Following the recent attacks on Indian students in Victoria, SBS investigates whether or not racism is a growing trend in Australia.
SBS Chief Correspondent Brian Thomson reports from Melbourne, where authorities have reacted angrily to coverage in the Indian media, which has portrayed all of the attacks as being racially motivated..
Professor of Geography and Urban Studies Kevin Dunn from the University of Western Sydney tells SBS Australians aren't dealing with "cultural diversity" properly and the government needs to do more to manage the issue.
His report, Challenging Racism: The anti-Racism Research Project in 1998 found that most Australians recognised that racism was a huge problem in society.
"We're not a racist country, but some people are racist and we've got to face up to it, and the overwhelming majority of Australians agree. 85% say it's an issue", he tells SBS.
The race issue has been on the Australian National University's (ANU) agenda for a long time.
Last year the university released a study which revealed clear evidence of racism when it came to the job market.
It found that job applicants with foreign sounding names faced a much tougher task finding work than their competitors with Anglo names.
According to the study, someone with an Anglo name would usually send out 10 CV's before getting a job while someone with a Middle Eastern name can sometimes send out as many as 16.
Meanwhile dozens of groups on the social networking site Facebook are now dedicated to the vilification of non-white Australians.
Anti racist campaign Alex Gollan regularly monitors the sites and reports them to Facebook administrators, but he tells SBS he feels like he's fighting a losing battle.
"We've had at least 60 groups that I know of acted upon by Facebook, plenty of people have been denied service by Facebook, but unfortunately the groups just re-open…. It's an endless cycle", he tells SBS.
Experts are now demanding the government could send a stronger message to the general public by appointing a full time race commissioner.
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