By Casey Neill
Greater Dandenong Council candidate Youhorn Chea is unfazed by racist messages scrawled on his campaign posters.
The sign at a bus stop at Heatherton and Springvale roads in Springvale now bears the words “Asian’s scum rats” in large, red writing.
“This is a democratic country,” the Lightwood Ward incumbent said.
“If you don’t want to vote for me, don’t.”
Cr Chea said he wasn’t worried about the vandalism and it wouldn’t affect his campaign for re-election.
“This is a free country. I respect democracy,” he said.
Paperbark Ward candidate Brad Woodford spoke out about the incident, which followed the Journal’s story on 7 October about a racist text message sent to Lightwood Ward hopeful Gagandeep Singh.
The anonymous text told the Indian-born Australian citizen to go back to his s***** country and make it as beautiful as Australia.
Mr Woodford described the message as disgraceful and condemned the vandalism on Cr Chea’s poster.
He said the racist incidents were highly disappointing in a municipality that was so multicultural.
“You’d have thought in 2016 we might all be a little better educated and aware that any form of racism is simply not acceptable,” he said.
“Yet it seems we still have a long way to go to win the war on this.”
Greater Dandenong was among only a handful of municipalities across the state to stick with in-person voting for the Saturday 22 October election.
The Journal will bring readers the results as they come to hand.
The Victorian Electoral Commission anticipated that progressive first-preference results would be available from 6pm on Saturday 22 October, with full provisional results available from noon on Friday 28 October.
Visit www.facebook.com/DandenongJournal or www.dandenong.starcommunity.com.au to stay up to date.
