Australians’ Views on Cultural Diversity, Nation and Migration, 2015-16

Abstract

Between July and August 2015, and in November 2016, the Challenging Racism Project team conducted an online survey to measure the extent and variation of racist attitudes and experiences in Australia. The survey comprised a sample of 6001 Australian residents, which was largely representative of the Australian population. The survey gauged Australians’ attitudes toward cultural diversity, intolerance of specific groups, immigration, perceptions of Anglo-Celtic cultural privilege, and belief in racialism, racial separatism and racial hierarchy. In this paper we report findings on respondents’ views on cultural diversity, nation and migration. The majority of Australians are pro-diversity. However, we also acknowledge conflicting findings such as strong support for assimilation and identification of ‘out groups’. The findings paint a complex picture of attitudes towards cultural diversity, nation and migration in Australia. The attitudes reflect contradictory political trends of celebrated diversity, triumphalist claims about freedom, alongside pro-assimilationist views and stoked Islamophobia. This is within the context of a stalled multicultural project that has not sufficiently challenged assimilationist assumptions and Anglo-privilege.

A Picture of Bias Crime in New South Wales

“…With regards to cases involving a racial/ethnic motivation, Asian, Indian/Pakistani, and Middle Eastern people are all key targeted groups. This is consistent with research that shows that a proportion of Australians hold negative attitudes towards people from the Middle East (Kamp et al 2017). It also lends support to previous research documenting violence against 'Indian students' (Mason 2012;Baas 2015).…”

“…It must also be kept in mind that neat distinctions between different bias motivations fail to capture the complexity and ambiguity of negative inter-group attitudes. For instance, bias towards Muslim Australians is categorised here as a form of religious bias but in reality perpetrators may be driven by a cocktail of hostile attitudes around culture, heritage, language, skin colour, immigration, politics, terrorism and so on (Poynting 2002;Noble 2009;Dunn et al 2015;Kamp et al 2017). Correctly identifying and categorising bias crime remains a persistent challenge for police (Giannasi 2015;Mason et al 2017).…”

“…Research shows that while Australians' attitudes towards 'others' continue to improve over time, there is still much cause for concern (Markus 2016;Kamp et al 2017). For example, a recent national survey (Kamp et al 2017) found that Australians are largely supportive of cultural diversity but some groups continue to attract a substantial degree of negativity. By far, the group that attracts the highest rate of negative attitude is Muslim Australians (31.5%).…”

“…Middle Eastern, African, South Asian (Indian, Pakistani or Sri Lankan) and Jewish Australians are also perceived to be 'significant out groups' (Kamp et al 2017, p. 79). The groups that are viewed most positively are Anglo-Australians and Asian Australians (Kamp et al 2017). Although Australian attitudes to homosexuality also show significant change over time, 21% of people still believe that homosexuality is immoral (Morgan 2016).…”

“…During the period under investigation, the data showed an increase of approximately 20% in religiously-motivated cases against Muslim victims and a 20% decrease in Christian victims. The high proportion of religiously motivated bias crimes recorded against Muslim victims may reflect the high rate of Islamophobia in the community (Kamp et al 2017). It may also reflect a higher reporting rate amongst Muslim targets.…”