Are Aussies really racist?

A LEADING researcher has questioned methods used in a survey on race and ethnicity, which claimed it had uncovered disturbing levels of prejudice in Australia.

Challenging Racism, a University of Western Sydney study, which questioned 12,500 people, found almost nine out of 10 Australians support cultural diversity and racial equality and feel secure in an ethnically varied society, but some 10 per cent are “racist”.

An unsettling finding for Jews was that around a quarter of Australians apparently expressed anti-Semitic sentiments.

But Professor Andrew Markus (pictured), who led a national survey on social cohesion in 2007, said Challenging Racism was based on “very flawed” assumptions from responses to two key questions.

Respondents were presented with a list of ethnic groups and asked “how concerned would you feel if one of your close relatives were to marry a person of [that group]?”

But that question was really about identity and survival of the group, said Prof Markus, who advises the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.

“It’s a huge jump to make the conclusion that the person is racist,” he explained.

But the Jewish community can take some solace. Negative responses towards the religion were low in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs and Melbourne’s south-east, the two heaviest areas of Jewish population.

The study also claimed around half the survey group were “anti-Muslim”.

Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) president John Searle said he was not surprised to hear that anti-Semitism exists, but added that vilification of Jews does not seem to be increasing.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry member Ian Lacey complimented the university for conducting the long-term, in-depth study.

However, he criticised the report for failing to properly confront vilification against Jews.

“It is interesting that the menaces confronting the Jewish community barely rate a mention,” Lacey said. “The question is whether this should be seen as reassuring – nobody in Western Sydney even notices our problems – or is it perhaps that the academics find anti-Semitism just too difficult to tangle with?”

PETER KOHN