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The Chinese Community Council of Australia’s “Moving On” national conference was a precedent success. The organisers had to turn away last minute registrations – the event attracted seven times more registered participants than the first conference in Sydney last year.
The first day presented and discussed viewpoints of the community’s settlement experiences, pains and successes, civil right movements of Chinese communities overseas, cultural philosophies of foreign land settlement, and ideas for moving forward. The small number of highly engaging generation Y participants said that their community issues and aspirations are different and need different approaches, not necessary always from the viewpoints of an older generation. Some participants expressed their desires for asking for an apology from the Australian Government for past discrimination against the early Chinese settlers in the 1800s and early 1990s, while others canvassed for getting a formal Government recognition of the past to recent contributions that early Chinese settlers had and today’s citizens have made to the development of Australia.
During the second day, speakers shared insights of the emerging, growing and often hidden social problems affecting the community and lacking support services, which concern caring for the aged; mental illness, domestic violence, acculturation; lacking community involvement in public engagement and advocacy activities.
The last “Call to Action speech” opened new transforming insights of how the community can move on through strategic collaboration projects. Building the Chinese Australian voice is no longer a regular talk-fest activity, but is about creating a new propensity for collaborating and developing strategic capabilities. The strategic capabilities do not just close the Chinese Diaspora mentality and address social issues, but are also for supporting and advancing Australia in the Asian Century. The audience strongly commemorated the new and doable directions for moving on. There was unanimous support for future strategic collaboration projects that will:
1. Be executed professionally, including guided by good corporate governance
2. Take Chinese Australian advocacy to the next and more professional level;
3. Increase Chinese perspectives in Australian history and school curriculum learning;
4. Openly acknowledge and resolve the community’s hidden service access and equity issues in areas of aged care, mental illness, domestic violence, acculturation and unemployment issues;
5. Increase engagement with young Chinese Australians to understand and address their different interests and concerns;
6. Develop advance leadership training and mentoring programs in industry and government sectors;
7. Create a sustainable knowledge management repository for supporting the community’s inter-generation information creation, storage and sharing, and continuous learning.
During the open forum discussions, participants expressed their interpretations of and support for the “Call to Action” directions, including support for older Chinese Australians to share their wisdom, value adding ideas and networks for moving on.
Future community workshops will follow to plan and progress these moving on themes into action projects. Many participants had expressed interests to be involved in these future events.
本屆澳華社區議會“繼續前進”專題年會勝利閉幕，並取得了得空前成功。比起去年在悉尼舉辦的第一屆年會，本屆會議預約登記的與會者有近七倍之多。主辦方因此不得不遺憾地回絕了一些最後幾天才登記的參與者。
大會第一天呈現了華人在澳洲的定居經歷、他們遭受的苦難與獲得的成功以及海外華人團體的民權運動和在異地他鄉定居的文化哲學，並並探討了繼續前進的理念。會議中人數不多但極為活躍的青年代表談到，他們這一代的所面對的問題與抱負已有所不同，因此需要採取不同的應對方式，不必總是用老一輩的觀點來看問題。有些代表則表達了他們的希望，即澳大利亞政府應就19世紀和20世紀90年代初期對華人移民的歧視行為作出公開道歉。還有一些代表則提出了澳洲政府必須就華人公民過去及現在對澳洲發展所做出的貢獻給予正式的肯定。
在第二天中，演講者們揭露了一些新出現並愈演愈烈而同時又常常被遮遮掩掩的社會問題，並探討了這些問題對華人社區的影響。演講者們還討論了社區支持性服務不足的情況，其中也涉及到對老年人的護理；精神病患者、家庭暴力、文化適應；社區對公共事務以及維護社區利益活動參與的不足等各個方面。
最後的“呼籲行動演講”提出了華人社區該如何通過’戰略協作’來完成共同發展的新思路。共建澳華之音將不再僅僅是一個大家茶餘飯後的談資，將不再是一個議而不決的定期集會，而是創建一個全新的合作態勢、提高戰略能力。此戰略能力不僅僅只是要消除華人的’身在他鄉’的思維模式以及正視諸多社會問題，同時也是為了更好的在’亞洲世紀’裡支持及促進澳大利亞的發展。這個全新的並且具有可行性的發展方向在聽眾中引起了強烈反響，而聽眾們對未來戰略合作項目的支持也是一致的：
1。運用專業人士執行項目，包括運用良好企業管理作為管理導向。
2。將澳洲華人社區利益維護的活動提升到更為專業的水平;
3。在澳大利亞歷史及學校課程的編纂中增強華人觀點的影響;
4。公開承認並解決社區隱藏的問題，諸如公平獲得社區服務及老年護理，精神疾病，家庭暴力，文化適應和失業等方面的問題;
5。增加與輕年澳洲華人的接觸，了解並認識他們不同的利益訴求及關注方向;
6。打造在企業界及政府部門方面的高級別領導力培訓、指導方案;
7。創造一個可持續發展的知識庫，支持社區跨時代信息的創建，存儲和共享，以供不斷學習。
在公開論壇的討論階段中，與會者們表示他們對“呼籲行動”這一新思路的理解與支持，而這一思路中就包括了支持年長的澳洲華人們分享他們的智慧，有益想法及社交網絡以促進社區前進發展的良好意願。
未來社區的研討會將遵循這些促使社區前進發展的主題，通過規劃及執行將其轉化為具體行動項目。許多與會者們都表示極有興趣參與這些未來的項目。
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Event sponsors with Senator Hon. Kate Lundy, Hon. Hong Lim MP & President of CCCAV Stanley Chiang
First row from the left: Former Liberal Senator Tsebin Tchen, OAM Marion Lau, CCCAV Presient Stanley Chiang, Senator Hon. Kate Lundy, CCCA President OAM Tony Pun, Hon. Martin Ferguson MP., Former Melbourne Mayor John So & Hon. Hong Lim MP.
Top row: Mr Robin Scott MP with CCCAV committee CCCA representatives.
Conference Theature
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