in Macedonia had arrived before 1980. Macedonians in Victoria Macedonians have been migrating to Victoria since the late 1880s. Many "pečalbari" decided to settle and they travelled the countryside looking for work as itinerant labourers. Others established market gardens or small businesses in both rural and city areas. Many thousands of Aegean Macedonians came to Victoria in the post war period, today the largest group of Aegean Macedonians can be found in Victoria. During the 1960s and 1970s they were joined by thousands of Macedonians from the Socialist Republic of Macedonia. In 1982, KUD Jane Sandanski was established in St Albans and is still in operation to this day. In 1991, Macedonia declared its independence from the Yugoslav federation. Business migrants from Macedonia soon began to arrive in Australia. By 1986 there were 24,090 Macedonian speakers in Victoria, this reached a peak in 1996 with 32,949 people using Macedonian at home. As of 2006 37,434 people in Victoria had either full or partial Macedonian ancestry. Currently, there are over 40,000 people in Greater Melbourne of Macedonian descent, making up around one percent of the population - the 17th largest ethnicity in the city behind Lebanese but ahead of Croatian. In Victoria, Macedonians established St. George in Fitzroy, Melbourne during the late 1950s as the first independent Macedonian Orthodox church inside Australia and outside of Macedonia. In Melburnian suburbs with Macedonian communities, other churches were established such as St. Ilija, St. Dimitrija, St. Nikola, St. George & St. Mary, St. Mary, St. Petka, and in Geelong St. John the Baptist. Macedonian Melburnians also built the first Macedonian Orthodox monastery St. Kliment Ohridski - Chudotvorec in the vicinity of King Lake. The Macedonian community of Australia views the Macedonian Orthodox Church as a "Guardian" of Macedonian identity, its people and cultural traditions. After the Republic of Macedonia gained independence in 1991, Greek Australians opposed the move through local protests and tense relations developed with Macedonian Australians. There were some businesses, community buildings and Orthodox churches belonging to both groups which were either destroyed and attacked. Australia recognised Macedonia under its temporary name as "FYROM". Responding to the Greek government stance, the Australian Federal Government issued a directive that its agencies and departments call Macedonians as "Slav-Macedonians" and some people from the north of Greece as "persons associated with Slav-Macedonians". Government owned media, the ABC and SBS dismissed the federal government decision. In