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Ahead of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's appearance at Australia's national multiculturalism conference earlier this month, expectations were high.
It had been decades since a sitting prime minister had addressed the conference, which is run annually by the Federation of Ethnic Communities' Councils of Australia (FECCA) and brings together hundreds of community leaders, researchers and advocates to discuss policy and shape national conversations about migration, social inclusion and cultural diversity.
At a time of heightened community tensions, some hoped the prime minister would use the moment to deliver strong action in support of multiculturalism.
Instead, they were left feeling underwhelmed, describing his keynote address as a missed opportunity.
At the conference, which SBS covered as a media partner, the prime minister spoke positively about cultural diversity in his electorate of Grayndler, which spans parts of Sydney's inner west and has been home to many migrant communities over the years, including Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Lebanese, Islander and Vietnamese.
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"It means that you can walk around the streets of Marrickville and get groceries from the Filipino shop … [and eat] the best lamb you have ever had in your life [at a restaurant across from my old electorate office]," Albanese said in his speech.
Sociology professor Andrew Jakubowicz from the University of Technology Sydney says it's important that Albanese agreed to speak at the conference, "particularly as situations in Australia seem to be getting more tense and even violent", but he noted the prime minister made no tangible commitments.
"There was nothing said that suggested there was actually a strategy, and we're in an extremely difficult time," Jakubowicz tells SBS News.
Many of the experts SBS News has spoken with, including Jakubowicz, believe racism is on the rise in Australia, although this is largely based on anecdotal evidence.
There is no single body that consistently collects and reports on race and racism at a national level, so available data tends to be fragmented or infrequent.
A new report released today by the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is calling for a nationally coordinated approach. It follows a similar recommendation made in 2024 as part of FECCA's Anti-Racism Framework, also commissioned by the AHRC.
Jakubowicz points out that recommendations from the framework, as well as a separate government-funded review on multiculturalism titled Towards Fairness, largely remain unactioned.
"The government is quite comfortable about making the right noises, and very uncomfortable about doing anything to implement significant change."
Advocates are concerned that, without action, Australia's successful multicultural society may begin to fray.
According to the AHRC's Race Discrimination Commissioner, Giridharan Sivaraman, Australia has "clearly got a problem" with racism. He points to recent examples of "horrific racist violence", including an antisemitic attack at Bondi Beach that claimed the lives of 15 people, and an alleged act of terrorism at an Invasion Day rally in Perth.
He believes racism has increased online too, particularly following the failure of the Indigenous Voice referendum in 2023.
"When people talk about a lone wolf or a lone actor … that person is never alone," he says.
"They usually have been plugged into an online ecosystem that … taught them how to be violent.
"And it's led to the violence we see on the streets."
Sivaraman says he frequently hears about acts of racism that go unreported, including Muslim women having their hijabs ripped off, Jewish students being screamed at in the street, and young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders being chased by people in cars.
But he says it's difficult to know the extent of the problem because there's no centralised system to collect data on racism in Australia — something the AHRC is pushing for as one of 16 recommendations in its Data for Change report released today.
The same recommendation was among those included in AHRC's anti-racism framework in November 2024, which Sivaraman says no level of government has endorsed, let alone implemented or funded.
"That is disappointing because it indicates they don't see it as a priority," he says.
He says an AHRC-commissioned audit of government responses to racism found it often involved knee-jerk reactions that pit communities against each other and increase racism or anger.
"There's no monitoring or evaluation of anti-racism work either," he says.
"That is not an effective way to deal with racism."
Jakubowicz says a lack of strategy to encourage intercultural engagement has meant that antagonism between different groups, fuelled in part by social media, has also been allowed to "fester and deepen".
He says much of the significant opposition to multiculturalism often stems from Islamophobia, including from those belonging to migrant communities.
It's one of the reasons some multicultural communities are signalling support for Pauline Hanson's One Nation, which has openly criticised Islam and broadly opposes Muslim immigration.
"One wouldn't necessarily expect to see people who have experienced racism being so strongly supportive of [One Nation], yet we're seeing that occur," he says.
"I think that's partly a consequence of the failure of government to engage meaningfully with the wider Australian population, [to build] cultural links and [address] questions of racism both within and between different migration communities."
Jakubowicz believes there's a need for a national multicultural commission, as well as a research and policy strategy to provide both policymakers and the public with credible, accessible information.
Multicultural Affairs Minister Anne Aly says the government is taking action by strengthening hate crime laws, funding a national anti-racism campaign and establishing the Office for Multicultural Affairs.
"We’re taking a coordinated multi-faceted approach to combating racism, with action underway across a range of portfolios, so we can deliver practical, lasting change," she tells SBS News.
Many experts, both at the FECCA conference and beyond, are calling for a similar kind of systemic change to address racism.
Sivaraman says this will ultimately benefit all Australians because it ensures systems and institutions become more transparent, responsive and accountable.
"It means that irrespective of race, gender, sexual identity, class, age [or] disability, a system or institution is inclusive."
He says racism can impede people at every step of their life journey, and dealing with it is critical to Australia being a successful multicultural country.
Mario Peucker, an expert in place-based anti-racism and associate professor at Victoria University, says data provides a foundation for identifying organisations where racist incidents occur, so pressure can be applied on them to take action.
He believes Australia's failure to address racism adequately is holding it back from achieving genuine multiculturalism — a state in which diverse racial, ethnic and cultural groups co-exist harmoniously.
"There is the need for reckoning with historic injustices, especially because they have ongoing implications for First Nations and multicultural communities."
Bulent (Hass) Dellal is a former director of SBS and chair of the panel that produced the multicultural review. He explains its aim was to identify ways to support a cohesive society in Australia following the COVID-19 pandemic.
The government endorsed the review's recommendations and acted in 2025 to elevate the position of minister for multicultural affairs to cabinet for the first time in Australia's history.
It also announced $85 million in reforms to better recognise the skills of migrants.
Dellal says the review's 29 recommendations are ambitious and acknowledges that full implementation will take time.
"But … one thing that has given communities less confidence is the lack of communication between government and communities about the next steps," he tells SBS News.
In particular, Dellal is concerned about progress on implementing a whole-of-government approach to multiculturalism, which he says has "remained limited".
"So, it is important that there is a level of coordination between governments and institutions … [as well as] accountability mechanisms, and these are still often unclear."
Dellal says Australia's problem isn't that it doesn't support multiculturalism, but that it hasn't yet built a strong shared civic identity around it.
He points out that 83 per cent of Australian adults agree that "multiculturalism has been good for Australia" according to the Scanlon Foundation's 2025 Mapping Social Cohesion report , but many don't feel like they belong.
Only 46 per cent felt a sense of belonging in Australia "to a great extent", compared to 63 per cent in 2020.
But addressing this rift does not mean Australians of different ethnicities and backgrounds need to become "culturally identical", Dellal says.
He believes a shared Australian identity should be built around fairness, freedom, democracy and equal citizenship. These principles must be applied equally in everyday life for multiculturalism to thrive.
"Fairness must be visible in the workplace," Dellal says.
"Democracy must include the opportunity to be heard, to disagree and to help shape decisions.
"That shared civic identity is credible only when people can see the principles at work."
