An early election has been called for the Atherton Gardens Residents Association due to unreconcilable conflict within its management.

Atherton Gardens Residents Association (AGRA) president and his vice president are in dispute that cannot be reconciled amid mediation that was organised by Dispute Settlement Centre Australia in May 2009. 

The conflict started in January this year when the two officers could not come to an agreement on how the organisation’s finances would be best spent.  The dispute paralysed the residents’ organisation activities.

It started when Josip Lenger, AGRA vice president, refused the organisation's president Bol Buoi’s request to use the money Lenger had gathered in his fundraising efforts for the 2008 Christmas party to provide financial incentive to community organisations in the estate.

“I did the fundraising, by lobbying people including the ones in the government," said Lenger, "I brought the money, and spent it for the break up party.  But then he sacked me. I said thank you and gave him my office keys."

The dispute between the two officers reached the point of no return.  To solve the problem, the committees agreed to go for mediation that was held on April 1, 2009 which 4 committee representatives agreed to on key recommendations. One of the recommendations was for  “The tenants Association to hold an election; all parties need to abide regulations as written in the organisation’s constitution”.  The agreement was signed by Frank Li, Bol Boi, Josep Langer and Liz Cao.

The conflict between the two officers is a residue of problems amongst the organisation’s committees that started in 2008.  Then the conflict centred around financial mismanagement that plagued the organisation and resulted in accusation of one community group against the other.  The AGRA general election in Oct 2008 was meant to end the conflict started the organisation’s new chapter.

Kerry Wise, a Jesuit Social Services community development worker has been working in the estate for a few years.  To her the problem is deeper than just a dispute between the two officers, and perhaps a problem of personality clashes and cultural differences amongst AGRA’s committees. 

“There are committee members who are in the position of making decisions to take advantage [of others] by building a power base.  There are also cultural differences, as members have different expectations in running meetings” said Wise.

Wise coordinates Jesuit Social Services’ training in cross-cultural communication which aims to train housing estate residents in “effective communication and cooperation with persons of diverse cultures and to maintain strong relationships with colleagues and clients, based on respect and trust”.  Although the project has been run for sometime and residents have been trained, the result has not been affected to the community; the dispute within AGRA is evidence.  Wise however suggests that is nothing to do with the training method, but it is to do with peoples’ different personalities.

“The training does not have much impact due to the personality issues, those whose characters are inclusive and reconciliatory the training will help to better solve a dispute, otherwise it is just waste of time” said Wise.

The dispute between the two officers inflicts African communitys’ trust of the community organisation. They feel they are being sidelined and discriminated against; they may also boycott the upcoming election that will be held on June 11 as they do not feel they are being heard.

“I said to the African community that we are not part of AGRA; we live as a community separate from the organisation, as we are not acknowledged,” Boi said.

Such distrust will root deeper in their psyche and may generate further misunderstanding and misperception about their presence in Atherton Gardens’ community and further conflict may occur if there is no measure to heal such distrust. Bringing the communities back into harmony may be the main task for the next elected president of AGRA, a platform which Lenger is championing in his campaigning.

“I will work together with all communities; if my work is not recognised then I will recommend to the Minister of Housing to lock all of the community facilities and let the situation cool down for up to one year, then call a new election” said Lenger.

Such a solution will sooth the differences, but will not be ideal, as the underlying problem will still remain.  Wise recommends a different option; she suggests that everyone should start practicing to listen to each other, and have better communication.

“The strategy is not to make assumption about things, and suspend judgement as people tend to judge and forget to question.  This is quite a hard thing to remind oneself to do,” said Wise. 

This strategy may work if the conflict is amended sooner rather than later.