SINCE moving from Sudan to Australia two years ago, Henry Tombek has tried to live life “the Australian way”.

“We all try to follow the rules of this country,” said the 23- year-old abattoir worker, who has made the northern NSW city of Tamworth his home.

So has fellow countryman Akoi Manyiel Guong, 29, who has just gained citizenship and has lived in Adelaide since 2004. “I have to accept the system here. I want to carry on part of my culture at the same time, but if there are conflicting issues I have to compromise some of them, this is my understanding of what being a citizen means,” he said.

Mr Tombek says he and his family have been made to feel welcome by most Australians.

But he feels betrayed by what he describes as racist comments from Tamworth mayor James Treloar, who said “cultural differences” were why hundreds of locals were opposed to the additional settlement of five families from Sudan.

Tamworth City Council voted this week to refuse an offer by the Immigration Department to resettle the families after public submissions showed there was mistrust of the Sudanese, Mr Treloar said.

“The community has expressed enormous concerns of mistrust against the Sudanese people, and I think this is largely based on previous events like the Cronulla riots,” he said.

“It’s a matter of cultural differences, and the sexual harassment of females unfortunately is just one of the problems.”

In the past year, several Sudanese residents had been charged with driving offences and one with sexual assault, Mr Treloar said yesterday. But rather than rejecting five specific families, the town was in fact rejecting a refugee resettlement program that was under-resourced and fraught with problems.

“It’s not a colour issue,” he said. “We have 80 different cultural groups in Tamworth. If you ask someone from a different cultural background, they would tell you Tamworth is not racist.

“But because we have a negative view of the department’s program, we are suddenly racist.”

Councillors received 492 submissions and questionnaires on the proposal, 400 of which opposed the settlement plan.But Toowoomba mayor Dianne Thorley said the significant Sudanese population in the Queensland city were no different to any other group on crime rates.

“There are plenty of Australians who don’t obey the law, I wouldn’t single out the Sudanese. A whole lot of people here support theSudanese — that’s what we do as Australians.

But for Mr Tombek, it’s a worry. “We work hard and we don’t cause problems. I don’t understand why people think such bad things about us.”

Credit: James Treloar