Feedback on the concept paper for a national anti-racism framework First Nations first Across the National Anti-Racism Framework project consultations and public submissions, the Commission received staunch and consistent feedback that a framework must prioritise the experiences of First Nations peoples. This feedback came from First Nations focussed and led organisations and community members, as well as from non-Indigenous organisations and community members. There was clear consensus that the experiences of First Nations peoples, historical and ongoing, are threshold issues for a national approach to anti-racism. A significant number of consultation participants and those who made submissions to the Commission during the initial scoping process noted that a national anti-racism framework must acknowledge the ongoing impacts of European colonisation on First Nations peoples. Recognition of Australia’s status as a colonised state based on racial policies was identified as crucial. Many flagged that past discriminatory policies and laws, such as the White Australia Policy, have not been acknowledged and their impacts addressed; nor has current discrimination been characterised as connected to, and a direct result of, this history. Racism is one of Australia’s biggest exports. From the 1897 Queensland Protection Act which informed South African apartheid legislation, to the development of brutal refugee detention policies which have been taken up around the world, this nation-state has been a leader in maintaining a racially divided world. It must be held accountable not just for the racist violence it enacts and legitimises here, but its active support for racist and colonial regimes elsewhere, such as in Palestine and West Papua. Institutions that are part of the Australian state must confront this legacy and ongoing reality before assuming they have the moral authority to mitigate racism in Australian society. — submission from Sisters Inside and the Institute for Collaborative Race Research, NARF project, May 2021 – April 2022 First Nations peoples have long advocated for truth-telling as foundational to addressing racism in the Australian context. Professor Megan Davis and Professor Gabrielle Appleby have argued that the absence of genuine acknowledgement of the historical realities of First Nations peoples’ experiences serves to perpetuate political and community sentiments of indifference and denial of Australia’s history, hindering reconciliation efforts.1 The Commission’s Bringing Them Home report and, more recently, Commissioner June Oscar’s Wiyi Yani U Thangani Report have amplified community calls for truth-telling in an anti-racism context. National Anti-Racism Framework Scoping Report 2022 | 49