The Strategy is a partnership-based strategy, involving government departments and a number of non-government organisations. I thank all of our partners for their work over the last three years: the Attorney-General's Department, Department of Home Affairs, Department of Social Services, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, National Congress of Australia's First Peoples, Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia, Australian Multicultural Council, Migration Council Australia, Department of Human Services, Reconciliation Australia, and the Australian Sports Commission. I would also like to thank the campaign supporters of Racism. It Stops with Me. As of August 2018, there are more than 370 organisations that are supporters of the campaign. Some of them were interviewed in the preparation of this report. Since 2015, race has dominated headlines and driven public debates in a way that many would not have anticipated when the National Anti-Racism Strategy was last evaluated. Globally, the rise of anti-immigrant populism has fuelled racism. Australia has not been immune from this. While our multicultural consensus remains strong, it has been challenged by some. The project and campaign work of the Strategy has only grown in importance and urgency. Our recent community service announcements were the most successful videos of the Strategy so far, receiving 1.6 million views on social media (and were also shown on ABC, SBS and Ten). Project work on early childhood resources, inclusion in sport, community inclusion, youth anti-racism advocacy and institutional racism has started new conversations and empowered more people than ever to take action to prevent or reduce racism in our community. This report reviews and evaluates the Strategy, including the Racism. It Stops with Me campaign. It provides an overview of the state of play on race in Australia, and documents our work since June 2015. There have been many proud achievements from the past six years of the Strategy. The Strategy has been a success. But there is clearly much more that remains to be done, and an opportunity to renew anti-racism interventions. I hope that this report provides some guidance to future efforts, and wish the next Race Discrimination Commissioner every success in their work on anti-racism. Dr Tim Soutphommasane Race Discrimination Commissioner
Diversity and inclusion As noted above, the evaluation of the Strategy in 2015 identified ‘supporting diversity and inclusion’ as a theme for work during 2015-18. This reflected feedback from campaign supporters, in particular, that anti-racism efforts would benefit from a complementary emphasis on diversity and inclusion, which was framed in more positive terms. Our work since then has taken on a more explicit anti-racism focus. This has reflected how the Commission’s diversity and inclusion efforts on race have taken on a life of their own. There has been a separate program of work on cultural diversity and inclusion, reflected in the Commission’s Leading for Change reports (2016 and 2018), the Race Discrimination Commissioner’s establishment of a Leadership Council on Cultural Diversity (2016), and the delivery of a cultural diversity and leadership fellowship pilot program (2017). We have admittedly also found it challenging to ensure that diversity and inclusion initiatives within organisations address racism and discrimination in a sufficiently direct way. This underlines the importance of having dedicated anti-racism efforts, which are not diluted by a focus on diversity and inclusion (the obvious connections between them and anti-racism notwithstanding). What has been delivered in 2015-18: Overview Priority activity Strategy work Contribution and/or impact Education, training and resources Building Belonging A comprehensive childhood education resource on diversity and race – downloaded 50,000+ times National Anti-Racism Youth Leadership Initiative Training and development for 20 youth anti-racism advocates from across Australia Seeing the Unseen Institutional Racism Forum and Workshop Professional development and education for senior leaders and executives from more than 68 organisations in law and justice, health, education and services Supporting research and good practice NRL A review of the NRL’s policies and programs, leading to a new social inclusion and anti-vilification framework for the sport National Anti-Racism Youth Leadership Initiative As a pilot, tested new ground in leadership training and development for anti-racism youth advocacy
There has long been reluctance in dealing with racism in a forthright manner. Some fear that being too direct on matters of racism may have a counter-productive effect, by alienating people or by creating unnecessary division. such a narrative often comes from good intentions, it is also misguided. It can be used to stymie or divert anti-racism. There have been many examples within organisations where conversations begin as being concerned with responding to racism, only to be redefined as conversations about celebrating diversity – often with the effect of deflating people who wanted to do something about racism. If are divisions around the issue of racism, they are not fundamentally caused by the response to racism. The real division is generated by racism itself. There is no equivalence between racism and anti-racism. Within society – or within communities or organisations – if people are committed to treating people fairly and with equal dignity, they should be prepared to reject racism. Guided by these three principles, we highlight the potential for future anti-racism work in the following areas. Public consultation on racism The original development of the National Anti-Racism Strategy involved a major community consultation undertaken by the Commission over six months in 2012, which generated insights into the lived experience of racism in Australia. Since then, the Commission – through the Race Discrimination Commissioner – has conducted an additional national consultation process on racism during February-April 2015, as part of activities to mark the 40th anniversary of the Racial Discrimination Act. It be timely to conduct another public consultation on racism. The social and political climate in Australia has changed in material ways since 2015, as noted in section 2. It is crucial that any future anti-racism work responds to these social and political changes. Anti-racism coordination The Commission is in the process of creating an online platform to connect Racism. It With Me supporters. The platform will allow supporters to directly collaborate and share information, events and recommendations with each other and the Commission. It will also help to increase supporter engagement with the campaign and campaign activities. The National Anti-Racism Strategy has benefited from the contributions of the Partnership group since 2012. Over that time, the composition of the Partnership has expanded, reflecting an acknowledgement that civil society and government departments and agencies can lend expertise in particular areas.
A national day for anti-racism March 21 is the United Nations (UN) International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Since the 1990s, however, Australia has marked March 21 primarily as ‘Harmony Day’. There is an undoubted place for the celebration of cultural diversity and racial harmony in a multicultural Australia. But that should complement anti-racism, rather than subsume it – particularly on March 21. There is the risk that emphasising only positive messages about cultural diversity and multiculturalism can make it harder to start conversations about racism, a topic that many may deem to be too fraught or difficult to raise. It speaks volumes that many people in Australia, while aware of Harmony Day, are oblivious to how the day falls on the international day dedicated to the elimination of racial discrimination. Future work on anti-racism must consider how to reconcile the tensions between the current celebratory aspects of March 21 and its more sobering significance in international anti-racism. Given the international standing of March 21, established as it was in 1966 by the UN General Assembly, an alternative date should be explored for the marking of an Australian Harmony Day. Bystander anti-racism Since 2012, the Strategy has emphasised the importance of bystander intervention in acts of racism. As illustrated by the name of the Racism. It Stops with me campaign, we have sought to promote people considering their responsibility and ability to respond directly to racism. Bystander anti-racism is crucial in shifting attitudes and behaviours. It shifts the burden of dealing with racism away from targets of racism to the broader society. It the problem of racism one for all of us, rather than just for those who experience it. More specifically, it helps contribute to social norms which make racist behaviour unacceptable in society, and gives licence to people to take a stand against it. Recent have demonstrated a willingness by many Australians to intervene in acts of racial discrimination or hatred. Any future work should seek to maintain positive shifts in attitudes, behaviours and norms. Intergroup contact Evidence suggests a correlation between familiarity with cultural diversity and acceptance of it. Some of the areas that display relatively low levels of acceptance of cultural diversity are those with low levels of diversity in its population. Meanwhile acceptance of diversity appears to be higher in areas with relatively diverse populations.