HREOC Website: Isma - Listen: National consultations on eliminating prejudice against Arab and Muslim Australias

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Notes: 18 June 2003

Consultation with the Queensland
Anti-Racism Community Reference Group, Brisbane, 18 June 2003

The consultation
was chaired by Stephen Maguire, Director, Multicultural Affairs Queensland
(MAQ), Department of Premier and Cabinet. It was attended by 12 Reference
Group members and facilitated by Omeima Sukkarieh (notes) from HREOC.

The consultation
focus was mainly on the role and various initiatives taken by the Reference
Group and other initiatives and projects being implemented in Brisbane,
as well as what the members participating in the consultation believe
still needs to be done to eliminate prejudice against Arab and Muslim
Australians.

The Anti-Racism Community
Reference Group was established after the 2002 Bali bombings. It is coordinated
by MAQ which believed that this international event had the potential
to cause serious local consequences in Queensland.

Its establishment
built on the experience of the Queensland Government response to the events
of 11 September 2001.

The Reference Group
was set up to discuss and develop a protocol for responding to crisis,
such as 'what to do with information that came to them'. It was
established as a mechanism to think about what consequences will there
be for Queensland of these events and is convened by Michael Hogan, Deputy
Director General, Department of Premier and Cabinet.

"The protocol
was not in place after Iraq because we were still working on it. Now
we are in the process of developing it."

The Reference Group
meets quarterly or on a needs basis. The members all felt that there is
a particular need in Queensland for proactive strategies not reactive
ones. They have been involved in a number of initiatives including the
'Racial and Religious Hatred - Know Your Rights' cards and education campaign
with the Anti-Discrimination Commission Queensland (ADCQ) which is a member
of the Reference Group.

"We can't measure
how effective these cards have been because it is so new but they have
certainly been well received."

The response protocol
is linked to counter-terrorism responses strategies developed in Queensland

Education

Members of the Reference
Group felt a need to focus on school education in Queensland so some members
formed a sister group with Education Queensland, and have since worked
well with them to talk about education and issues of racism at a school
level. They have been going out to meet with various school principals
to talk about strategies and serious incidents of racism in their schools.

One participant commented
on the importance of education and the availability of resources about
different religions practiced in Australia.

"There are
current international tensions around fundamentalism and therefore there
is a great misinformation about Islam and the Arab world and this needs
to be addressed."

"From an education
perspective, my wife teaches a wholly able group who did a project on
diversity. I gave a copy of the APMAB book [Australian Police Multicultural
Advisory Bureau book on religious diversity] and the kids love it. The
book should be utilised more widely, like in the army."

"NSW education
made it mandatory for teachers to learn about respect and diversity
and this needs to be the norm across states. The teachers college in
NSW has made it mandatory as a core part of their qualifications and
cross cultural training. We need to follow suit."

Police

"The Reference
Group has a community relations focus. One of the greatest benefits
from a police perspective is that we have consultations with community
groups, government departments and ...it is important to have constant
consultation. It is one of the many strategies we have employed over
the many years."

"The Police have
Cross Cultural Liaison Officers to work with the community but they
also have Police Liaison Officers who are unsworn members of the police
force. We think having a combination of both works really well. Mostly
they are Aboriginal Liaison Officers but now they are changing to meet
community needs."

[Originally known
as Aboriginal and Torres Islander Liaison Officers, Police Liaison Officers
now include officers from Chinese, Fijian, Samoan, Vietnamese and Australian
South Sea Islander backgrounds. There are now more than 120 PLOs throughout
Queensland. The PLOs are employed by the Queensland Police Service to
establish and maintain a positive rapport between Indigenous and multicultural
communities and the Queensland Police Service. The primary role of the
PLO is to promote trust and understanding through their liaison role by
assisting the community and police to reduce and prevent crime, divert
people from the criminal justice system, advise and educate police officers
on culture and cultural issues and to improve community knowledge of law
and order issues and policing services. A PLO does not have the powers
of a police officer; however they may assist a police officer with detaining,
arresting, searching or fingerprinting a person in certain circumstances.
PLOs are supervised by District Cross Cultural Liaison Officers.]

What has been done?

"What has worked
is the Queensland Premier's leadership. It allowed local government,
LGAQ [Local Government Association of Queensland] and mayors to take
initiative. It builds a climate of acceptance of diversity. They made
an impact on the ground in the end and at least gave some ownership
of this at a community level. The evaluation of this has been successful,
that is, the LAMP program, which is the Local Area Multicultural Partnerships
... It comprises of 15 councils who have a LAMP worker and look at issues
of community relations and access to services from people of NESB."

[The Local Area Multicultural
Partnership (LAMP) Program is a partnership strategy between State Government
and Local Governments across Queensland to support and promote multiculturalism
in Queensland. Under the program, 14 LAMP Workers are employed in local
governments, state-wide, as well as a Community Relations Project Officer
who is employed by the Local Government Association of Queensland to coordinate
LAMP across councils. For more information see www.premiers.qld.gov.au]

"Brisbane City
Council have an anti-racism project there where they did a broader outlook
project where they developed a database of anti-racism strategies at
a national, international and local level. They did literature research
on best practice models."

"They piloted
a research on 70 different people of non-English speaking backgrounds
called 'Hand in Hand' and three issues that came out which they put
into practice, two of which are working in partnerships and working
at a grassroots level. That to me says that education is the key."

"Last part
of the program is the four year action plan which is a strategy of the
Brisbane City Council. 10% of the strategies in the database are currently
being evaluated."

What more needs to be done?

"HREOC should
be a thoroughfare for state of the nation audits, for example, looking
at what Education Queensland is doing to [address the issue of] racism
and pushing recommendations for change towards them ... It is no good
if central office brings in anti-racism strategies and then devolves
the funding responsibility to district offices, so the head office foots
the bill in lack of implementation."

"You can't
rely on each agency to keep the Ethnic Communities Council informed
of what's going on."

"There needs
to be a state by state audit of where agencies are to get some consistency.
HREOC needs to identify good practice across other's jurisdictions and
at least evaluate them. Even trying to showcase good examples is important.
One example of an effective campaign is 'Under the Skin' by Education
Queensland, but it's only targeted for Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islanders. It needs to be broader. Race and business needs to also be
a focus for everyone."

[Education Queensland
developed 'Under the Skin: Combating Racism in Queensland Schools' to
help foster school environments that promote racial diversity. It is a
professional development package for teachers and others working in the
field of education and is part of the anti-racism curriculum for Queensland
schools. It includes two units 'exploring issues of significance to Australians'.
These units are 'The Stolen Generation' and 'Immigration and National
Identity'. For more information visit www.education.qld.gov.au]

"HREOC needs
to get solid evidence as to what actually does work and whether it has
an impact on people's attitudes, behaviours and values."

"When I was
with the ADCQ, we commissioned a book called 'Moving Forward'. Incidences
of racism are complex but one of the core things was that exponentially,
incidences and particular incidents experienced by certain sections
of the community escalated when global tensions escalated. So HREOC
does have a responsibility to make it known to politicians, media, employers,
teachers and so on, to understand the gravity of what they are saying,
especially in the school yard."

['Moving Forward'
is the result of a research project undertaken by the Graduate School
of Education at the University of Queensland on behalf of the Anti-Discrimination
Commission Queensland. It tells a series of stories from eleven different
government and non-government schools showing the positive measures taken
to promote harmony, respect, understanding and fairness between school
members and with people in the community.]

"It is important
to get access to ministerial committees to make sure this issue is taken
as a serious one."

"Valuable thing
is that there is data now so more anecdotal reports, so can HREOC have
influence based on having data? People are collecting data through that
nature by LAMP, but I believe that HREOC could produce data also. "

"But trying
to get data on racist incidents is a minefield. For one thing how do
you identify people using ethnicity, especially if you have to use the
standard ethnic descriptors? It's almost impossible."

"Leadership
needs to be committed through to education departments."

"At the Brisbane
City Council we [have to be careful that] if projects and things get
targeted at Muslims or Arabs it will tend to isolate that group further
and it is difficult. It is more effective if you do more broader education
[strategies]. So there needs to be a more holistic approach as you don't
want to isolate others."

Communicating the message

"There was
a Fashion Expo where it was a perfect place where you can send information
through the 500 or so people attending and more of these [events] need
to be utilised. Word of mouth is most effective in getting the message
across about anything."

"Using the
ethnic print and radio media is I think an important and an effective
strategy. The infrastructure is there but the problem is that there
is no market for it in Queensland."

"We need to
open a dialogue between the ministry of parliament and the community
at a national and local level. The message we should send in doing this
is 'We are all Australians'."

"It also about
attracting people at the grassroots level; people who aren't necessarily
available. Ethnic media in this case should be more accessible."

"There is a
good program in Victoria called 'Different cultures, One Victoria'.
They had cameo messages on television, where the message is 'I'm from
somewhere else but I'm proud to be in Victoria'. We should we be thinking
along these lines."

Need for more youth involvement

"One thing
we have found is that young people isolate themselves and for example
they don't go meetings. They have a fear of being members of IWAQ [Islamic
Women's Association of Queensland] for example, because they are in
fear of being associated with members of Islamic organisations. And
they don't sit on this Reference Group either."