83-86% support multiculturalism, 63% support immigration: report

The Federations of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia (FECCA) said today that the Scanlon Foundation’s 2017 Mapping Social Cohesion Report, shows continuing strong support in Australia for multiculturalism, and positive attitudes toward immigration.

The report shows that support for the proposition that ‘multiculturalism has been good for Australia’ remains in the 83-86 per cent range.

And 63 per cent of respondents believe that ‘accepting immigrants from many different countries makes Australia stronger’.

This continues to be a positive story. The overwhelming majority of Australians, whether born in Australia or overseas, accept that multiculturalism is good for this country and has always been good for this country.”

However, the report had also found that in ten years, those who reported discrimination on the basis of their skin colour, ethnic origin or religion had almost doubled, up from 9 per cent in 2007 to 20 per cent in 2017.
“This, and the continuing high levels of negative feeling towards Muslims, is very disturbing,” Ms Patetsos, chairperson of the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia said.
“Given Australians’ overwhelming support for immigration and multiculturalism, our political leaders need to step up to the mark and address racist attitudes in this country, even if those views are held by a minority.”

“And minor, extremist political parties which stoke racism should be shunned.”

Ms Patetsos said that FECCA played an important role in encouraging an inclusive and harmonious multicultural Australian society and protecting the interests of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) Australians.

“We’re proud that this year we have worked hard to oppose both the attempted watering down of hate speech laws as well as unfair new citizenship legislation,” Ms Patetsos said.

FECCA is the national peak body representing Australians from CALD backgrounds. FECCA’s role is to advocate and promote issues on behalf of its constituency to government, business and the broader community.

By K. Dev