All MPs should undertake anti-racism training: Greens

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All members of the house of representatives and the senate should be made to undertake anti-racism training so that they can confront both their own biases and the consequences racism has wrought on indigenous communities, says senator Mehreen Faruqi from the Australian Greens.

Faruqui made the call for mandatory anti-racism training for elected representatives following the recent release of a report looking at Islamophobia in Australia authored by Dr Derya Iner, a senior lecturer at the Centre for Islamic Studies and Civilisation at Charles Sturt University.

That report examines reports of physical and online incidents of discrimination against members of Australia’s Islamic community during the period January 2018 to December 2019.

The research, which covers complaints made before and after the Christchurch massacre, provides an analysis of 247 verified incidents of which 138 were physical and 109 online.

Analysis of the data reveals that 65% of online incidents reported to the Islamophobia Register Australia – the source of the research sample for this report – occurred during the fortnight after the Christchurch massacre in March 2019.

Only 12% of the 138 physical incidents reported occurred during that same time period.

Faruqi told the senate that the study showed a rise of Islamophobia in Australia at the time of Christchurch and that more must be done to deal with growth of hate and racism in the country.

She told the senate that political leaders in parliament have played a part in normalising hate and racism and “the ‘othering’ of those who don’t meet their description of what an Australian should look like”.

“The corridors of power are filled with privileged white people who have never experienced the corrosiveness of racism, so it’s easy for them to ignore it and to deny its existence,” Faruqi said.

“It’s time to challenge racism in the very echelons of leadership right here in Canberra. MPs need to be forced to the table to unpack their white privilege, their white superiority and their white fragility, even if it makes them uncomfortable.”

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Adopt anti-racism framework, urges Australian Human Rights Commission