Multicultural policy is adrift in the election campaign, with the major parties refusing to commit to the changes needed to minimise mounting community tensions
- Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Technology Sydney
The review recommends bold changes, like dismantling the Department of Home Affairs. It remains to be seen how much the government will enact.
While there is no simple answer to the question, our experts all agree Australia has a serious problem when it comes to racism.
Ghassan Hage has made a singularly powerful contribution to our understanding of Australian and global racism, and the politics of domination and resistance.
Many multicultural policies have been left to decay over the last generation, but this review may fall short on broader goals.
Multicultural communities could be crucial to the Voice referendum, given their size and breadth. The ‘yes’ campaign will need to mobilise at the grassroots level to be successful.
At the 2022 election, the trajectories of change differed from each other along almost every conceivable parameter that was not old white male.
Past elections show how multicultural Australia can play a critical role in the outcome. Ethnicity may also present itself in some significant new ways on May 21.
In order to support people effectively, craft appropriate messages and predict virus spread, it is crucial to use the languages and local networks that bind multicultural communities together.
Over the last 45 years, Aboriginal political aspirations for treaty or treaties have been met with procrastination, refusal, and denial.
Racism online is hurtful and damaging. But it can also spill into the real world with deadly consequences – such as the Christchurch terrorism attack.
While there has been talk of a “religious vote” or an “ethnic vote” holding sway at this election, particularly in Sydney’s western suburbs, new research does not bear that out.
The Christian Democratic Party in NSW could play a key role in the election by funnelling support from voters in electorates with large East Asian populations to the Liberal Party.
Both organised groups and unaffiliated individuals spread racist hate online, but they use different channels, have different goals and use different strategies to achieve them.
In the same-sex marriage survey, the ‘yes’ vote came in at 57.8% in NSW – but in some western Sydney electorates, the ‘yes’ vote was as low as 26%.
Racism thrives online because of a clash between the commercial goals and ethical responsibilities of social media companies. But Australia can take legal and civil actions right now to address this.
Social conservatism among many ethnic communities will be a key factor in deciding the result of the upcoming same-sex marriage survey.
The government’s multicultural statement stays fairly much in the place where rhetoric around the issue has been located for the past generation – social control and integration.
How do we know what we think we know? Accuracy, care and rigorous method gets us somewhere there, especially on issues like racism.
Neither Galaxy Research nor the Institute of Public Affairs think-tank discussed the most interesting data they garnered from polling on free speech and reform to Section 18C.
Australia was designed at Federation to ensure nationals of British descent would be able to create a society populated by individuals as much like themselves as possible.
Across Europe anti immigration political leaders are turning to Australia for inspiration on how to reduce the number of people seeking asylum in their countries.
A generation on from revelations about the lack of diversity in the Australian media at the dawn of the digital era, what is pushing this concern now? And what’s changed since then?
How will the oft-proclaimed ‘most successful multicultural nation in the world’ handle the rumbling of multiculturalism’s opponents?
What’s ‘the ethnic vote’ going to do in the top-ten ethnic federal election marginal seats? What are the issues? And will specific groups vote as a bloc?
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