The manager of a regional Victorian pizza shop is calling out racism after several incidents which she believes targeted Pakistani staff.
Adele Oates works at Ol Pinky's in the Victorian town of Maryborough, about an hour south-west of Bendigo.
She said the business had "quite a rash" of experiences of racism in recent months.
Ms Oates said she denied a customer service earlier this week for making racist comments to her boss, who was from Pakistan.
She said the business had previously been the subject of online abuse, which resulted in the closure of a local Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down Facebook page.
Ms Oates said a report was made to police after damage to two work cars in March, which she said were targeted acts of vandalism.
"The cars around them weren't touched or damaged at all," she said.
Support bolsters new owner
Riasat Ali moved to Maryborough seven months ago, opting to invest in the pizza store a month after he arrived.
He said he moved to Maryborough for business purposes, and was looking forward to his family joining him soon from Pakistan.
Mr Ali said his experiences in Maryborough had at times been scary, but knew he had support from Ms Oates.
"She helps me about each and every thing," he said.
Despite the incidents, Mr Ali said he was still enjoying his work and living in Maryborough.
"I'm very happy — a lot of people support my business," he said.
'This is their home'
Ms Oates said people in Maryborough had been mostly supportive, but those who weren't could be "soul-destroying".
"Unfortunately, it's always that minority that is going to sort of put the dampener on what a wonderful experience living in Maryborough can be, and working in Maryborough," Ms Oates said.
"A lot of the boys that are from Pakistan here, they don't live in Melbourne, they don't live in Ballarat, they live in Maryborough.
"This is their home, here."
Ms Oates said it was time to amplify the voices of those who were supportive in the community.
"I would just hope that if people saw anything like this going on, not just at our pizza shop, they would step up and say something," Ms Oates said.
"Until we, as a community, say something about it, it's never going to stop.
"We're always going to have that minority, we just want to bring the noise of that racism down, so it might be there, but it's not that vocal voice that we hear."
