Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_01 (00:08):
Hello and welcome to
this episode of Pause with
Nandini on NRI Affairs.
I'm joining from Mianj in theunceded lands of the Yegera and
Turba people and I pay myrespects to elders past, present
and emerging.
Today I have with me GiriSiviraman who's the Race
Discrimination Commissioner.
It's an opportune time to gethim on our show because there's
(00:31):
a lot going on and I can't waitto ask him a few questions that
have been top of mind, not justjust for multicultural
communities, but I think for allof Australia.
Thank you for joining us today.
SPEAKER_00 (00:44):
Thanks for having
me.
SPEAKER_01 (00:46):
Absolutely.
So, Giri, I'll get right intoit.
The past sort of perhaps a yearhas seen an increase in
protests, in community comingtogether for various things, for
various causes that are dear tothem.
Of course, there's been a lot ofprotest on the situation in
Gaza.
There have been other protestsas well.
(01:07):
And we have supposedly a big onecoming up on the weekend.
Given that around the protest,there's always a lot of
collateral damage, if you cancall it, on social media,
there's rhetoric, there's somesort of hate, there is obviously
clear signs of racism in the waypeople interact and the way
(01:29):
people want to make a point.
What is your take as the racecommissioner and race
discrimination commissioner onall of this?
And how do you thinkmulticultural communities should
respond at this point?
SPEAKER_00 (01:44):
I understand that
communities feel unsafe at the
moment and I've been contactedby community members, by
community leaders, by peakorganisations and I just spoke
at a gathering organised by theSettlement Council of Australia
and it's very clear thatcommunities feel unsafe and this
(02:06):
is migrant communities,communities of colour.
And I think that unfortunatelywhat we saw before the election
and we've seen more recently ismigrants being blamed for what
are far more complex problemswhich require complex solutions.
(02:29):
So let's just take the housing,the difficulty in getting
housing.
That's due to many differentthings.
Migration may have some sort ofimpact on it, but there are a
lot of other factors thatclearly have an impact.
For example, our tax system.
and the way in which our banksact in lockstep and have massive
(02:49):
profits, all of that impacts onhousing affordability and
availability.
So it requires complicatedsolutions and complicated reform
rather than the simplisticapproach of blaming migrants.
And the problem is that whenmigrants get blamed, often the
only signal as to whethersomeone's a migrant is the
(03:10):
colour of their skin or the waythey talk or their name.
And it is very important that weensure that any debate or
discussion on migration doesn'tthen lead to racist rhetoric or
racist language, and that can bea slippery slope.
I mean, of course, we can havediscussions about migration, and
(03:31):
it's an important policy issue.
And we should talk about it.
But we just have to be reallycareful about how we talk about
it.
And we shouldn't blame migrationfor what are more complex
problems.
SPEAKER_01 (03:42):
Giri, there was
something disturbing that came
up, I think, today, thismorning, which was this
brochure.
It's a flyer that's goingaround.
And it's about this massmigration issue that they want
to address.
One of the things that ishighlighted there is that there
(04:02):
have been more Indians in fiveyears and Greeks and Italians in
100.
And this is obviously causing afair bit of distress within the
Indian community to be singledout like that.
I mean, Senator Polska put out astatement in Queensland saying
that, you know, this is reallyunacceptable and it's extremely
(04:23):
disturbing and Indians arevaluable to community.
But to my mind, you know,everyone's valuable to
community.
So just on this, did you haveanything to say about what you
think where you think this iscoming from and what message if
any you had for the Indiancommunity
SPEAKER_00 (04:42):
I think it's
terrible and I would I'm from
the Indian community I was bornin Chennai I think that I
understand it the communityfeels unsafe and really
disturbed and upset about it andthey have every right to it it's
unacceptable I would I don'tknow if that statistic has any
(05:03):
truth to it either unfortunatelywhat we find with some of the
anti-migration rhetoric is it isfused with mis and
disinformation and again itcomes up with convenient
scapegoats and simplisticsolutions to a lot of complex
problems and it's ironic becauseI'm there was racism towards
(05:25):
Italians and Greeks when theymigrated here then there was
racism towards the Vietnamesethere's been racism now towards
Indians, as evidenced in thatposter.
This just confirms we have afundamental problem.
Every time someone comes,there's this spiral of racism.
So that means that ourstructures are racist.
(05:47):
They were built during colonialtimes and baked in during the
white Australia policies, andthey were never designed to let
in people like you and me.
And that's what needs to change.
We need to change our structuresso they are properly reflective
of our population and ourhistory and, of course, most
importantly, importantly, of ourfirst peoples.
SPEAKER_01 (06:07):
Thank you for that.
One of the things that has beenhappening, of course, and you
would know, is that there havebeen direct attacks on people of
color.
Recently, we've heard of twowomen in Sydney who were
attacked on a train andphysically sort of intimidated.
And one of the things that'shappening is in such situations,
(06:30):
the sort of commonsensicalparental advice seems to be,
don't go out, stay at home ondifficult days, on difficult
that can seem a little bitsensitive.
And as community leaders, a lotof the counter argument to that
is that that's really not theway to solve this sort of
problem.
By shrinking or by makingyourself invisible, you're not
(06:52):
really going to address it.
So in terms of an immediateresponse, what would you say
should be some of the thingsthat people can do to keep
themselves safe?
And what are some of therecourses Say you're a
bystander.
You know, you're seeingsomething happening right in
front of you or you are actuallybeing attacked.
(07:14):
What is it that you can do?
I know this is not strictlyjust, you know, in your domain.
I mean, there's police andthere's all of that involved.
But if you had any comments atall.
I
SPEAKER_00 (07:25):
mean, first and
foremost, if you're being
attacked, you should call thepolice.
That's just what you should do.
And that's the most importantthing to do.
And whatever the situation is,your safety is the utmost
consideration so I would say dowhatever it is that's required
to be safe and if you're abystander that means that
(07:46):
deciding whether or not you cando something often it does
require an assessment as towhether or not you're safe and
sometimes you can't do somethingat the time but afterwards you
can offer to help or offerassistance and we've got a range
of resources on how to respondto racism and I think I've sent
you a copy underneath which I'mhappy for in our right to
(08:07):
distribute to all of itssubscribers.
The staying at home is not thesolution.
When I say be safe, that doesn'tmean that you stay at home and
you don't go out and that youavoid public places.
That is a terrible outcome ifpeople feel so unsafe that they
can't go out.
We should all be entitled to besafe in public and to be able to
(08:29):
go about our daily businesswithout feeling vulnerable or
targeted.
And I think that the issue hereis that that vial of
interpersonal racism pours outpretty regularly, unfortunately.
It's very sad to hear about thatattack that you mentioned.
(08:49):
And I suspect that's the tip ofthe iceberg.
Most people don't report racismor racist violence because they
don't expect anything to happenif they do.
What that indicates to me is ourstructures are broken.
They need fixing across allareas of our lives.
We need a coordinated approachto tackling racism, like we've
(09:11):
called for in the NationalAnti-Racism Framework.
Broken structures give licenseto that interpersonal racism.
So unless you fix thestructures, you're not going to
fix the problem.
SPEAKER_01 (09:22):
One of the things
you said really struck a chord
because you said people don'treport because they think
nothing is going to happen.
And the sort of flip side ofthat is that people are
emboldened because they alsofeel there are going to be no
consequences for their attacksor for, you know, intimidation
and all of that that happens inpublic spaces as well.
(09:45):
So, you know, what can sort ofthe messaging be from from
government to say, look, youcan't get away with it.
This is not acceptable and thereare going to be consequences.
In the short term, fear canpossibly be quite a strong
deterrent while you work oneverything else and while
(10:06):
structurally and systemic changehappens.
Sometimes the fear of the ruleof law can possibly also be a
deterrent.
Do you have a comment on that atall?
SPEAKER_00 (10:18):
Yeah, I mean, it's
unfortunate that people don't
have faith in reporting systems.
And we also don't have commonlanguage or common national
mechanisms for recordingincidents of racism.
It's very ad hoc.
It relies on communities andcertain communities have the
resources to do it and othersdon't.
(10:41):
So you need a multi-prongedapproach to deal with this.
Firstly, you need to buildbetter racial literacy and
cultural safety within policeforces and other parts of the
justice system.
Secondly, you need to havebetter complaints mechanisms.
Thirdly, you need to actuallyhave proper anti-racism data
collection that documents theracism that's occurring.
(11:04):
And all of these things arethings we call for in the
National Anti-Racism Framework.
But unless you have thatmulti-pronged solution, I don't
I don't think we'll get to thepoint where people feel
comfortable and we'll always seeaction in response to their
complaints.
SPEAKER_01 (11:19):
One of the things
that, you know, I wear a couple
of hats.
I'm with Hindus for HumanRights, Humanism Project, NRI
Affairs, and we speak to alliesand other organizations across
the spectrum.
And one of the things, there isa little bit of frustration that
whenever we are engaging withgovernment, it happens sort of
in silos.
Multicultural communities arespeaking to government.
(11:40):
The Indians are listening to theChinese, are listening to the
Arabs.
But we're not engaging with,say, Anglo-Australians.
There are no forums.
where we're having difficultconversations in the same space.
We're not having thoseconversations in the spirit of
making things better foreverybody.
You know, it's my communityversus your community and my
(12:03):
safety versus your safety.
And you keep talking about theanti-racism, the framework, and
we have been such big championsof it.
And we've been saying that, youknow, that needs to be
implemented because a lot of thethings we're saying is part of
that.
What do you think the holdup is?
I mean, you know, we've thoughtit was fantastic.
We thought all communities wereactually really excited that
(12:24):
this was going to sort of see itcome into action.
But apparently nothing'shappened.
What's going on?
SPEAKER_00 (12:33):
We tabled the
framework with government nine
months ago and to date theyhaven't responded.
There's been no commitment to,there's been no endorsement of
it, nor has there been anycommitment to funding the
recommendations in it.
And we think that these issueswhere the constant issues that
threats to our society or thedivision, they'll continue to
happen until you tackle racism.
(12:54):
And our research shows thatgovernment approaches to racism
are very ad hoc, disjointed,piecemeal.
There are some levels ofgovernment that don't even want
to use it.
I'll use the word racism.
I'll use euphemisms like socialcohesion.
It's not clear exactly what thatmeans.
If it means we should all getalong, I absolutely agree we
should all get along.
But we won't get along bypretending racism doesn't exist.
(13:17):
We actually have to confront itfirst.
And that's why I think theNational Anti-Racism Framework
is clearly the way forward.
And the first recommendation init is the National Anti-Racism
Task Force, which would identifythe key recommendations to
proceed with.
And these could berecommendations that align with
(13:37):
some of the work, for example,by the Envoy to Combat
Antisemitism and the Envoy toCombat Islamophobia and others
that are operating the fieldwhere there's a commonality in
terms of issues that have beenidentified.
We can then coordinate theapproach through the National
Anti-Racism Task Force.
Because otherwise what happensis you have communities being
pitted against each otherbecause they're all competing
(13:59):
for resources and they think,oh, well, if I get something,
sorry, if they They getsomething I won't.
And it becomes a league ladderof racism, which doesn't help
anyone.
That task force would have,sorry, just on my final point,
it would have senior secretariesof departments.
It would have the commission.
It would have community leaders.
So in terms of you said youwanted everyone at the table,
(14:21):
that task force would haveeveryone at the table.
SPEAKER_01 (14:23):
We absolutely want
that.
And the other thing that youspoke of, I mean, that's a whole
different conversation, is aboutbeing able to have funding and
resources.
for this work.
Because as you know, a lot ofour organizations are stuck in a
six-month grant cycle and thisis not a six-month project that
is acquitted at the end of Mayand you're done with it.
(14:45):
This is long-term commitmentbecause these problems, as you
say, are systemic and theseproblems need all of Australia
participation and involvement.
Thank you so much for your time.
Hopefully we'll connect againvery soon and hopefully everyone
stays safe over the next coupleof weeks and we continue to
engage with these difficultquestions.
SPEAKER_00 (15:06):
Thanks very much for
having me, Nandini, and thanks
for all the work that you guysare doing.
SPEAKER_01 (15:10):
Thank you.