Campaign Letter No.5: Our Team Builds on the Associations, What About the Chung Sức Team?
CAMPAIGN LETTER NUMBER 5
Liên Danh Xây Dựng và Phát Triển Cộng Đồng (Build and Develop Community Team)
Our Team Builds on the Associations, What About the Chung Sức Team?
Dear Community Members,
The Chung Sức Vì Cộng Đồng (Unite for Community) Team has claimed that the current Executive Committee does not directly build or manage the volunteer workforce, and has not demonstrated clear results in coordinating the various elements of our community.
1. We are publishing this letter for four purposes.
First, to rebut the Chung Sức Team’s argument with facts and concrete evidence, not with empty words.
Second, to clarify the proper role of an Executive Committee within an open and democratic community organisation, something the Chung Sức Team appears not to have fully understood.
Third, to invite all associations to take careful note of the risk of losing their independence if a new Executive Committee returns to the old model of creating associations and then using them as instruments of control.
Fourth, to affirm that the true strength of our Community lies in the genuine connection between the Executive Committee and all of our associations, and that this is precisely what we have been doing for the past three years.
2. The Chung Sức Team “got it half right”.
In the previous election campaign, we were transparent about our approach: if given the community’s trust, our Team would “connect Vietnamese associations and organisations into a mutual support network for shared development.” Over the past three years we have kept that promise and have received the wholehearted support of our associations in return.
The Chung Sức Team is entirely correct that hundreds of volunteers in our Community come from associations, religious organisations, Vietnamese language schools and long established groups. We have never claimed credit for building those organisations. They are the achievement of many generations of community members who worked tirelessly from the earliest days of settlement in Australia.
What the Chung Sức Team has deliberately overlooked is this: a capable Executive Committee is not one that does everything itself. It is one that knows how to bring people together, build connections and create the conditions for every part of the community to contribute its full strength. That has been our guiding philosophy from the very first day we accepted this responsibility. We do not work for the community. We work with the community.
Previous Executive Committees created the Vietnamese Community Women’s Association, the Vietnamese Community Mutual Aid Society, the Dual Identity Leadership Program, and then the Vietnamese Museum Australia Ltd to run community affairs. We all know what that model produced. The current Executive Committee chose a completely different path. We work through and alongside the associations, we regularly visit their activities, we listen to their leaders, and we have assigned members of the Executive Committee to share the responsibility of maintaining connections with each association.
3. Evidence, not words.
The Chung Sức Team says the Executive Committee has “not demonstrated clear results.” We respond with specific facts.
Over the past three years, our Community has risen from a state of serious crisis, with a debt of 200,000 dollars and assets secretly transferred to the Vietnamese Museum Australia Ltd, to become a strong, energetic and deeply committed organisation that has consistently achieved things that had never been done before. A few examples follow.
The 2024 Constitution was passed with nearly 200 members in attendance and more than 160 votes cast, compared to the 2019 Constitution which was quietly organised with only 12 people present.
The annual Tet Festival was brought back to Footscray Park, drawing tens of thousands of community members each year.
Two historic fundraising campaigns raised more than 600,000 Australian dollars for Footscray Hospital and more than 200,000 Australian dollars for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Almost every month there have been activities connecting associations, religious organisations, Vietnamese language schools and cultural groups under one shared roof.
The highlight was the event on 9 May 2026 at The Atrium, Federation Square, where 16 dance groups, one cải lương theatre group and two Falun Gong groups from many entirely different associations, each with their own independent history and activities, came together on a shared stage in the heart of Melbourne before thousands of Australians. That event alone may have involved as many as 500 volunteers. Is that not “harmonious coordination”? We leave that question for our community members to answer.
It should also be noted that the faces of the Chung Sức Team were almost entirely absent from the activities and decisions that shaped our Community’s direction throughout this term. They were not present earlier when our Community was going through its most turbulent period. They did not see how close to collapse we had come, and they did not witness how we rose from that crisis. On what basis, then, are they offering their criticism?
4. What is the proper role of an Executive Committee?
The Chung Sức Team appears to understand the role of the Executive Committee in very narrow terms, as directly building and managing each individual association. If that is genuinely their view, it reflects a fundamental and dangerous misunderstanding of how a democratic community organisation should function.
The Executive Committee is not the owner of the associations. The Executive Committee is the servant of the whole Community. Its role is to create a favourable environment for associations to grow, to bring associations together, and to represent the collective voice of all before Australian government and public institutions.
The 2024 Constitution states clearly that the Executive Committee has the responsibility to “coordinate the activities of associations” and to “collaborate with and support the activities of associations, groups and individuals.” Not to control. Not to replace. But to coordinate and support.
The 2024 Constitution also elevates the role of associations to a new level. Associations have the right to nominate candidates to the Advisory Council, to request the formation of a Finance Review Committee when needed, to call for the establishment of a Conciliation Council, and to have a voice in convening a Special General Meeting. This is a fitting recognition that the strength of our Community comes not from an executive committee but from the unity and contribution of all our associations.
5. Independent but united in one shared direction.
The strength of the Vietnamese Community in Australia Victoria Chapter lies in the very diversity of its associations. Each association has its own history, its own activities, its own identity, and that must be respected absolutely. A cultural and arts association cannot be directed to operate like a Vietnamese language school. A religious organisation cannot be required to serve the political agenda of any individual or group.
Yet despite their independence from one another, all associations share certain things that cannot be separated. We all honour the Yellow Flag with Three Red Stripes. We all cherish our identity as refugees from communism. We all work to build a community of ree Vietnamese people that is worthy of this country. These are the invisible but most enduring threads that bind us all together.
The role of the Executive Committee is to uphold and nurture those shared values, while respecting absolutely the independence of each association. No control, no imposition, no use of associations as instruments of power. That is the boundary we have always reminded ourselves to hold firm.
6. Questions that arise in this election campaign.
The authorised representative of the Chung Sức Team has said publicly that she has founded many associations. That is something to be respected. However, we invite all community members, and especially the leaders of our associations, to think carefully about some practical questions.
If elected, would she use the organisations she founded as extensions of her own influence within the Community? Would the associations that have long been active in our Community continue to be treated with the same equality and respect that we have shown them? And would the associations she founded wish to lose their independence and become instruments of a small number of individuals?
These are not questions intended as personal attacks. They are questions that every member of every association should weigh carefully before casting their vote. The history of the Museum Company has shown us clearly the price that must be paid when an executive committee uses organisations as tools to serve its own purposes.
To vote for the Chung Sức Team is to vote for a model in which the Executive Committee will manage its affiliated associations and use them to serve its own ends. It is deeply contradictory that a Team calling itself “Unite for Community” appears to be moving toward excluding those who do not agree with it.
We invite you, and your families and friends, to vote for the Build and Develop Community Team, a vote for a Community in which every association is supported and respected absolutely, retains its full independence and works together toward the shared goal of honouring the Yellow Flag and the ideal of freedom.
The Community belongs to all of us, not to any one person or group. We have always believed that and have demonstrated it through our actions over the past three years.
On Sunday 28 June 2026, we respectfully invite you to cast your vote for Team Number 1: Build and Develop Community.
BRING YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS TO VOTE. VOTE IN LARGE NUMBERS. VOTE WISELY. CHOOSE THE WORTHY.
Yours sincerely,
Nguyen Quang Duy
Head of Team and incumbent President Vietnamese Community in Australia Victoria Chapter
