In December 2024, the Premier of Victoria, Jacinta Allan, announced several measures to address social cohesion challenges and to strengthen community harmony.

One of the measures announced was Victoria’s Multicultural Review which will examine how the Victorian Government’s multicultural mechanisms can:

• • deliver on their legislated/agreed functions and objectives
  • address and prevent racism and discrimination
  • promote community harmony and reject division in the context of local and global events
  • rebuild interfaith dialogue
  • address local issues and community crises in a timely and strategic way
  • engage the broader Victorian community in matters relating to social cohesion.

Victoria’s Multicultural Review is being led by George Lekakis AO, a respected multicultural leader, supported by a targeted advisory group of community experts, including Hass Dellal AO, Carmel Guerra OAM, Miriam Suss OAM and Mark Duckworth PSM.

The review will provide recommendations to the Victorian Government to ensure Victoria’s policies, institutions and programs better reflect and support the needs of our multicultural and multifaith communities, now and into the future.

The Review is a great opportunity to provide valuable input to help strengthen social cohesion, combat discrimination and ensure multicultural policies reflect the needs of all Victorians. Community consultation sessions will be taking place online and in-person across regional and metropolitan Victoria.

The Victorian Refugee Health Network reiterates it’s auspicing agency’s acknowledgement of country:

The primary locations of the Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture Inc., Brunswick, Dallas, Dandenong, Sunshine, and our outpost location in Ringwood, are on the traditional lands of the Kulin nation.  In keeping with Foundation House’s aspiration to heal individuals and communities we recognise the loss of land, children, language, lore and spiritual and physical wellbeing of the people of the Kulin nation and other Indigenous Victorians due to the impact of colonisation.

We believe that acknowledging the past and its impact on the present is vital in building strong Victorian communities. We recognise the survival and enduring strengths of Victorian Indigenous culture in spite of such dispossession and aim to build respectful and informed relationships with the Victorian Indigenous community based on the acknowledgment of their unique position as the traditional owners of Victoria. As such, Foundation House is committed to the acknowledgment and participation of Indigenous Victorians within Foundation House events and this is reflected in our official protocols.