Indigenous peoples are not merely another group within the Australian polity; they are the prior sovereign peoples of this continent, incorporated into the Australian state without consent.
Anti-Indigenous racism in Australia is therefore not simply interpersonal prejudice, but the continuing expression of a colonial structure founded on dispossession, denial, and violence.
This working definition does not privilege Indigenous Australians over others. Rather, it recognises that anti-Indigenous racism is uniquely and historically embedded in the institutions, laws, narratives, and political culture of the Australian state, and therefore requires an explicit, contextual definition to be properly identified, understood, and addressed.
Working Definition of Anti-Indigenous Racism (Indigenous Australians)
With humanity still scarred by racism, colonial violence, and the long shadow of dispossession, the work of recognition remains unfinished.
In the spirit of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – which affirms the rights of Indigenous peoples to dignity, self-determination, cultural survival, and freedom from discrimination – this statement seeks to give form to that work by articulating a framework for recognising anti-Indigenous racism in Australia.
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples recognises that Indigenous peoples have suffered historic and ongoing injustices arising from the evils of colonisation, dispossession, and the denial of sovereignty, and affirms that states carry a solemn responsibility to confront the structural and institutional racism embedded in that legacy.
Non-legally binding working definition
Anti-Indigenous racism is a certain perception of Indigenous Australians, which may be expressed as hatred toward Indigenous peoples.
Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Indigenous racism are directed toward Indigenous or non-Indigenous individuals and/or their property, toward Indigenous communities, institutions, cultural heritage, and sacred sites.
To guide understanding, the following examples may serve as illustrations.
Anti-Indigenous racism may include the targeting of Indigenous identity, sovereignty, culture, or collective existence.
However, criticism of particular Indigenous organisations, leaders, or policies—similar to criticism directed toward any other group or institution—cannot, in itself, be regarded as anti-Indigenous racism.
Anti-Indigenous racism frequently portrays Indigenous peoples as responsible for social dysfunction, criminality, or national decline, and is often used to explain “why things go wrong.”
It is expressed in speech, writing, visual forms, and actions, and employs dehumanising stereotypes, myths of inferiority or dependency, and negative character traits.
Contemporary examples
Taking into account the overall context, contemporary examples of anti-Indigenous racism in public life, the media, education, the workplace, and the religious or cultural sphere could include, but are not limited to:
- Calling for, aiding, or justifying violence, removal, or harm against Indigenous Australians, including through advocacy of vigilante violence, forced displacement, or eliminationist rhetoric.
- Making mendacious, dehumanising, demonising, or stereotypical allegations about Indigenous Australians as such or as a collective — for example, claims that Indigenous people are inherently violent, incapable of self-governance, culturally deficient, or predisposed to criminality or welfare dependency.
- Accusing Indigenous Australians as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Indigenous person or group, or for broader social or economic conditions unrelated to them.
- Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms, or intentionality of colonial violence, including frontier massacres, forced removals, dispossession, cultural destruction, and the Stolen Generations.
- Accusing Indigenous Australians of inventing or exaggerating historical or ongoing harms suffered under colonisation for political, financial, or moral advantage.
- Portraying Indigenous Australians as less loyal to the nation, or as inherently divisive, because of their cultural identity, political advocacy, or assertion of Indigenous sovereignty or rights.
- Denying Indigenous Australians their right to self-determination, for example by asserting that Indigenous identity, sovereignty, or recognition is inherently illegitimate, racist, or incompatible with democracy.
- Applying double standards by demanding that Indigenous Australians meet cultural, moral, or political expectations not required of other groups in order to be afforded rights, recognition, or legitimacy.
- Using colonial or racist imagery and tropes (e.g. “savages,” “primitive,” “stone-age,” “childlike,” or “vanishing race”) to characterise Indigenous Australians, their cultures, or political claims.
- Comparing Indigenous political advocacy or cultural survival efforts to extremist, totalitarian, or criminal enterprises in a manner intended to delegitimise Indigenous identity or collective existence.
- Holding Indigenous Australians collectively responsible for actions of Indigenous organisations, activists, or individuals.
Criminal acts and discrimination
Anti-Indigenous acts are criminal when they are so defined by law.
Criminal acts are anti-Indigenous when the targets of attacks—whether people, property, cultural heritage, sacred sites, or community institutions—are selected because they are, or are perceived to be, Indigenous or linked to Indigenous Australians.
Anti-Indigenous discrimination is the denial to Indigenous Australians of opportunities, services, or protections available to others and is illegal in many jurisdictions.
Australia has laws, policies, and guidelines that address racial discrimination, yet in practice, the discrimination and harms produced by the legacy of colonial, institutional and racist violence are rarely prevented or meaningfully redressed. Where harm remains unacknowledged, recognition becomes symbolic and responsibility either gestural, or reliant on the demand that Indigenous peoples adapt themselves to colonial norms, thus internalising the violence perpetuated against them.
The Woomera Statement is offered in recognition of that limit, and in the expectation that Australian governments and institutions will engage with and implement this definition of anti-Indigenous racism as a necessary step toward effective recognition and redress.
