Opening Statement - Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee

Thank you, Chair.

Since this committee last met in May, Muslim Australians have kept confronting the same question: can they take part fully in Australian life, practice their faith and keep their children safe, without being held collectively responsible for acts they had nothing to do with?

There has been real progress in addressing this. On 18 July, the Government responded to my National Response to Islamophobia, with commitments across education, community safety, social cohesion and accountability. The Islamophobia Education Taskforce has met three times. In June, my Office launched the Australian Muslim Poll, a major new research project to better understand Muslim Australian’s own sense of wellbeing, identity, and belonging. In September, my Office also launched the National Islamophobia Index, which will build the first national evidence base on attitudes towards Muslims and Islam.

But announcements are not outcomes. The test is whether the lives of Muslim Australians measurably improve.

In the past two months, events overseas and nationally have bought two words to the fore; terrorism and extremism. Terrorism and violence are unacceptable, including when committed by Muslims. 

These acts must be condemned unequivocally and without excuse.

That condemnation also applies to words. 

In a sermon given in July and reported last month, a Melbourne preacher told his congregation not to take Jews and Christians as friends and spoke of an obligation to “take up arms” against enemies. He has since explained that he did not advocate for harm to befall anyone. 

There is no place in Australia for inciting hatred or sewing social disharmony from any pulpit, in any faith. 

In September, the co-pilot of flydubai flight 1073 allegedly attacked his captain mid-flight. United Arab Emirates’ authorities allege that in addition to reading extremist literature and following extremist online content, he was radicalised while he was studying in Melbourne and was acquainted with people linked to a Melbourne Mosque almost a decade ago. 

Events abroad now land at home. If anyone in Australia played a part, they must be held to account. 

When we talk of radicalisation, we must do so responsibly. 

It means recognising that radicalisation has multiple pathways and not treating religion as its only cause. 

It means not stoking fear or creating a moral panic over how Muslims may choose to dress, where they worship or partake in communal activities.

It means seeing ordinary Muslims as Australians and not as suspects.

Laws must target offenders, not isolate or interrogate all Muslims. Political leaders must not generalise about Australian Muslims. Media coverage must not scapegoat Muslims or Islam. When these lines are crossed, the result is suspicion, marginalisation, disenfranchisement and, most dangerously, a license to abuse people because they are Muslim, or are assumed to be.

Children bear the heaviest cost. 

Consider the experience of Janna, a year 8 student who only last month was subjected to a frightening and hateful Islamophobic assault while on a bus in Sydney, defending another student. Janna was called a ‘terrorist’ and ‘immigrant dog’ by a 50-year-old man. 

This by no means is an isolated event. 

Islamophobic abuse includes Muslim children called terrorist at school, and Muslim teachers verbally abused by random members of the public. It’s facing harassment and intimidation from your neighbour. 

It’s being physically attacked, threatened with rape, and being spat at. Its pregnant Muslim women being called “ISIS bombers.” 

It’s being abused on public transport, having your hijab forcefully pulled off, and when cemeteries are desecrated, worshippers threatened, and violent, hateful messages are sent to mosques and schools. 

Islamophobia can strike when you are driving your car or parking it. When you are shopping, or taking a stroll on the beach or at the park.

These all highlight that Islamophobia isn’t just an abstract political debate—it is a real, physical threat targeting ordinary Australians for who they are, and not what they have done. 

As Derya Iner and Linda Briskman have recently shown, children internalise this all, and rather than “developing a secure sense of identity, some are learning to conceal who they are, and feel shame instead.” 

So, we must hold two responsibilities at once and recognise one fact: condemn violence and hatred without hesitation, and protect innocent people from discrimination and intimidation, while acknowledging speaking about this wrongly, fuels anti-Muslim prejudice, hatred, and discrimination.

Thank you. 

Aftab Malik
Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia