Tomorrow, on 21 March, many people and organisations across Liverpool and beyond will hold events and activities to mark Harmony Day. It holds deep significance internationally as the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1966. The day has been observed worldwide as a day to commemorate lives lost, raise awareness about the consequences of racial discrimination and urge governments and societies to strengthen their efforts to combat racism in all its forms. The date was chosen to mark the Sharpeville massacre, which occurred on the 21 March 1960, when police officers in a black township in South Africa opened fire on a group of people peacefully protesting oppressive laws under an apartheid regime, tragically killing 69 people and injuring many others.
For nearly a decade after signing the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination [CERD] in 1966, Australia failed to do anything about it, not because it could not but because it would not. Political resistance, legal loopholes and the remnants of the White Australia policy kept racial discrimination embedded in our laws and institutions. It took the bold leadership of the Whitlam Labor Government to push through the Racial Discrimination Act in 1975, finally bringing CERD into Australian law. It was not just a legal victory; it was a turning point in our history. It was a rejection of racism in all its forms in law and a declaration that equality would be no longer an aspiration but a legal right. Importantly, the Racial Discrimination Act was not merely a symbolic victory for the elimination of racial discrimination; the Act had real constitutional weight. It paved the way for groundbreaking decisions of the High Court such as the Mabo decision, which rejected the lie of terra nullius and finally recognised ongoing native title of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Today I recognise that this important piece of legislation turns 50, and we must honestly ask ourselves, "Has racism been eliminated in Australia?" We concede, 50 years on, that while the Racial Discrimination Act has been important and necessary in many respects, it clearly has not eliminated racial discrimination or helped everyone understand it better. We live in a time when race is debated, when Islamophobia and antisemitism occur daily, when a call for a Voice to Parliament for our First Nations peoples is met with misinformation, when international students are scapegoated, and when refugees and asylum seekers continue to be treated as a political football.
Legislation alone does not eradicate prejudice. Laws cannot shift hearts and minds by themselves, and real transformation requires education, community engagement and honest conversations that acknowledge the deep impacts of racism and colonisation. The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is about more than sharing food and wearing our cultural outfits; it is about recognising the impacts of racial discrimination and its ongoing costs. Under the Howard Government, we packaged the uncomfortable aspects of injustice, institutional barriers and systemic inequities behind cultural fairs and celebrations—behind what we began to call Harmony Day. A racism-free Australia is built not just in our laws but in our workplaces, our schools, our media and our everyday interactions.
In seeking a thriving multicultural and socially cohesive society, it is important to acknowledge the limitations of the Racial Discrimination Act and consider ways to strengthen the legislative guardrails that the most vulnerable in our society depend on. Gough Whittam was a visionary, but I doubt even he could have imagined the impact of Facebook, TikTok and the cesspit that is X on our social and political discourse. The current Act also relies on a flawed complaints process through the Australian Human Rights Commission that places a huge burden on individuals to challenge and redress the harms they face, failing to hold institutions accountable in the process.
As our understanding of these issues and social conversations become more nuanced, it is vital that we strive to do what the Whitlam Government did 50 years ago: provide a vision for social cohesion, multiculturalism, and a society that enables belonging and progress for generations to come. We must ensure that experiencing racism, not just being called a racist, is what we strive to eliminate.
