The department runs a $10 million program that gives grants to community groups in an effort to counter local extremism. The grants encourage social interaction projects and engagement between young people from diverse ethnic groups.
Ms Vamvakinou told Neos Kosmos that the awarding of the grants – presented as a reaction to concerns over national security, was sending the wrong message and that the program should be run by other departments.
“I’ve had the view for some time that funding coming from the Attorney General’s office in the context of counter-terrorism and anti radicalisation can be, and probably is, counterproductive,” said Ms Vamvakinou, whose electorate contains between 15,000 and 18,000 Muslims.
“Parts of the community feel unnecessarily targeted, and that has the potential to make those people feel excluded.
“The funding is significant and it funds some very good projects,” added the member for Calwell, “but I would like to see it shifted to another department, perhaps Immigration and Citizenship, Education, or Multicultural affairs.
“If it’s about community building and assisting in the integration process there are other departments that would make more sense to manage the program, and which would cancel the counter-terrorism connotation out.”