Greens Deputy Leader & spokesperson for Anti-Racism Senator Mehreen Faruqi has responded to the Albanese Government's establishment of the Office for Multicultural Affairs, which will sit within the Department of Home Affairs, stating that it highlights the neglect of anti-racism.
Senator Faruqi said:
"The Australian Human Rights Commission has called on the government to commit to a whole-of-society anti-racism agenda, but the Government continues to bury its head in the sand.
"Skindeep versions of multiculturalism put the onus on communities to shut up, get along and be grateful when anti-racism requires those with power, like politicians, to stop harming the marginalised.
"Suffice to say, any office that sits within the Home Affairs Department, with its racialized border control regime and over policing communities of colour, will undermine anti-racism work.
"Just this week, we saw neo-Nazis openly gathering in Melbourne with their sickeningly racist calls. The need for dedicated, well-resourced anti-racism work has never been more urgent.
"The national anti-racism framework must be fully funded and implemented as a matter of priority and urgency.
"The major parties deliberately neglect, and deny racism while hiding behind whitewashed tokenism. All this does is bury the truth, harm the marginalised and entrench white privilege.
"The Greens are the only party with an anti-racism portfolio, and the only party with a plan to build an anti-racist country."
