Premier Nathan Rees and the NSW Community Relations Commission invited CAF along with other representatives from the Chinese community to Governor Macquarie Tower to discuss issues that are of concern.

President Tony Pang represented the CAF at the meeting, which was also attended by other leaders of the Chinese community.

Mr Pang said that it was great that the NSW Government was proactively opening up lines of communication with leaders of the community, to engage them on issues of importance.

“CAF wanted to bring to the Premier’s attention two issues in particular – governance and racial bullying at schools,” Mr Pang said.

“We have raised the issue of racial bullying with the NSW Attorney-General John Hatzistergos as well as his Parliamentary Secretary Barry Collier.

“Premier Rees showed us that he is willing to listen to our views and voice our concerns; we had an open and frank discussion and I believe we will make progress from here.”

Mr Pang said it was refreshing for the Government to host a Question and Answer session, instead of just the usual obligatory photo session.

Just like the Federal and State Government’s Community Cabinet meetings, Government is being taken to the people.

Mr Pang later said that he was impressed that he received follow up phone calls from the Community Relations Commission regarding the matters he had raised at the meeting and hoped that the issues were being taken seriously.