Contemporary manifestations on racism in Australia

In 1996, the "Geographies of Racism in Australia" project was initiated. At the time, the One Nation Party inspired "Race Debate" was being waged, not only in Queensland but also nationally. This had followed Hanson's infamous maiden speech, but also Howard's very late and weak rebuke, and the media's own visceral fascination with Hanson. There was a lot of discussion at the time of the difference between bush and city attitudes, between elites and battlers, etc. There was some older research on the differences in attitudes of country and city folk. But the work was dated, and we perceived an important research project on racist attitudes. Some pilot work had indicated that the mix of racisms in each region also looked quite unique (Dunn & McDonald 1999). It was at the level of localities that racism varied most dramatically, not by whether someone was an urbanite or a ruralite. This regionally varied frequency and nature of racism is critical to thinking about the public policy response: anti-racism needs to be geographically sensitive