Racism in Australia - Issues in Contemporary Australia

Issues in Contemporary Australia

Public planning to counter cultural racism was ahead of its time in Western Sydney, a suburban region with a long history of migrant settlement. Many of its attempts to build an inclusive "cultural foundation" have been picked up by state governments, including council-funded social clubs for seniors, the provision of community services in major community languages, and the securing of places of worship through rezoning. All of these initiatives are aimed at public involvement rather than antiracist "integrating" strategies.

A 2003 Paper by health economist Gavin Mooney said that "Government institutions in Australia are racist". The paper evidenced this opinion by stating that the Aboriginal Medical Service was underfunded and under supported by government.

In 2007, What's the Score? A survey of cultural diversity and racism in Australian sport conducted by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) said that "racial abuse and vilification is commonplace in Australian sport... despite concerted efforts to stamp it out". The report said that Aboriginal and other ethnic groups are under-represented in Australian sport, and suggests they are turned off organised sport because they fear racial vilification. Despite the finding, indigenous participation in Australian sport is widespread. In 2009, about 90,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders were participating in Australian Rules Football alone and the Australian Football League (AFL) encouraged their participation through the Kickstart Indigenous programs "as the vehicle to improve the quality of life in Indigenous communities, not only in sport, but in the areas of employment, education and health outcomes". Similarly, Australia's second most popular football code encourages participation through events like the NSW Aboriginal Rugby League Knockout and the Indigenous All Stars Team.

Journalist John Pilger blames racism for the state of Aboriginal disadvantage in Australia. As noted by Professor Colin Tatz in an interview with Pilger, in relation to an IOC representative who was seemingly unaware of Aboriginal socio-economic conditions when sent to Australia to see whether or not it was a "fit and proper country" for hosting the Olympics:

On the salt pan at Lombadina, Aborigines play with two saplings stuck in the ground. If he had inspected these conditions, he would have been looking at third- and fourth-world sporting facilities. He would have seen Aborigines kicking a piece of leather stuffed with paper because they don’t possess a single football or have access to the kind of sports facilities that every white Australian takes for granted, even in poor working-class suburbs where there is a municipal pool, a municipal ground, a cricket pitch or a tennis court or a park of some sort – these things are totally absent in 95 per cent of Aboriginal communities.

— Professor Colin Tatz, in The New Rulers of the World

Since the end of World War II, Australia has had a programme of mass immigration that has led to an increase in the cultural diversity of its people. Some academics have argued that since the 1970s a policy of multiculturalism have played an important role in the relative peacefulness of Australian society.