FECCA Conference Speech

My name is Giridharan Sivaraman and I’m the Commonwealth Race Discrimination Commissioner.

I’d like to begin by acknowledging that I’m speaking to you on the unceded lands of the Juggera and Turrbal people, and pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging. I’d like to extend those respects to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people here today.

Acknowledging that I’m on country is important. It's something that is being attacked and I want to defend it. For me, as a non-First nations person, but who has lived experience of racism and is leading anti-racism work, it's important to understand the difference between the racism someone like me suffers, and that which is suffered and has been suffered for 238 years by our First Nations brothers and sisters. The racism someone like me suffers is a denial of equity and respect. The racism First Nations people suffered and continue to suffer is also a denial of equity and respect. But in addition, it is a denial of self-determination and sovereignty which included the dispossession of their land by settlers before me. And I, as a settler, have benefited from that denial of sovereignty. I have benefited from the dispossession of their land. Therefore, it is a small but important step for me to acknowledge I’m on country, but more so, to acknowledge the advocacy, leadership and anti-racism work of First Nations people that has paved a way for me and so many others. It is important for me to thank them for their wisdom and grace in letting me speak to you from their lands today.  

I’m honoured to be launching the FECCA report on national community consultations in support of a national anti-racism framework.

This is an essential piece of work in the preparation of a national anti-racism Framework.

Before I speak more about the FECCA report, and the Framework I wanted to read to you a quote from one of people consulted with. This is what they said.  

"When I was born, my mother took me to an optometry appointment and during the optometry appointment, there were two dummies and I was crying. So, the doctor offered to give me a dummy but my mother said no. When my mum left the room and the doctor had me, he gave me the dummy without my mum's consent. My mum got home and she received a phone call and they said that the dummy that the doctor gave me was contaminated with a disease which left me hearing impaired. And I think, for her, being a first-generation African coming to Australia, the last thing you necessarily want to do is start chaos. So, I think she kind of just internalized that and I think that's another form of racism that sometimes we don't necessarily see or hear about."

It’s a shocking story. And I thank the person who contributed it for their bravery in recounting something so bad. I thank everyone that contributed their stories to the FECCA report.  

That story embodies the way racism is ingrained into Australian society. At no point in that story is there direct interpersonal racism, like name calling or using slurs. But there is systemic racism. And the story embodies the way racism is embedded into our institutions and systems. I’ll come back to this story later when I talk more about how systemic racism manifests in our society.  

But first its important for me to explain what I mean about systemic racism.  

In the FECCA report, systemic racism is defined as “the way that the cultural norms, laws, ideologies, policies and practices of a particular society, organisation or institution result in unequitable treatment, opportunities and outcomes. However, systemic racism can also happen without specific laws, policies or practices to keep it in place.”

The important thing to note here is that it operates without needing dedicated laws, policies or practices to keep it in place.

To understand why that occurs, you need to recognise, as many here would, that race and racism are not about biological and scientific constructs as often imagined. They are about power and privilege. If you are white, it is the power to create and maintain systems and institutions that impact all of society but predominantly benefit you. When I look at all the corridors of power, whether it be politics, the public service, CEOs, boards, and the media, there are few people that look like me and many in this room.  Yet that white majority create and maintain the systems of power that affect all of us.  

Occasionally, someone that looks like you or me get to those senior positions. But in doing so we often need to shed ourselves of everything that makes us different, our language, our religion, our culture, our dress, everything that makes us different but the colour of our skins, the one thing that we can’t change, which ironically means we may still be the victim of racism. And there is no requirement to structurally affirm First Nations self-determination in the march to the top.

If you are white, it is the privilege to not even think twice about how accessing those systems and institutions may disadvantage you based on your race. It is the privilege of not having to completely assimilate to successfully navigate and access systems and institutions.  

Remember these are systems and institutions that are often created during colonial times, then baked in during the white Australia policy.  

To understand how systems and institutions are racist we need to build our racial literacy.

On an interpersonal level racial literacy is how we perceive someone, what prejudices you may have based on their race. On a structural level its understanding how systems and institutions disadvantage people who are not white.  

Think back to the story I started with. There was no direct incident of interpersonal racism. But ignoring the African born mother’s wishes was about exercising power over a person of colour. It was a lack of cultural safety for a person of colour when accessing medical services. And the family not taking action about what occurred was because structurally it is so difficult or racialised to people complain or seek redress about what occurs to them.  

I’ve used the term racialised a few times already and I want to explain what I mean by that. When I fly to Chennai, India, my city of birth in my country of birth, and I step off the plane I’m just Giri. When I come home to Brisbane and step off the plane, I become multicultural. Ethnic.  Culturally and linguistically diverse. All of that is by reference to not being white. I’ve become racialised by the society I am in.  

FECCA engaged 18 organisations to consult with multicultural communities across the country. This included over 860 participants.  

It is a challenging exercise to collect data about racism. Most of us know or have experienced that calling out racism means you get attacked far more than the racism itself. Most racism goes unreported. And it’s particularly difficult to obtain data on systemic racism. With those issues in mind FECCA and its partner organisations were able to obtain some really important and insightful data.

Common themes included:

• Systemic racism
• Education and training
• Participation and representation
• Justice and the legal system
• Racism against First Nations people

I’ve talked about systemic racism to a degree already, and it’s a theme that underpins the other theme areas identified. One powerful quote from a community member was:

“Racism is discrimination in language. When I arrived in Australia, I felt it was impossible to live because I didn’t speak the language. To fit in, I had to lose my identity.” – That quote is the process of assimilation that I described earlier.  

When it comes to education and training, research has shown that racial bias and racism are pervasive in educational settings. Young people of colour experience and witness high rates of racial discrimination at school from both their peers and their teachers.  

One of the young people consulted said “We are supposed to be safe in our schools. But if teachers discriminate, who do we go to?”  

Another said: “When I was studying at TAFE, I was the only Asian and the way I spoke wasn’t as good as the others and the teachers asked me to withdraw from the course. I think it would have been best to provide me with the option to improve my English as opposed to asked to leave. I feel that happens a lot, treated different.”

In 2017, the Australian National University’s Speak Out Against Racism student and staff surveys found that one-third of students experienced racism from their peers, and 12% by teachers, and 60% witnessed their peers being racially discriminated against by other students, and 43% by teachers. Research has also shown that children want to talk about race and racism, but parents and teachers silence or evade these discussions or approach these discussions by encouraging young people not to see race. This serves to bypass the realities of structural racism and discrimination, contributing to a knowledge deficit about racism perpetuated across generations. It also denies the strength and pride individuals and communities find within their racial identity and structurally maintains white supremacy.

Workplaces was commonly mentioned in the FECCA report. The recently released guideline to Race Discrimination in the workplace from the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission does very well in revealing the structural racism that impacts every step of the employment journey. It starts with looking for work. It’s well documented that people with Anglo names are more likely to get interviews. One person who was consulted by FECCA said:

“A person’s name can affect employment opportunities. I had 1 in 10 interview opportunities before I changed my name. I had 10/10 interview opportunities when I changed my last name after getting married to Anglo-Australian. I specifically named my kids English names, so they don’t have to go through the same things I have been through.”-  

Structural racism can operate in the interview process, onboarding, lack of cultural safety within the workplace, lack of promotion, and lack of safe complaints mechanisms to report racism.

One person said:

“Subjective assessments, even with objective recruitment criteria, continue to lock out diverse candidates from senior positions. This has an effect on who sits at the decision-making tables and perpetuates continued exclusion. With racism, one cannot become a leader”-  

Another said:

“If you are reporting you can be made to feel that you are a troublemaker, you have to put it in writing it can be mentally extremely stressful. The process and paperwork can be complicated and confusing with no certain outcome.” -  

Healthcare was brought up by participants who spoke about discrimination across the whole spectrum of their experience with healthcare services, from access to the quality of care they received. In our work at the AHRC we’ve identified cultural safety as critical to combatting systemic racism.  

What is cultural safety?

In 1989, Māori nurses developed the concept of cultural safety in seeking to address inequities experienced by First Nations peoples by challenging the view that everyone should be cared for in the same way.

Cultural safety requires service providers and organisations to develop meaningful and accountable relationships, built on an understanding of communities’ unique needs and strengths.

It also requires an ongoing process to recognise how cultural, professional, and institutional locations impact interactions and service provision.

Cultural safety is a dynamic and flexible process. It is a framework and outcome that enables safe and accessible environments to be defined by employees.

This strengths-based approach moves away from the deficit narratives that surround cultural difference, and instead focuses on true empowerment, healing and self-determination. 

The media was also raised by participants. I talked earlier about race and racism being about power and privilege. As I said at the launch of the MDA/AHRC race reporting handbook last week, in the media being white is the power to decide who tells stories, who’s stories are told, and how they are told. It’s the privilege of always being represented, always being centred, and on commercial tv and radio, nearly always being the mouthpiece for news, stories, current affairs. Sometimes I think for someone who looks like me getting on commercial TV means breaking down the door of SBS, try your luck at ABC, or become a really, really good cook. To get on commercial radio I’d need to drop the first name, change the surname to ‘Sivo’, and hope no one asks for a photo. 

The justice and legal system were raised as difficult by participants. Why is it that some races are so over-represented in the justice system? No race is inherently bad. Mistrust in police due to racism, and having complaints not taken seriously was raised by young cohorts in particular.  

There are 2 other significant issues raised in the FECCA report as well. Firstly, the importance of intersectionality. There were particular rich examples for LGBTQIA+ communities and for women of colour.

Secondly racism in multicultural communities, with a particular reference to caste based discrimination. One important thing noted by the report was that racism within communities is often an attempt to improve one’s position in a white dominant system, which then reproduces racial hierarchies.  

The Report comes with a pathway forward. Before I outline that there is something else that I should say.  

Structural racism has been legitimised by Australia's colonial history and remains embedded in our society. It is pervasive across our institutions -- whether it be workplaces, places of education, or indeed the structures that are intended to serve us. However, we cannot effectively address racism and the harmful impacts it has on so many lives, without meaningfully acknowledging that it exists. I therefore believe it is important to acknowledge that the Australian Human Rights Commission -- like all Australian institutions -- is not immune from such challenges. These are matters I am taking very seriously. If racism can exist within an institution such as ours, this illustrates just how deeply entrenched structural racism is within our society at large, and the pressing need for the Commission to address it. I believe as an institution we must lead by example, and I commit to doing better internally while also working to rebuild public trust in this institution. I also believe we can do better as a country and that there is a pathway forward.  

As the FECCA report makes clear, the pathway forward is an anti-racism Framework. This is exactly what my excellent team has been working very hard for the last 2 years in the AHRC.  

The National Anti-Racism Framework will be launched on 26 November this year. It is a roadmap for government, corporate and civil society to ask the hard questions about the way systems and institutions they operate affect negatively racialised people. It is a call to action to government to name racism, confront it and bring about systems change. We’ll give them the roadmap. They need to start the car and get on the journey.  

We can no longer simply accept our systems and institutions as they are. Talking about harmony day or social cohesion isn’t anti-racism work. I’m tired of people telling me to stop talking about racism because it disrupts social cohesion. We of course all want to live in a society where we get along. But not at the cost pretending racism doesn’t exist. The real path to progress is one that is laid down with the stones of anti-racism.  

There is a line in the sand, and on one side are those committed to anti-racism, and on other side, it's those who are happy to maintain the status quo. I know most of you in this room are on the anti-racism side of the line. Those of you that are not, we’re offering our hand to you to cross that line and join us on the journey to make our society better. The destination of our journey is one where equity, dignity and respect is a reality for everyone in Australia - no matter a person’s racial, cultural or religious background.