Between failed businesses and dashed political dreams, Australians have seen the damage that the label “racist” can have.
Earlier this month, Liberal candidate Jack Lyons dropped out of the Victorian election race after his Facebook posts mocking Africans and labelling Asian people as “Chinky” emerged.
In Sydney, the Darlinghurst café owner who refused to hire a black Brazilian barista was forced to shut his doors after customers boycotted the business.
For Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane, the public response is unsurprising.
Mr Soutphommasane told SBS that Australians were becoming increasingly willing to call out racism, saying that former customers of the Forbes and Burton cafe had “voted with their feet”.
“That is one way of sending a message,” he said.
“People, consumers can exercise choice. This is a very dramatic illustration of how someone was held to account for their behaviour involving racial discrimination.”
'I think it had the effect of shocking people, who wondered what are we doing?’
It’s a view shared by immigration and multicultural policy researcher James Jupp.
The Adjunct Associate Professor at the Australian National University told SBS Australians were becoming progressively outraged by racism following what he described as the “turning point” of the Cronulla riots almost a decade ago.
Dr Jupp said the racially motivated, bloody confrontation targeting men of Middle Eastern appearance had made most Australians take a step back in shame.
“People were really rather shocked by that,” he said.
“The average Australian doesn’t like riots or manifestations of unrest. I think it had the effect of shocking people, who wondered ‘what are we doing?’.”
Despite the increasing public response, it appears that policy is lagging behind when it comes to racism.
The Racial Discrimination Act remains in place, reporting a low success rate despite the Coalition’s unsuccessful attempt to water it down.
Throughout 2012-13, only three per cent of complaints of racial discrimination under the Act made to the Human Rights Commission were referred on to the court system.
'There is a group there that is pushing for steps backwards'
Once before a judge, the majority of claims were dismissed.
Social media sites slurring ethnic groups remain online without specific social media legislation in place to deter operators and the almost one-year-old Coalition Government has repeatedly come under fire for divisive policies such as the recently proposed terror laws.
Dr Jupp said the government’s inability to anticipate the public backlash around multicultural issues is a problem not just for the conservative members, but the party as a whole.
“There is a group of people in the Liberal Party who are very right wing, who are pushing very hard to get a lot of legislation amended or withdrawn,” he said.
“It’s a problem that the Liberal Party has at the moment. There is a group there that is pushing for steps backwards.”
It’s a problem that the Coalition has been attempting to address, the most prominent being Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s new catch phrase of Team Australia.
The slogan has been supported by the likes of ASIO boss David Irvine, who dismisses the criticism that the term is divisive.
Speaking at the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday, the country’s top spy defended Mr Abbott and Team Australia.
'We've actually done pretty darn well in creating a multicultural Australia'
“I’m happy to be part of the team,” he said.
“We've actually done pretty darn well in creating a multicultural Australia. My advice is we keep doing what we're doing.”
The Coalition has also gained some ground through politicians such as Malcolm Turnbull, who came out condemning racism in the wake of the anti-Semitic flyers distributed in his seat of Wentworth.
Speaking to ABC’s AM program on Wednesday, Mr Turnbull condemned such actions as “despicable”.
“People who think that they can pick on one ethnic group or another - and if it's the Jews in Bondi yesterday it'll be somebody else tomorrow, we know that - those people don't just intimidate those groups,” he said.
“They gnaw away at the foundations of the whole society and that's why they should always be condemned.
“We should have zero tolerance for racism.”
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