5th Asia-Pacific Regional Interfaith Dialogue Speech

Distinguished faith and community leaders,

Tena koutou katoa and good morning to you all. 

It is an honour, on behalf of the Government of New Zealand, to join you on this beautiful Perth morning.

As a Member of Parliament for Botany, situated in New Zealand's major gateway city, Auckland, I see first hand the richness that religious and cultural diversity brings to our country.  Almost half of the people in my electorate of Botany - 49 percent - were born overseas, which is the highest proportion of any electorate in New Zealand.

It is a great honour for me, as their representative in Parliament to participate in their many religious and cultural celebrations and as Minister for Ethnic Affairs to host and attend celebrations throughout New Zealand.

New Zealand is largely a secular society but is also home to many religions. Recent statistics show that Christianity is our largest faith with 2.1 million people, while our second largest group is agnostic with 1.29 million.

But we are a nation that celebrates all cultures and religions, with New Zealanders of all backgrounds joining in celebrations for Diwali, Eid and Chinese New Year to name a few.

These occasions are often covered by both our mainstream and our ethnic media.

As someone who has lived and breathed among New Zealand's ethnic communities for the past 35 years it goes without saying that I have a strong interest in the way the media reports on stories involving ethnic minorities or faith communities and like any elected politician, I am acutely aware of the opportunities and challenges that come from interaction with the media.

My intention this morning is to outline why we all need to engage with the media, and why we all should be taking advantage of the power of the internet.

It is of course up to you as faith leaders and future faith leaders to discuss and determine how best to get your messages across to others.

Deadlines, resource issues and a lack of empathy means many news outlets struggle to know or identify interviewees with in-depth knowledge within many faiths and minority communities.  Yet the power the media has to influence public perceptions and generate emotion does mean that faith leaders need to confront that challenge.

For many journalists writing or talking about religion or ethnic minority cultures, the default may be to adhere to stereotypes, especially where these stereotypes are widely held and there is pressure to meet a deadline.

One of the biggest challenges that many from within our ethnic and faith communities face when dealing with the media is collective identity; where often an entire community will be put under the spotlight instead of the individual at the centre of the story.

Recently, we had a story develop in New Zealand of a missing two-year-old girl, Aisling Symes, which made headlines around the world after she disappeared shortly after being seen near an Asian woman.

This beautiful little girl captivated the hearts of New Zealand as her rosy-cheeked face was beamed into people's lounges every night on the news and Kiwis of all religions and ethnic backgrounds came together to help search for little Aisling.

When Police announced that they were looking to talk to an Asian woman, the media started reporting about how Asian women were being unfairly targeted.

I joined in the search with Asian Kiwi volunteers, by knocking on doors in the area and also having bi-lingual posters printed in Chinese, Korean and Hindi and having local shop owners hang them in their windows.

I found that Asians, like all other New Zealanders, were anxious to find little Aisling and that they were not sensitive about the fact that police were searching for an Asian woman.

As days went on, some in the community started to feel that they were being unfairly targeted because the media continued to raise it. This was the result of imposing a collective identity and as such the collecting found it necessary to defend themselves because each and every one of them was being implicated.

Far too often media organisations assume one person within a community is speaking on behalf of an entire community, which further reinforces collective identity and often makes others forget that our ethnic faith communities are made up of individuals who have individual thoughts and feelings.

It is also important that the media remembers that our faith communities and ethnic minorities aren't businesses and corporations and that they can't afford full-time professional spokespeople, who are trained in dealing with the media - often they are speaking on behalf of only themselves and their organisation; not the entire community.

We face a problem too of the often noble everyday activities of people of faith and faith organisations not being particularly newsworthy from a media perspective.

Sadly, controversy draws media attention and this is the reality of the environment we all need to work within.

For many faith communities, and particularly those in a minority, the instinct is to avoid mainstream media attention. However, increasingly more people from the minority and faith communities have started to see the media as an opportunity to put forward their side of the story.

I am keen to hear your thoughts on this, and how faith communities can better utilise the media and the internet. 

Online access to traditional media and new media such as blogging, tweeting and ‘citizen media', provide individuals with much greater access to a wider range of information.

The internet enables people to learn about other cultures, religions and political beliefs in their own country and around the world.  More than that though, increasingly the internet is becoming an interactive zone - called ‘Web 2.0' as our younger delegates probably know.

A range of websites are enabling people to connect with one another and exchange views and ideas on issues of the day.  In this way the internet is proving an incredibly powerful force in breaking down some of the historical barriers between communities. 

However, as with traditional media, there is also a negative side to new media.  While enabling choice, the free flow of ideas and opinions, there is a danger that inaccurate information is also spread.

I think we have all seen how the internet promulgates negative misinformation that exacerbates religious stereotyping, which in some cases has inflamed social tensions, incited violence and even worse, led to the radicalisation of individuals.

While this might be the case sometimes, I would suggest focusing this morning on the exciting opportunities offered by the internet for promoting factual and balanced messages.

The internet is increasingly accessible, provides unrestricted circulation and, most importantly, is low cost.  It is also very relevant for the topic of this Dialogue of future faith leaders, given younger generations are both the primary drivers and users of new communication technologies.

Many of the concepts such as tweeting, social networking and blogging, which are emerging tools for people of my generation, will no doubt quickly become yesterday's technologies for our future leaders.

The trick then for any organisation, including faith groups, is to engage the skills and technology of the younger generations in order to influence future opinion.

As we talk this morning about encouraging tolerance and understanding, which are the central principals of the Medina Charter, which dates back to 622 AD.

Incidents like the publication of the Mohammed cartoons lead to lengthy debates about the conduct of the media.  The general conclusion seems to have been that freedom of expression is not absolute - it comes with the responsibility to understand the potential to cause offence and incite violence. 

In the majority of cases like this, offence is caused due to ignorance rather with than malicious intent on the part of the media.  Much of the solution therefore lies in helping journalists and media organisations better understand potential religious sensitivities.

While it is perhaps unrealistic to expect all newspapers to have on their staff experts of all religions, it is possible to improve general understanding of the issues and reporting principles so that major offence can be avoided. 

Tools, such as the Alliance of Civilisations Media Mechanism, provide a database of experts and analysts who can make knowledgeable contributions to debates on sensitive cross-cultural issues.

Encouraging an appropriate balance between rights and responsibilities in the media was one of the recommendations from the previous Asia-Pacific Interfaith Dialogue in Phnom Penh last year.

One way we can achieve this is by encouraging media to consult with faith leaders such as yourselves when they are unsure about a particular reporting angle.

New Zealand is an active nation when it comes to promoting dialogue between different communities and media.  In 2008 the New Zealand Government, in cooperation with Indonesia, the European Union and Norway, held the Asia-Pacific Regional Media Programme.

The Programme in Jakarta brought together senior journalists and editors from across the region to help them develop increased awareness and understanding of cultural and religious complexities, particularly in sensitive situations such as conflict or terrorism. 

This was not a lecture or training event, but instead a unique opportunity for the participants to discuss these important issues among themselves and with experts.  These journalists and editors told us they really valued being able to step back from the daily churn of the newsroom to reflect on how the media's reporting can impact on tensions within and between societies.

I am pleased to inform you that New Zealand will be holding a second Regional Media Programme in early 2010.

Domestically, New Zealand's Office of Ethnic Affairs holds media forums with community groups, mainstream media and ethnic media outlets.  These forums provide an opportunity for networking and inform attendees on the nature of media in New Zealand. 

Aimed at increasing the capacity of Ethnic communities to engage with the media, the forums cover topics such as the contemporary media environment in New Zealand and challenges of promoting ethnic issues in the media.  The forums also include workshops that outline what makes news and what does not to assist communities in promoting their news, events and issues to the media.

Earlier this year, I spoke at the New Zealand on Air and Office of Ethnic Affairs Forum ‘Screen and Heard'.  This forum's theme focused on the role of the media in a multicultural New Zealand, and specifically, at how the changing face of New Zealand will be served and represented in the broadcasting media in the years ahead.  The forum reiterated the message that media need to reflect the audience it is reporting on and to. 

As well as the media taking responsibility for publishing accurate information and being conscientious about how it portrays faith communities, faith leaders must also take steps to engage meaningfully with the media.

I can tell you that politicians carefully consider our approach in dealing with the media.  We learn how to present information in a way that it is most likely to be reported accurately, and we also learn how to get our defensive messages across in the event our message is misunderstood, or misconstrued by opponents.

While I'm not recommending that religious groups use the same media model as politicians, it is worth thinking about taking a strategic approach to dealing with the media. 

It is constructive for faith leaders to get to know experienced journalists and media experts to enhance mutual understanding and to also take proactive steps of communication with media such as releasing press statements, writing letters to the editor to correct misreporting, or just making yourself available for interviews with journalists and making your status clear as being an individual or on behalf of an organisation.

In countries where freedom of the press is staunchly defended, attempts to educate the media are usually not well received.  Good journalists though should appreciate the value of accurate reporting, and be willing to engage with representatives of different faiths if doing so will improve the content of their reporting.

Governments have an important role to play in facilitating dialogue.   But the emphasis here is on facilitating which should not be confused with leading.  While governments can sponsor events such as this one to facilitate dialogue, at the end of the day the action rests primarily with you, the faith leaders.

New Zealand recognises that working with the media to address stereotyping is an essential component of any long term solution to many of the inter-communal tensions that beset our world.

For example, the Office of Ethnic Affairs has worked with the Muslim communities in New Zealand to produce the Building Bridges project that assists in demystifying Islam and challenges the stereotypes associated with the faith community.  A component of this project is looking at the relationship between the New Zealand Muslim community and the media, and promoting more dialogue between the Muslim and non-Muslim communities.

New Zealand looks to support this objective through projects such as the Regional Media Programme and through the media exchange programme where each year we send three young New Zealand journalists to Southeast Asia for work experience.  This provides an excellent opportunity for them to view other communities through a different lens.

There are two messages I would like you all to take away from this morning.  First, that engaging with media is key to combating stereotyping of faith communities.  Second, that the media should be responsible in accurately reflecting the community it is reporting on and to.

It is equally important that faith leaders make the effort to understand and harness the power of the media. Working with younger members of the community in embracing the internet offers exciting possibilities for delivering positive messages.

The media is a powerful vehicle to disseminate your messages of hope, peace and understanding. 

There is a diversity of voices within our communities and I encourage the media and you all to make these voices heard.

Thank you.