Mohamed Semra

But, you know, to answer your question,

Look, I have experienced a lot of Islamophobia and racism in my time as mayor, and I'm not going to shy away from that.

Hundreds of messages and just random calls and stuff.

But I've built a strong support system through my journey.

I've built a lot of resilience from the adversity that I faced when I was younger.

And so it's really nothing new to me.

But it's just unfortunate that right now there are national debates that are trickling down and having local impacts and a lot of misinformation and disinformation happening in the community about communities, about migration, et cetera, and people forming those ideas.

But me being here, me being in this position, I believe is changing that narrative and we need more people.

Because if you look at...

You look at leadership positions across all sectors.

There's a lack of cultural diversity.

Modern day Australia is diverse.

It's multilingual.

It's multi-faith.

It's diverse in every sense of the way.

But that is not reflected in our leadership positions.

And if it's not, then we're never going to make decisions that carry everyone with us.

And so as mayor, when I'm in briefings or with my other councillors making decisions, I'm always actively thinking about who's not in the room.

Mm-hmm.

Because I know that plays a part in uplifting voices and that can trickle down.