Right: Indian newspapers such as this one carried front-page news items on attacks on Indian students in Australia.
Arguments suggesting Australia is racist
1. The treatment of foreigners in Australia, including some in prominent positions, is racist
Sol Trujillo, the former head of Telstra, has commented on a general racism in Australia, of which, as someone with an Hispanic background, he believes he has been a victim. Mr Trujillo remarked, 'But you know, my point is that ... [racism] does exist and it's got to change because the world is full of a lot of people and most economies have to take advantage - including Australia - of a diverse set of people.
And if there is a belief that only a certain people are acceptable versus others, that is a sad state.'
Mr Trujillo further remarked, 'I would say that Australia definitely is different than the US.
You know, in many ways it's like stepping back in time, just simply because of some of the policies, some of the laws that, you know, are more recent.
So if you think about, you know, the immigration policies that weren't changed until about 30 years ago or so, which were very...restrictive. If you think about privatisation of companies - you know that's only that's 10 or 15 years old, you know, in terms of what most people would call a developed economy.
And essentially you know, the isolation of the country, by virtue of distance, you know there's a lot of considerations there that say it's a much different operating climate, environment than most other countries.'
In response to a specific question as to whether Australia were racist, Mr Trujillo answered, 'Well I think it was evidenced in a lot of ways there, you know, with me personally, but more importantly with others as you look at some of the events that have occurred over the last five or ten years, some of them before I was there, some while I was there.
But, I'm sure that that will continue because of you know, what I would call the evolution, and the maturation of a country.'
2. There has been a growing number of attacks on foreign nationals, particularly Indians, in Australia
Greg Sheridan, writing in The Australian on June 4, 2009, noted, 'Last financial year nearly 1500 assaults and robberies were committed on people of Indian origin in Victoria, up by nearly one-third from the year before.'
The Indian online news site Merinews published an opinion piece by Om Prakash Yadav on June 1, 2009, which made very similar claims. Om Prakash Yadav claims, 'The recent attacks on Indian students studying in Australia have attracted global attention...One Sravan Kumar Theerthala was hit with petrol bottles by some unidentified teens while he was reading book in his house at Melbourne.
Baljinder Singh, another student from India studying in Melbourne, was robbed and stabbed in his abdomen. Both are struggling for life in hospitals. Sravan's condition is reported to be very critical, he is still in coma.
In a separate incident, four students were attacked and burgled by racist elements in Australia. One Suketu Modi, a businessman from Surat, was attacked in train by a group of students when he had gone there for IT business. According to student's organisations, these racist attacks have been taking place in Australia for quite some time; most of them went unreported. According to a report, about 20 racial attacks on Indians have taken place last month in Sydney alone.'
On May 29, 2009, Yadu Singh, a cardiologist who heads the Indian Student Welfare Committee set up by the Indian Consulate in Sydney, described the phenomenon as 'curry bashing', and that 'They are not random at all, the people are targeting them. They know these students are easy targets.'
Critics of Australia's supposedly racist treatment of immigrants have also noted that in 2007, the then immigration minister, Kevin Andrews, referred to the Sudanese community when he said, 'Some groups don't seem to be settling and adjusting into the Australian way of life as quickly as we would hope.' A spate of violent attacks against Sudanese migrants followed, and one was bashed to death by a group of white men.
Violence against people from Middle Eastern, South Asian and Indonesian backgrounds escalated after the US launched its 'war on terror' in 2001.
3. Australian leaders have denied the problem, sometimes for economic and diplomatic reasons
On June 1, 2009, Sam Varghese, a subeditor with The Age Online, argued, 'Nobody, but nobody, is willing to call a spade a spade and slam the perpetrators for what this is - latent racism in society coming to the fore. Everyone, the police first and foremost, is pussyfooting around the problem and trying to characterise the naked violence as anything but an expression of racial hostility.
As long as this goes on, we'll continue to see more of such senseless violence in the suburbs. And it will embolden others in other regions of the country who have feelings of the same kind to express themselves with sticks, stones and knives.'
In a letter published in The Age on May 30, 2009, David Vorchheimer stated, 'It is little wonder the Indian Government is furious with the lack of response to the continued assaults of Indian students. For five years Mr Brumby, Mr Cameron and Victoria Police have denied there is race-hate based crime in Victoria.
The Government's "decisive" actions have included telling victims how to behave, setting up a helpline and even travelling to India. The basic problem, however, is that police attitudes have not changed. Police do not take the incidents seriously and seek to blame victims rather than the aggressors. It is time for a fundamental change in policing and government attitudes to tackle race-hate crimes.'
Victoria University's Hurriyet Babacan, who is leading a research project into violence against Indian students, said there was evidence of a 'new' racism in Australia against groups seen as not fitting in.
Professor Babacan said efforts to tackle racism in the past had been hampered by a reluctance to admit it existed, not least because it could hurt the nation's $15.5 billion-a-year international student market.
'We don't like to talk about it. It is a confronting and difficult topic and it implicates us all in the indigenous history,' Professor Babacan said. She said the Indian community had long complained that the attacks were racially motivated but there was an initial reluctance on the part of the police to acknowledge that.
4. Legislative and other responses to racism are an acknowledgement there is a problem
It has been claimed that the legislative responses to the recent attacks on Indian students are an acknowledgement that there is a problem.
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said he had discussed the problem with his Indian counterpart, S.M. Krishna, and had promised that Australia was doing all it could to prevent the violence and prosecute the perpetrators.
Mr Smith said, 'We have a particular current problem with Indian students. It's an issue we're very well aware of and we're working very closely with the relevant state authorities as a consequence.'
The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has has reassured Indian authorities and Indian students in Australia that these attacks are being treated seriously and that appropriate actions are being taken.
A multi-agency taskforce has been set up to deal with the issue, and tougher sentencing will be introduced so that judges will take ''hatred for or a prejudice against a particular group of people' into account when punishing offenders.
These has been a dedicated help line has been set up for Indian students who have been victims of crime. The students will be offered advice about how attacks might be avoided in future.
Victorian Premier, John Brumby, has announced he will lead a 'harmony walk' through Melbourne on July 12 to demonstrate Victoria's strong support for multiculturalism.
Critics of supposed racist attitudes in Australia have argued that none of these measures would be necessary if Australia did not have a problem with racial intolerance.
5. That other nations have a problem with racism does not mean there is no problem in Australia
Greg Sheridan, writing in The Australian on June 4, 2009, noted, 'There is nothing more lame than an Australian defence that points out that racism and policing problems exist in India, too.
So what? This is not a point-scoring game.'
A similar observation was made by Sandy Gifford in an article published in The Age on June 13, 2009, which stated, 'The argument that Australia has less racism or is less racist than other countries is not an excuse.
Racism, like rape, like genocide, like torture, is wrong and having less of it or being better than other countries does not make it right. Acts of hate violence such as in the recent attacks on Indian students must be seen as stemming from deeper problems in our society.'
A 2008 survey of more than 4000 Victorians found 90 per cent support for diversity, with 82 per cent of respondents feeling comfortable with people from different ethnic backgrounds.
But 37 per cent agreed with the statement that Australia was weakened by different ethnic cultures sticking to their 'old ways'.
And 36 per cent believed there were groups that did not fit into Australian society. Of these, Muslims and people from the Middle East were mentioned most often, possibly reflecting security concerns in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US.