ABC News Breakfast - 6.40am, 20/02/25 - Islamophobia

BRENNAN: Let's turn to Islamophobia, which I know you're really worried about, given the broad range of different faiths you have in your community. To see two Melbourne women, one of them pregnant, attacked in broad daylight in a shopping center. Is this a tipping point for you in terms of our fight against Islamophobia and hate crimes?
HILL: It was appalling and my heart goes out to the victims. I learnt about this on Monday afternoon. The incident happened last week, but it was only reported in the media Monday, om Tuesday and I spoke to the Islamic Council and Victorian authorities. I wish I could say it was an isolated incident, but the truth is it's not. Particularly Muslim women have been targeted for many years simply for displaying visible symbols of their faith. But this has got far worse since October 7, 2023, in the shadow of the war in Gaza, we've seen a more than 500% spike in Islamophobic incidents. And frankly, they're under reported because many people feel helpless, like nothing will be done. And the Scanlon Foundation's report last year showed that at a headline our social cohesion is holding up well, but it is under strain. There's been a spike in antisemitic incidents and an even larger spike in Islamophobic incidents. And any form of racism is unacceptable in our country.
GLENDAY: I went back through that report last night because that's kind of your job, right, is to ensure Australian society is socially cohesive. There's been a lot of focus on this issue in the media in particular. But at a broad level, how are things? Are we still a very relatively socially cohesive society when you look around the world?
HILL: Yes. Is the short answer to that, in that the headline measure of social cohesion has held steady and support for Australian multiculturalism remains very strong across the community. The vast majority of Australians are tolerant, respect difference and don't want to see foreign conflicts imported into our country. It's been difficult because so called political leaders, be it Peter Dutton and the Liberals on one side or the Greens political party on the other, at times have sought to weaponise and politically profit from these foreign conflicts which Australians do not want imported into our shopping centres, our workplaces, our communities, our schools and so on.
BRENNAN: There are some reports in News Corp in recent days about federal funding that goes to some Islamic and Muslim organisations. And there are questions raised in some of those reports about links to particular individuals who may hold particular ideologies or have made statements in the past that perhaps don't align with socially cohesive behaviour. Are you looking at this? Do we need to examine the types of people that some organisations are working with in Australia?
HILL: Well, I'll make two points. One, we've seen at times a very disappointing denial or almost dog whistling from members of the opposition. There was a Senator last year who talked about this “fictitious crisis of Islamophobia”. That person's a friend of mine actually and should know better, but he’s welcome to come and talk to my community. But yes, we've seen Senator Sharma, it’s on the record, you know, he is a friend of mine, but, you know, we don't need that kind of behaviour from Opposition politicians. Denying that there's an issue first and foremost, and then using language, as the Opposition Leader does regularly, when he talks about these issues, talking about appeasing Muslims, about, you know, appeasing terrorists, he weaves it all into the same sentences.
But on your point, yes, there's been this frankly ridiculous game by, I'll name them, the Australian newspaper working hand in glove with the Opposition - the journalists tell us where they're getting the stuff from - that calls out individual Muslim community groups and frankly, holds them to an impossible double standard that no community group, no sporting club, no business could ever meet. They go back through for the last 10 years, they find someone on the committee, someone on the board, someone who's been an employee or a volunteer, find something offensive they've said on social media that you and I would disagree with, and most people would, and then say: “gotcha, the government's got to cancel the money for family violence or housing or youth work”. I mean, try applying that standard to any footy club in Australia, because we all know there's going to be people saying a bit of, you know, offensive stuff about women at times. There's the idiot down the corner who says something racist. So, what, we're going to hold everyone to that standard? Every business grant to a manufacturer now we're going to check their employees for something offensive?
It's a silly game and it needs to stop.