SSI Media Release
SSI has welcomed the Australian Government’s response to the National Response to Islamophobia report, developed by Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia. Schools will play a key role in the government’s commitments, building understanding of Muslim communities and promoting greater respect across Australia.
While education is a fundamental building block for inclusion and respect, SSI’s CEO Violet Roumeliotis said Australia’s response to rising Islamophobia needs to extend beyond the education system to drive change across all services the government delivers.
“The government’s response includes important and welcome measures, but tackling Islamophobia requires more than education alone. Every part of government has a role to play in removing the structural barriers and inequities that undermine belonging and social cohesion,” Ms Roumeliotis said.
“Social cohesion is built on a shared sense of belonging. That belonging grows when people are included, treated respectfully and have genuine opportunities to contribute to the nation’s future. We cannot achieve lasting social cohesion while racism, including Islamophobia, continues to exclude and dehumanise people.”
SSI strongly supports the government’s education and awareness measures, as well as funding to build community capacity and resilience. It also welcomes the Australian Federal Police’s expanded Community Liaison teams and new Social Cohesion Consultative Board, while noting these initiatives will only succeed if they are backed by sustained engagement and genuine partnership with the Muslim community and their leaders, rather than one-off consultation.
The announcement of additional investment in the Office for Multicultural Affairs to deliver measures to combat Islamophobia has also been welcomed. However, the Office should be empowered and resourced to advocate for whole of government implementation of the Multicultural Framework Review and National Anti-Racism Framework recommendations.
SSI notes that several significant recommendations from the Special Envoy’s report remain unaddressed. These include an independent review of counter-terrorism laws, policies and practices to investigate their potential discriminatory impacts on Muslim Australians. There has also been no commitment to the Special Envoy’s recommendation for an inquiry into Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism.
SSI urges the government to adopt a genuinely system-wide, structural approach to addressing racism, including Islamophobia.
“The Special Envoy’s report makes recommendations across several federal departments, recognising that real change requires action from the whole of government,” Ms Roumeliotis said.
“The National Anti-Racism Framework is the vehicle to address the structural and systemic racism that affects all communities. While measures to specifically address Islamophobia are important, they need to be part of an overall commitment to tackling the root causes of racism and hate against all communities.”
SSI is calling on the government to take two immediate steps to commit to the National Anti-Racism Framework to eliminate racism in Australia, and establish a taskforce to oversee and advise on its implementation, including specific implementation plans to address racism against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and other affected communities. More than 70 civil society organisations have previously backed this call.
SSI is committed to working alongside the government to address Islamophobia and all forms of hate, and build an Australia where everyone can feel safe, included and a sense of belonging.
About SSI
SSI is a national not-for-profit organisation providing dedicated human and social services to a diverse Australia. With community at the heart of everything we do, our purpose is to create a world in which everyone has access to equal opportunities.
SSI was founded in Sydney in 2000 with the aim of helping newly arrived refugees settle in Australia. Over time, our expertise in working with people from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds served as the foundation for a gradual expansion into other social services and geographical areas.
We now deliver services across New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, have a dedicated research team informing our work and leading sector insights, and we advocate for our communities’ issues.
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Albappeasey sat on Aftab Malik’s report for ten months and then rejected most of it. Imagine if he did that to Jillian Segal. Israel’s Zionist lobby would storm The Lodge with pitchforks and burning torches!
so – we need to provide more security for the Jewish community, stamp out Islamaphobia – who’s next ??
How about we all learn to live with each other, we combat ANY kind of racism and bigotry, starting with children in Kinder Hate speech (PHON is a great example !!) hate symbols, any of it – it is NOT welcome in this country
Thank you for your work SSI.
We shouldn’t have a need for non-profits doing the great work that they do, though. The government of the day should be fixing the problems and if necessary providing those services whilst the problems are fixed.
SSI lay out a polite and reasonable assessment of Labor’s reaction to the report. It starts by welcoming the measures that the Labor government have been prepared to make. Is that obligatory?
Whether it is a non-profit welcoming the additional money for domestic violence services, or welcoming energy rebates to ease cost-of-living pressures, or welcoming a rise in aged-care workers pay, the story is consistently the same with Labor. The measure is welcome but not enough to address the root problem.
SSI goes on to mention the measures that Labor rejected acting on – tantamount in politics to refusing to do them – in a polite measured manner, as is the case with most non-profits in matters concerning government actions in their field.
There is a pattern of Labor commissioning a report, sitting on it for an eternity, then undertaking the easy measures whilst ignoring or refusing to act on the measures that address root causes.
Labor pretends to address our problems. Unless they affect a donor, that’s a different matter altogether.
TMV Australia, on the other hand, have refused to sugarcoat this response from Labor. “Ten months later Labor protects the systems and offers Muslims coping strategies”
“It accepted the recommendations that demanded the least from government, rejected those that threatened its security framework and public institutions, and calculated that doing less would carry little political cost…..
Aftab Malik delivered 54 recommendations ten months ago. Labor has now offered education reviews, grants, mental health support and expanded police liaison teams, while rejecting an inquiry into anti-Palestinian, anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racism and refusing to reconsider the counter-terror framework Malik warned produced discriminatory outcomes…..
An education taskforce may improve what children learn. Mental health support may assist women carrying trauma. Grants may fund community work. None of those measures answers the central question raised by the report: what happens when Islamophobia comes from the machinery of government itself?…..
For two decades, counter-terrorism policy has trained its sights overwhelmingly on Sunni Muslims, turning mosques, preachers, families, charities and entire communities into objects of suspicion while treating the political conditions surrounding violence as background noise. Mike Burgess can publicly single out “Sunni Muslim extremism” and have that language reverberate through government, media and policing…..
The result is a closed system that investigates Muslims while refusing to investigate the assumptions, powers and institutions governing that investigation. Security agencies define the threat, design the response, assess the damage and then advise the government that no reconsideration is required. Muslim communities are left carrying the cost through surveillance, stigma, exclusion and the constant presumption that their faith requires explanation. Albanese had an opportunity to open that system to scrutiny. He chose to preserve it. A government that claims to confront Islamophobia while protecting the laws and institutions that reproduce it is administering the problem it claims to oppose…..
Antisemitism is treated as a threat requiring enforcement and institutional accountability. Islamophobia is treated as a condition Muslims require assistance to endure. Law reform restrains institutions. Investigations compel evidence. Inquiries expose who acted, who knew, who ignored warnings and who caused harm. Resilience programs begin after the injury and help the injured survive its consequences. Labor has chosen enforcement for one form of hatred and adaptation for the other.
Yet another case of Labor pissing down the backs of Australians and telling us its raining.