Australian Human Rights Commission Australia and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), Shadow report to the CERD Committee – 8 July 2010 University, the University of Melbourne, the University of South Australia and Murdoch University. 77. 78. The purpose of the national research project is to: • map (1) racist attitudes and (2) experiences of racism at the local level across Australia • develop current typologies of racism across Australia • develop context sensitive anti-racism strategies to respond to local variations of racism and intolerance across Australia. The research was conducted through national telephone surveys and some of the key findings were that: • around 85 percent of respondents believe that racism is a current issue in Australia • around 20 percent of Australians had experienced forms of race-hate talk (verbal abuse, name-calling, racial slurs, offensive gestures etc) • around 11 percent of respondents identified as having experienced racebased exclusion from their workplaces and/or social activities • Seven percent of respondents identified as having experienced unfair treatment • Six percent of respondents reported that they had experienced physical attacks based on their race and/or traditional dress. • race typologies and racist behaviour varies across local government areas and requires context sensitive/specific responses. 72 79. The Mapping Cohesion Report (Scanlon Foundation surveys) found that one in ten Australians experienced discrimination based on the grounds of ethnicity or religion during 2006-2007. The Mapping Cohesion Report 2009 found that one in ten Australians hold strongly negative views on cultural diversity and immigration. 73 Around six percent of respondents experienced discrimination on a continuing basis, that is, at least once per month. 74 80. In the Scanlon Foundation local surveys over half of the respondents whose first language was Mandarin, Cantonese or Vietnamese report experience of discrimination periodically over the course of their lives. 75 81. In 2008-2009 the Australian Human Rights Commission received 396 complaints under the RDA, including 50 racial hatred complaints. 76 This data cannot be considered as reliably indicative of people’s experiences of racial discrimination in Australia. 82. The data emerging from the Challenging Racism Project and the findings from the Scanlon Foundation surveys is concerning given the significant 25