5. Key findings This section summarises the high-level key findings of the research. Key Finding 1: Avoiding ‘racism’ Overall, there is a reluctance on the part of government to use the term ‘racism’. Government preference over the past decade for the use of ‘social cohesion’ has weakened approaches to anti-racism work. There is a current lack of a systemic government-led strengths-based, inter-sectional and coordinated approach to addressing racism in Australian society. Key Finding 2: Failure to measure impact Work that is being done is failing to enter public awareness in any meaningful way. Limited or no monitoring and evaluation means there is little or no impact assessment of work already being undertaken, including government funded programs run by community organisations. Key Finding 3: Blaming the victim There remains a focus on victims and/or those communities experiencing racism or racist behaviours to ‘fix the problem’ with little or no focus on the broader community to address the issue. Key Finding 4: Ad hoc, disjointed, disconnected and reactive Government work at all levels appears to be ad-hoc, disjointed, often disconnected from other similar approaches, and frequently reactive to situations arising domestically or internationally. Such work is heavily siloed and there is a lack of whole of government approaches that are not reliant on the Australian Human Rights Commission, as a small authority, to lead and drive. Lack of coherence and direction across government agencies and between governments is apparent. This is also the case across sectors considered in this research – government, nongovernment organisations and academia. Victoria is an example of where cross-sectoral approaches can work – when academic experts, government agencies and local councils are aware of and leverage each other’s experience and expertise. Key Finding 5: Focus on internal staffing strategies The most common work across agencies and tiers of government is internally focused in the form of diversity, equity and inclusion strategies and programs aimed at First Nations and CALD staff, alongside people living with disability and women. However, some of this work has been in place for more than a decade and little to no focus is directly on addressing racism in the workplace - rather, racism is part of an overall ‘basket’ of issues to be considered. Reconciliation Action Plans have the capacity to shift 61