Opposing racism – we’re stronger together

It's classic divide and rule: politicians and the media get us fighting among ourselves while the billionaires laugh all the way to the bank. It's no accident that racism against migrants is being promoted on the right at a time when the average wealth of the richest 20 percent has climbed to more than 90 times the wealth of the lowest 20 percent. Racism is used to shift the blame for problems in society that have been created by class exploitation. The ruling class also uses divide and rule to manage and reduce working class resistance. We have to counter racism with working-class unity and solidarity because without it, all working people will keep going backwards while the rich get richer at our expense.

What we think

1. Victoria’s working class has a common interest in securing decent wages, guaranteed housing, quality public healthcare, welfare and education which means we have an interest in fighting against divisions created within our ranks.
2. Racism is not simply individual prejudice; racial oppression is structured through the social, economic and political features of capitalism.
3. Racism primarily serves the richest and most powerful people in society by:
   1. Dividing working people and generating mistrust and animosity between us.
   2. Obscuring the main causes of poverty, and social and economic inequality.
   3. Naturalising the idea that social hierarchies are normal and inevitable.
   4. Creating a layer of poorly paid and insecure workers whose precarity creates a downward pressure on the wages in the same and related industries.

We’ll fight to

Political commitments

1. Actively oppose all attempts by politicians and media to use racial scapegoating of migrants, refugees, Muslims, African Australians, Chinese Australians or any other community to deflect from failures on wages, housing, healthcare and the cost of living.
2. Declare Victoria a sanctuary state and prohibit Victoria Police and Protective Services Officers from collaborating with or assisting Australian Border Force in any operations related to the deportation of refugees, asylum seekers or other non-citizens.

Migrant and refugee services

1. Increase funding to specialist community legal services to ensure refugees, asylum seekers and migrant workers can access legal assistance for visa and immigration issues.
2. Hold an inquiry into the exploitation of migrant workers in the Victorian economy and investigate and prosecute all instances of abuse, safety breaches and systematic underpayment.
3. Support efforts to unionise migrant workers.
4. Provide employment and training support programmes for refugees and migrants.
5. Ensure adequate, free and readily accessible English language courses for all who wish to take them.
6. Increase access to interpreters and translators across education, health, social services and the criminal justice system.

Structural anti-racism

1. Enforce and strengthen protections against racial discrimination in the private rental market, including by establishing a proactive investigation unit within the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission rather than relying solely on individual complaints, which are consistently under-reported and under-pursued.
2. Improve access to affordable childcare, healthcare, aged care and other social services in communities with high migrant and refugee populations.
3. Significantly increase funding for multicultural community organisations, community language programmes and cultural infrastructure, with particular investment in outer suburban areas where these communities are concentrated but services are sparse.

The Importance of community languages

Despite the diversity of migrant communities, Australia is known as the "graveyard of languages". Second generation language loss is a key marker of assimilationist policies. This is built into the monolingual education system in Australia, where language learning is minimised and built around languages for "international business". Aboriginal languages are tokenistically acknowledged and community languages dismissed. Without language diversity, multiculturalism is reduced to food and festivals.

We’ll fight to

1. Integrate community language education into teaching qualifications; building multilingual learning into pedagogical practice.
2. Fund community language programs in early childhood, based on community needs and interest.
3. Replace the current LOTE system by a systematic program of community language (bi and multilingual) learning in targeted schools and communities, open to all students by choice.