Consultations Homepage || Meeting 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."
