Page 813 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 9 April 2014
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
federal government plans to be with the proposed changes to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.
The current Australian Human Rights Commission program entitled “Racism: it stops with me” notes that one in five Australians has been subjected to racial abuse. Here in Canberra there were recent reports of racial abuse against a passenger on an ACTION bus. In my electorate of Ginninderra, I was recently introduced to an African woman by concerned mutual friends. We were not there to talk about the atrocities of the civil war from which she and her husband escaped, but rather the racial abuse emanating from the neighbours.
For eight years the family have made their home in a largely friendly neighbourhood. Three years ago a new family moved in next door. Since that time the African family has been on the receiving end of a constant outpouring of racial hatred. When they are at home they are too frightened to use the garden because the fence is low and they are subjected to swearing, yelling and thrown food.
There was an altercation over the bins and wet cigarette butts were left at the door, the car tyres let down and eggs and other rubbish thrown over the car. A letter distributed in the neighbourhood asking for charity donations for Africa was shredded and shoved into their letterbox. This family feels so threatened that they cannot face responding to, or negotiating with, the neighbours.
Mutual friends state, “There are many, many more examples of this abhorrent behaviour, too numerous to note, which are having a devastating effect on every member of that family.” I have encouraged them to report this abuse and seek legal protection, which I am told has been effective.
This is happening in our city. Madam Deputy Speaker, do not just take it from me that racial abuse is harmful. It has been well reported in the medical journals. Professor David Williams from Harvard University last year noted:
A large and growing body of evidence indicates that experiences of racial discrimination are an important type of psychosocial stressor that can lead to adverse changes in health status and altered behavioural patterns that increase health risks.
What sort of health effects? An editorial in the British Medical Journal tells us about US research which found associations between racial discrimination and hypertension and low birth weight. A UK study found that victims of discrimination were more likely to have respiratory illnesses, hypertension, anxiety, depression and psychosis. Another US study reported that a one per cent increase in racial disrespect in a US state was associated with an increase of 358 per 100,000 in “black” all-cause mortality.
In Europe a study was conducted of over 4,800 residents of Maastricht who screened negative for mental illness and paranoid traits as a baseline. Those who said that they had suffered from discrimination were twice as likely to develop psychotic symptoms
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video