The federal government has accepted 35 of the 54 recommendations in Special Envoy Aftab Malik's report on Islamophobia, releasing its formal response in Canberra on Saturday, months after the report was submitted last year.
The accepted measures lean toward education and policing rather than new law. They include an Islamophobia Education Taskforce, training for parliamentarians, public servants, police and legal professionals, a new Australian Federal Police social cohesion team alongside expanded community liaison teams, a faster build for the national hate-crimes database, a review of how the Australian Curriculum handles the subject, and a legal requirement for universities to prevent and respond to Islamophobia. AAP reported the package carries $41.9 million for security at Muslim community sites.
The 19 recommendations left on the table are the structural ones. The government has not taken up a religious discrimination act, nor explicit protection for Muslims under racial discrimination law, a protection Sikh and Jewish Australians already have. An independent review of how counterterrorism laws affect Muslim communities and a commission of inquiry into Islamophobia were also set aside. "Some of them we have adopted in full and are acting on already. Others we'll give further consideration to," Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.
“There is simply no place in Australia, or anywhere in the world, for Islamophobia and racial hatred," Albanese said. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke was more direct about the scale: "Islamophobia is real. It is widespread. It is debilitating. And it is unacceptable.”
The numbers behind the response come from outside government. The Islamophobia Register has recorded more than 2,600 reports since October 2023, a rise it puts at 650 per cent, according to SBS reporting of the register's figures.
Malik, who wrote the report the government has now answered, kept his welcome measured. "For Muslim Australians, who continue to experience Islamophobia in their daily lives, this has been a long wait," he said. The Alliance of Australian Muslims and the Australian National Imams Council issued a joint statement along the same line: "While this response is welcome, much more remains to be done."
The response arrives in a crowded week for the government's parallel tracks on religious hatred. The Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion finished its universities hearings in Melbourne on Friday and resumes on Monday, with its final report due in December. The unadopted Malik recommendations now sit in the further-consideration pile with no stated timetable; whether they return before that December deadline is the next test of how the two processes are being weighed against each other.
