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Despite this, racism is common in Australia. In the Commissioner’s Foreword to the National Anti-Racism Framework, Giridharan Sivaraman, Race Discrimination Commissioner, wrote:
“To understand our findings on systemic racism, we need to acknowledge that although race has no scientific or biological basis, it continues to have a real effect in shaping people’s lives. Our systems are built to maintain white privilege. Those who are white can successfully navigate, access, and lead systems and institutions without having to shed their language, culture, religion, and other parts of themselves. We cannot effectively address racism and the harmful impacts it has without acknowledging its existence and then taking powerful action to confront it.”
The British colonised this land under the lie of terra nullius, committing terrible violence against First Nations people. British colonists adopted the doctrines of white supremacy, and the pseudoscience of eugenics, to excuse their violent colonisation and to justify racist laws.
The White Australia policy created a system which privileged white, British migrants, and excluded all others through restrictive immigration laws. The Aboriginal Protections Acts granted white governments full control over all aspects of Aboriginal people’s lives, removing their autonomy and embedding segregation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people.
Despite changes since then, such as the introduction of anti-discrimination laws, the racism entrenched in Australia lives on in our institutions, including Parliament, government departments, workplaces, sporting clubs, universities, schools. Racism continues to create unconscionable gaps in health outcomes, employment, education and wealth.
Racism in the workplace can include:
Racism does not occur in isolation; it frequently overlaps with sexual harassment, sexism, and other systemic inequalities that shape how individuals experience power and exclusion. For example, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people experience higher rates of workplace sexual harassment, often alongside racist harassment [Time for Respect report].
Racism also overlaps strongly with Australia’s migration system, which is insecure by design. There is a strong and indisputable link between temporary visa status and workplace exploitation, and women on temporary visas face much higher workplace safety risks.
White, middle-class feminist movements have taken part in racist practices, centred the priorities of white women and excluded First Nations women and women of colour in the past.
Issues such as child removal, stolen wages, forced sterilisation, state violence and incarceration have often been sidelined, superseded by issues seen as more important to the interests of white women and men.
For example, women’s groups campaigned for and won the right to vote in South Australia in 1894. In her book Talkin’ up to the white woman, Aileen Moreton-Robinson points out how starkly this contrasts with South Australia’s subsequent treatment of Aboriginal women:
“The removal of Indigenous girls from their families and the subsequent compulsory exploitation of their labour as domestic servants became official policy in South Australia some 17 years after the first-wave of feminists campaigned for and won the right to vote.” (page 96)
Time and time again, First Nations women and women of colour have spoken out strongly against the racism of the women’s movement and the union movement.
As a part of the women’s movement since 1979, the Working Women’s Centre is implicated in this complex history. We still have work to do to become a truly anti-racist and intersectional organisation.
We call on all organisations to follow the recommendations from AHRC’s National Anti-Racism Framework, which provides clear guidance on what needs to change in our workplaces.
We pay tribute to the many generations of activists and leaders who have resisted racism in workplaces and society and continue to do so.
In the conclusion of her book (page 186), Aileen Moreton-Robinson writes:
Resources for further learning:
