Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Every year, 21 March marks the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, or IDERD—at least, it does in every other country in the world. Here in Australia, it's celebrated as Harmony Day, which now falls within Harmony Week. Harmony Day is a John Howard era invention. It represents a superficial, self-congratulatory celebration of diversity, which completely ignores the entire point of the urgent, pressing need to recognise racism and eliminate it in all its forms. It imagines Australia as being part of some kind of post-racist future. It has never existed and, at this rate, it will never exist. Harmony Day whitewashes the historic and ongoing racism in Australia. It denies Australia's colonial, bloody history, which is tainted with dispossession and violence, and the depth and breadth of discrimination against First Nations people still rooted in our institutions.

Systemic racism manifests itself every day against people of colour—in workplaces, schools, sport, media and public places, and in parliaments. That's why I've written to Minister Giles, calling on the Labor government to revert to the UN designated name and purpose and to redouble efforts to combat racism. As the Australian Human Rights Commission has said reframing IDERD as a celebration of 'harmony' distracts from the cause of eliminating racism. With the harmony framing, 'the systemic racial discrimination experienced by so many for so long in Australia' is effectively 'swept under the rug'. The day is meant to be one of solidarity with people struggling with racial discrimination—let's keep it that way! The sad reality is that when we speak up about racism we are ignored or we are gaslighted. We are incessantly questioned about the validity of our claims. We are told to go back to where we came from. We're accused of causing division by just mentioning the r-word.

Last week marked four years since the Christchurch massacre, when an Australian man, driven by an extreme right-wing Islamophobic ideology, killed 51 Muslims during Friday prayers. I wish I could say that the Christchurch massacre by an Australian white supremacist prompted a reckoning with these dangerous racist ideologies and spurred those in power to action. It hasn't. On the weekend, we literally saw Nazi salutes on the streets outside parliament in Melbourne. It was vile and disgusting. Report after report tells us that Muslims in Australia continue to experience horrific racism and hate, and women and children are on the front line of this Islamophobia.

Structural and systemic racism is embedded in the very fabric of this country, from the way it was founded, on stolen land, to the way our systems remain discriminatory to this day. This harms and damages the physical, psychological and social wellbeing of so many in our community, yet we are expected to remain silent on racism and pretend that all is well. Well, some of us have refused to play the grateful migrant card that is demanded of us time and time again. We have refused to apologise for our existence. We have stuck our necks out and we have spoken the truth about racism. We cannot pretend racism doesn't exist or that discrimination is a thing of the past. As a country, we recognise the advantages of multiculturalism in the food and in the cherry-picked cultural practices and festivals, but when it comes to tackling the issues we face nothing changes. This recognition of diversity is tokenistic, shallow and skin deep.

There is no doubt that we are very far from an antiracist Australia, and there is no point in pretending otherwise. We have to reckon with the truth. We have to face it with fearlessness. So let's not pretend that racism doesn't live on in government policy. Australia's inhumane and barbaric policies for those seeking asylum are built on racism, and they were made easier to sell to the public because their victims are from places like Afghanistan and Iraq. First Nations people continue to face the worst kinds of discrimination, with deaths in custody and children being imprisoned at alarming rates. The hard work of antiracism starts with using the r-word: racism.

So let's use the International Day for Elimination of Racial Discrimination to talk about the pervasive scourge of racism, rather than hiding behind the veil of Harmony Day. This is only the start to building an antiracist country that is fair, equal and truly celebrates and respects the human rights of people who live here.

Senate adjourned at 20:15