Two Reports Australia Should Be Talking About
Reports front the Australian Islamophobia Envoy
I won’t be surprised if two of the most significant contributions to Australian public policy attract little detailed attention.
Both were produced by Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia, Aftab Malik. The first, the National Response to Islamophobia, presents a comprehensive policy framework containing 59 recommendations. It was tabled in September 2025. The government response has only appeared now. The second, How Can the Healing Begin? Islamophobia, Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion after Bondi, is an extended reflection on prejudice, identity and the challenge of rebuilding trust between Muslim and Jewish Australians after one of the darkest moments in recent Australian history.
The likely contrast with the attention given to the reports of the Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism (ASECA) will be striking.
Perhaps that is because they resist the simple narratives that dominate public discussion. They are neither culture-war manifestos nor advocacy documents. Instead, they present nuanced reflections on racism, social cohesion and multiculturalism. That makes them more demanding to read, but also more valuable.
The Government’s response to the National Response to Islamophobia is revealing. It has accepted 35 of the report’s 59 recommendations, embracing practical measures such as community safety, education, research, consultation and institutional capacity. At the same time, it rejected the report’s principal proposals for structural legal reform, including a Commission of Inquiry into anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism, changes to terrorism legislation and broader reforms to religious vilification laws.
The pattern suggests a government comfortable funding programs and strengthening services, but more cautious when proposals affect Australia’s legal and national security architecture.
Implementation therefore becomes the crucial question. Will the accepted recommendations receive sufficient funding? Will Palestinian Australians see their experiences recognised? How will these initiatives interact with the recommendations emerging from the Royal Commission into Antisemitism? These questions remain unresolved.
The report also prompts uncomfortable reflections. Had a Bondi-type attack targeted Muslims rather than Jews, would Australia’s response have been different? Conversely, following the attempted neo-Nazi attack on Muslims, has funding for Muslim community security been adequate? Equally, without the Gaza war, would Muslim alienation or Jewish insecurity be as intense as they are today? Such questions cannot be answered definitively, but they remind us that Australian experiences of racism cannot be separated from international conflict.
One of the report’s most thought-provoking features is that many passages describing Muslim experiences could equally describe Jewish experiences. Replace the word Muslim with Jew and familiar themes emerge: fear, exclusion, harassment and declining trust in public institutions.
Recognising these parallels does not suggest that antisemitism and Islamophobia are identical. Their histories and contemporary manifestations differ. Rather, it reminds us that the lived experiences of both communities deserve to be taken seriously.
This is particularly important given the tendency in some political circles to interpret Jewish fears primarily through the lens of Zionism and thus discount their validity. During the Royal Commission into Antisemitism, Jewish testimony about insecurity has been treated by some left commentators less as lived experience than as an expression of political ideology. Malik’s report implicitly rejects that approach by beginning with the experiences of those affected rather than with ideological assumptions.
At the same time, the report recognises important differences, including the seriousness and impact of the Bondi massacres. Muslim Australians continue to face sustained political attacks from sections of the populist right. Muslim women experience disproportionately high levels of abuse and harassment. Overall, despite problems with data, there appear to be more attacks against Muslim and Jews. There have been arrests for planned acts of terror, and mosques have been attacked. Stereotypes linking Islam with terrorism, together with the effects of October 7 and the Gaza war, have intensified feelings of vulnerability. Yet the attention remains on the fears of Jewish community, but not on the problems for both communities at a difficult time. As I write, Pauline Hanson is mouthing off about Muslims
Reading the report alongside ASECA’s recommendations and the Australian Jewish Democratic Society’s submission to the Royal Commission highlights two distinct approaches to combating racism.
The Islamophobia report adopts a broad structural perspective. It situates anti-Muslim prejudice within Australia’s multicultural and anti-racism framework and emphasises education, participation, consultation and partnership across government and civil society.
ASECA reflects a different philosophy. Its primary concern is institutional protection against antisemitism through regulation, education, enforcement and the widespread adoption of the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism. It relies heavily on the contested IHRA examples while giving relatively little recognition to the political diversity that exists within Australia’s Jewish community, including Zionist, non-Zionist and anti-Zionist perspectives, or that Israel’s actions may cause antisemitism.
The Government’s responses reinforce these differing approaches. The Islamophobia strategy emphasises social inclusion, multiculturalism and community participation. The ASECA response places greater emphasis on specialised institutional protection, regulation and heavy-handed compliance focussed on one community.
Taken together, they suggest that Australia could be developing two distinct models of anti-racism. One is centred on inclusion and social cohesion; the other on institutional protection and enforcement. Will these approaches eventually converge into an integrated national anti-racism strategy, or will Australia continue to develop parallel policy architectures for different forms of racism?
The companion publication, of the Islamophobia Envoy, How Can the Healing Begin?, deserves even wider readership. It reads less like a government report than a thoughtful insider essay exploring how trust might be rebuilt between Muslim and Jewish Australians after the Bondi murders. It should be republished as a Quarterly Essay
Its greatest strength is its refusal to accept simplistic binaries. It rejects both Islamophobia and antisemitism while carefully distinguishing mainstream Islam from violent extremism. Equally, it acknowledges the reality of Jewish fear following October 7 while documenting the consequences of Islamophobia for Muslim Australians. Rather than encouraging competing narratives of victimhood, it argues that both communities have a shared interest in resisting collective blame and rebuilding relationships.
The report also challenges political opportunism, particularly anti-Muslim rhetoric from figures such as Pauline Hanson. In doing so, it reminds readers that prejudice is not simply a matter of individual attitudes but is shaped by political leadership and public discourse.
For anyone concerned with the future of Australia’s multicultural democracy, these reports deserve to be read together. One asks what governments should do to combat Islamophobia. The other asks how Australians might begin repairing relationships fractured by violence, fear and political polarisation.
These reports demonstrate the value of careful analysis, empathy and complexity. They deserve to be widely read and discussed.