* Approximately 50% of these youth (excluding youth from a Vietnamese or Chinese Background, if they were included, the percentage would reduce dramatically) are not from Parents of Lebanese origin.

* 70% of these youth need an interpreter if you attempt to speak to them in Arabic or Lebanese.

* All these youth have gone through the Australian Education System.

* With the change of demography of Sydney’s Southwest, the number and proportion of youth have multiplied in a hyperbolic manner.

Unfortunately, the number of youth oriented facilities has dropped, and there is a great demand for culturally-sensitive youth oriented facilities, particularly with the increasing trend by teachers to suspend and or expel youth from schools rather than providing counselling for them.

High school students have complained to me of teachers bad-mouthing them to a severe extent, calling them: "Wogs", "Thieves", etc. And making comments like: "Go back to where you came from", later to find the reason for the teacher’s anger was that the teacher forgot where he or she had placed an item.

Anti-social Australian youth, whether they descend from parents who are of a Lebanese background or not represent less than one percent of the community, unfortunately, the entire community is paying the price for some cheap shots at sensationalism that derived their roots from comments by senior politicians and bureaucrats.

The media sensationalism of the foolish comments by the government officials have led youth, many of whom are not even Lebanese, to identify themselves as Lebanese so as to give them a sense of belonging. As a result, when they are suspended or expelled from school or roaming the streets, they now identify with a group that the police, politicians and the media have combined to create, a group that should not really exist.

The anti-social youth are not gangs, they are totally disorganised, and they do not plan criminal activities together. It is true that they commit crimes, but these are spontaneous, poorly planned and poorly calculated. They only identify as gangs for a sense of belonging more than anything else. They are not Lebanese, most of them do not even know where Lebanon is and more still have never been there, there is also a large proportion whose parents were born here in Australia or who are from mixed parents or who have no Lebanese in their ancestry whatsoever.

I would like our public officials to become more responsible for their words, to choose these words carefully. I would also like the media to be more responsible in their reporting. Youth crime is a problem for all Australians, the criminals are Australian citizens and they are the children of Australian citizens. The more we call it Lebanese, the more we are isolating the rest of the community from sharing in the solution and the more we are creating division in our Australian community.

The Lebanese community has invested heavily in establishing youth facilities, the Lebanese Moslems Association, the largest Lebanese Association in Australia has invested more than three million dollars of our own funds to create facilities for the youth of the South West of Sydney. We offer our services without discrimination, we have our people patrolling the streets and rescuing youth before they turn to anti-social or criminal behaviour. We do not ask the youth as to their background nor about the background of their parents, we reach out to all youth in the Australian community. We have made a serious effort, however, it should be noted, this effort has received no financial support from the government or the business sector, to date, we have only received promises.

Let us be serious about the youth problem. Let us stop scapegoating, successive Australian governments from both sides of the political spectrum have continued to cut spending to our education system and our social infrastructure. Today, we have thousands of youth who need the services and facilities for which their parents have paid their taxes. It is a government responsibility, and the community has and continues to stretch its hand to help counter this problem.

The state government on Tuesday the 10th of July announced a $2.2M program (50/50 scheme) to counter the youth gangs. Being one of the leading welfare organisations in the South West, we welcome any initiative from the state government for the youth in the South West. However, the time is right for us to avoid labels that apportion blame and isolate a community. There is a problem in the South West, let all the residents of the South West take ownership of the problem and let us all work on a solution. We will work hand in hand with the government and with the business sector. The South West has been under-privileged for a couple of decades and facilities have not grown to meet the demographic demands. Let us transform the youth problem into something positive, let us develop the youth for leadership and constructive productivity through positive alternatives that will make them all fight against all forms of anti-social behaviour. The youth are the children of the South West, no family wants to see its children engaged in anti-social behaviour.