Australian public critical of negative reporting of Islamic and Sudanese communities

New research shows that Australians define ‘Australianness’ by behaviour rather than through ethnic origins.
‘Australian’ behaviour is defined as obeying the law, respecting others, integrating within communities and developing a working knowledge of English.
These findings come from a group of surveys conducted in metropolitan and regional Victoria by a team from Monash University.
In commenting on the [...]

Successful Sudanese settlement: a report that is not boring!

Sustaining Sudanese Settlement in Murray Bridge South Australia
A report of a study conducted by Lutheran Community Care Murraylands New Settler Services, funded by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship
Project and research Leaders: Nayano Taylor-Neumann & Raj Balasingam
How Murray Bridge has attracted Sudanese settlers, made them welcome, and plans to retain them
Murray Bridge, a regional [...]

What has religion to do with belonging and diversity?

What does it mean to belong, to be accepted and to feel socially included and connected?
The National Ethnic Disability Alliance has just released the report This is my home: belonging, disability and diversity…
In March and April 2009 NEDA facilitated focus groups in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth with people from non English Speaking Backgrounds (NESB) with [...]

Truth in t shirts: “Everyone’s a racist”

No one is a racist. At least, nearly everyone, if asked, would say ‘No, I am not racist’. But everyone suffers from what Kellie Tranter, of Online Opinion, calls Cultural blindness
Kellie was in the US recently when she saw a Native American selling T-shirts which read “Homeland Security: fighting terrorism since 1492”.
Kellie asks [...]

‘Illegal immigrant procedures’ soften reporters’ brains

I am sorry, Wayne Flower and Ben Packham of News Ltd – you have been the dupes (willing or otherwise) of a very dumb – and anti-immigrant ‘news’ beatup:  Illegal immigrant procedures to be softened
They warn us that:
“ILLEGAL immigrants no longer will be locked up and deported when caught by authorities because of a major [...]

Perhaps refugees can choose for themselves?

A report, originally held back from public release by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, (probably an attempt to avert bloggers like this one from using the ‘failure’ as grist for the racist mill) reveals that one of the recent regional settlement programs initiated by the Department has been a failure.
The report concludes that some [...]

Immigrant facts and furphies

“racial tension threatens a real prospect of conflict as the recession bites. I’m not ignoring this issue – I don’t think we can – but I’m just not sure how to blog about it responsibly without inflaming a growing popular anger.” Responsible blogging on immigration – hard to do?

The Raedwald post coincided with a couple [...]

A stab in the dark

The  Advertiser of  3 January published a story titled ‘State on a knife edge as violence escalates’ – a so-called ‘insight’ article about a ’sudden and alarming’ increase in stabbings in South Australia in recent months. A collage of three photos of the stabbing murder of a Sudanese youth, Daniel Awak in November and a [...]