Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi says not enough is being done to combat racism in Australia, amid her concerns that “March for Australia” protests were pushing some Australians to the far-right.
The senator asked the Race Discrimination Commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman whether the government was moving fast enough to implement the recommendations.
Sivaraman said more funding was needed for a national task force.
“The longer it takes to take a coordinated whole of government, whole of society, approach to attack racism, the more the scourge of racism diminishes people’s lives,” he told the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee on Oct. 7.
“In the case of racism in health, it costs lives in the justice system, it leads to incarceration and debts in custody.
Faruqi Concerned About ‘Far-Right’ Marches
It was then that Senator Faruqi raised the March for Australia rallies, with a second round planned nationally for Oct. 19.“Commissioner, you also must have seen with a lot of concern the recent so-called ‘March for Australia,’ which ended with a violent attack on Camp Sovereign and First Nations people,” she said.
“The marches were attended and addressed by neo-Nazis and far-right extremists.
“We know that politicians over the years have dog whistled as well, with Senator Jacinta Price making a number of comments about Indian migrants,” said the senator.
Weeks earlier, Senator Price remarked that Indian migrants that don’t assimilate could end up burdening the welfare system, while also claiming the Labor Party was leveraging migration for electoral gain.
Senator Faruqi then referenced recent comments by former Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie, who said some Australians were starting to feel like strangers in their own country.
“We’ve seen migrants and international students being blamed for the housing crisis. How?” she asked.
“How does this messaging around people of colour and First Nations people help, and won’t it embolden the ‘far right?’”
Sivaraman said migration was a legitimate policy area for debate, but dehumanising groups was dangerous.
“Prior to that march, there were posters and propaganda materials that targeted the Indian community, which caused enormous distress,” he said.
Israel-Hamas War Enters Debate
Senator Faruqi also pressed Sivaraman on the topic of the Israel-Hamas war, saying she was dissatisfied that Labor had not called Israel’s actions in Gaza a “genocide.”Sivaraman described it as “a complex and loaded question.”
Is Criticising Migration Policy ‘Racist?’
One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts was critical of the basis of Faruqi’s questioning.“There are currently 4 million people in our country who aren’t Australian citizens taking up beds while Australians are homeless,” Senator Roberts said.
“Record homelessness after years of unprecedented levels of mass migration, we have been at record numbers for multiple years in a row.
“That’s not saying anything disparaging about those people who have arrived. It is just a mathematical fact that if we continue to accept arrivals at the rate we are, our schools, hospitals, dams, transport, and housing are going to become even more overwhelmed than they are. That’s a fact. Is anyone who acknowledges that fact a racist?”
Sivaraman called the claim an oversimplification.
“Problems like housing, the cost of living, are complicated problems with many different sources,” he said.
“Migration is one of many different factors that may or may not contribute to those issues.
“Directly linking them is something that leads to the scapegoating of migrants, and that can be problematic.”
Senator Roberts also raised the problem of migrant skills not being fully utilised.
“If the government brings in construction workers with only 0.6 percent actually having those skills, how can they build houses for the other 99.4 percent?” Roberts asked.
Sivaraman said he could not verify the senator’s statistics but agreed migrant skills were often underused, noting that data consistently show their underutilisation in Australia.
