Between 13 November 2020 and 11 February 2021, an online national survey of 2003 Asian Australians was conducted to measure the type and frequency of self-identified Asian Australians’ experiences of racism during the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey also aimed to gauge the relationships between racist experiences and targets’ mental health, wellbeing and sense of belonging. In this paper, we report findings on the type and frequency of online racist experiences and their associations with mental health, wellbeing and belonging. The survey found that 40 per cent of participants experienced racism during the COVID-19 pandemic. Within that group, 66 per cent experienced racism online. The demographic pattern of those most likely to experience online racism were younger age groups, males, those born in Australia, English speakers at home, non-Christians, and migrants who have been in Australia less than 20 years. Analysis also found a strong correlation between Asian Australians’ experiences of online racism and poor mental health, wellbeing and belonging. The relationship between experiencing racism, non-belonging and morbidity were more pronounced for those who experienced online racism compared to those who experienced racism in other offline contexts. This points to the corrosive nature of online racism on social cohesion, health and belonging.

Between July and August 2015, and in November 2016, the Challenging Racism Project team conducted an online survey to measure the extent and variation of racist attitudes and experiences in Australia. The survey comprised a sample of 6001 Australian residents, which was largely representative of the Australian population. The survey gauged Australians’ attitudes toward cultural diversity, intolerance of specific groups, immigration, perceptions of Anglo-Celtic cultural privilege, and belief in racialism, racial separatism and racial hierarchy. In this paper we report findings on respondents’ views on cultural diversity, nation and migration. The majority of Australians are pro-diversity. However, we also acknowledge conflicting findings such as strong support for assimilation and identification of ‘out groups’. The findings paint a complex picture of attitudes towards cultural diversity, nation and migration in Australia. The attitudes reflect contradictory political trends of celebrated diversity, triumphalist claims about freedom, alongside pro-assimilationist views and stoked Islamophobia. This is within the context of a stalled multicultural project that has not sufficiently challenged assimilationist assumptions and Anglo-privilege.

Nationwide surveys in 2015–16 in Australia collected data on experiences of racism in various spheres of everyday life, including housing. Of 6,001 respondents, 843 were of an Asian birthplace or background, and 638 spoke an Asian language. These Asian Australians had double the rate of experience of racism than had other Australians, in the form of racist mistrust, disrespect, and name‐calling (70% vs 35%). When renting or buying a house, almost six in ten (58%) Asian‐born participants had experienced discrimination to some extent because of their culture or religion. While 81 per cent of non‐Asian Australians report there is no racism in housing, the proportion reporting this among the Asian‐born participants was only 42 per cent. Those born in Australia but with Asian parents have the same exposure to racism, whereas those with only one parent born in Asia had an exposure closer to those with no Asian connection. “Racial” appearance plays a role in the racism experienced in relation to buying or renting housing. Racism in such a context limits Asian Australians' access to space and curtails the making of non‐Anglo place, which leads to the conclusion that land and housing are crucibles of racist nationalism.

There is a perception that Indigenous Australians are uneasy with or distrustful of multiculturalism. Such unease has been attributed to the problematic positioning of Indigeneity within immigrant focused concepts of multiculturalism and its associated policies in a settler society. What are the attitudinal implications of this concern? There has been scant research on Indigenous Australians' attitudes to cultural diversity. Nationwide survey findings reveal that despite perceived concerns with multiculturalism, Indigenous people are not uneasy with cultural diversity as such. In fact, Indigenous respondents are largely supportive of diversity, which is one of the central tenets of multiculturalism. In most respects their attitudes on cultural diversity and views on old racisms are similar to those of non-Indigenous Australians. Indigenous Australians are, however, more likely than non-Indigenous Australians to recognise the problems of racism generally and Anglo-Celtic cultural privilege.

The relationship between nationally unified calls for immigration restriction in the White Australia period and the emergence of an imagined national identity has been the focus of much valuable historical research. Through the method of content analysis, a geographical lens was used to re-examine the Commonwealth Parliamentary debates regarding the development of the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 and to provide empirical support to the existing scholarship. The content analysis provided statistical evidence for the ways in which immigration restriction in this specific historical context was legitimised and rationalised by social constructions that reproduced racisms. Constructions of the Self and the Other were fundamental in defining exclusion and inclusion during the White Australia era. The national Self was complexly defined by overlapping constructions of the Self as Australian, British (racially and culturally) and White. This is indicative of the tensions and negotiations between national interests and cultural, historical and 'racial' ties to Britain at the time. Additionally, content analysis provided nuanced insight into the ways in which the designation of inherent (and diametrically opposing) racial attributes to the White Self and non-White Other justified the ways in which 'they' were different from 'us'. In this way the Other was characterised as an intrinsic threat to the development of the nation and the wellbeing of its peoples. 'We', on the other hand, were integral to the development of White Australia.