Democracy in Colour says law and order fear is being used as a smokescreen to avoid debate on issues that matter to more people

Voters in marginal Victorian seats such as Frankston are used to candidates knocking on their doors. But this state election has seen a new group of door-knockers keen to educate and influence public opinion before polling day on 24 November.

For months, Democracy In Colour, an advocacy organisation led by people from racial and ethnic minorities, has been telling voters that some state and federal politicians are trying to use Melbourne’s “racialised crime panic” as a smokescreen.

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“Our campaign is pretty simple,” founder and national director Tim Lo Surdo says. “It’s based on the idea that politicians only speak one language and that’s ‘votes, margins, electorates and narratives’. So we are speaking that language and telling all political parties, ‘If you use our communities as scapegoats, if you weaponise our differences, there will be consequences at the ballot box.’

“We’re doing a lot of door-knocking, a lot of phone banks, a lot of creative actions and having thousands of conversations with Frankston constituents around the issues that have been crowded out.”

Lo Surdo, a 24-year old former head of campaigns at the anti-poverty organisation Oaktree, says the issues that matter to voters relate to investment in local community projects. Yet many feel those issues – such as investment in local sport and protecting the bay and Frankston’s beaches – have been drowned out by racialised fear-mongering.

“We’re organising in this electorate because we know that, whichever party wants to form government, they need to win Frankston,” he says. “And these communities aren’t going to be thrown under the bus. They are holding candidates accountable.”

At the centre of much of the inflammatory political comment and media coverage is Melbourne’s Sudanese community. According to the most recent census, the 11,000-strong community makes up about 0.1% of the state’s population but data from Victoria’s Crime Statistic Agency (CSA) indicates they are overrepresented in some crimes, including robbery (8.5%), riot and affray (4.9%) and burglary (3.8%).

However, CSA data also reveals that the Sudanese-Australian community only accounts for 1% of unique alleged offenders. Australian-born people made up 71.3% of the unique alleged offender population in Victoria between April 2017 and March 2018.

Another contributing factor to the statistics is the younger profile of the state’s Sudanese-Australian population. About 42% of the community is aged under 25 years. Among this group, there are are high levels of social disadvantage and disengagement.

It’s not just the Sudanese-Australian youth who claim they are being targeted. About 40,000 Victorians identify as being of African ancestry and community legal centres are reporting a 50% increase in racist attacks this year.



In July, the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission reported a 34% jump in race discrimination reports in the state, while another study found that the language used by state and federal ministers on law and order in Melbourne has contributed to an overrepresentation in police stops of people of African appearance.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jeanette Nkrumah, Neha Madhok and Tim Lo Surdo of Democracy in Colour. Photograph: Democracy in Colour/The Guardian

Complaints about racial profiling were central in a long-running case between a number of African young men and Victoria police. The men argued they were regularly stopped by police “for no legitimate policing reason, and were subjected to racial discrimination, including assaults, racial taunts and abuse, and racial profiling”.



Civil rights advocates also warn racial profiling extends to the state Labor government’s bill to introduce new anti-association laws. There is widespread concern that the new laws will unnecessarily bring youths from these communities into increased contact with the justice system. Under similar laws in New South Wales, police used the powers in a racially discriminatory way with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children most targeted.



Ruth Barson, director of legal advocacy at the Human Rights Law Centre, has described the proposed legislation as “senseless, dangerous and a sign that Premier Andrews is pandering to Mathew Guy’s toxic law and order agenda”.



“We should all be free to decide who we spend our time with and who we want to be friends with,” Barson said in September. “Every single Victorian should be worried about these laws because they’re excessive and ripe for abuse.”

Democracy In Colour’s two-months long campaign in Frankston has included raising awareness about the reduction in Victoria’s overall crime rate, Lo Surdo says, pointing out that “Victoria is safer than it’s been in a decade”. Jeanette Nkrumah, another Democracy in Colour campaigner, says door-knocking has revealed that increasing numbers of people have experienced racial abuse in the workplace and on the street, with some families too scared to engage with the broader community. According to Nkrumah, engagement with the election among diverse African-Australian communities varies because of racism.

“Sometimes, [the motivation] is not about engagement with the election but engagement with the issues that impact us most,” she says. “People who are interested in other issues such as transport, the environment and school funding, but the smokescreen of the crime narrative is a fight that we have to engage in first, before the lack of infrastructure or the lack of community funding. In that way, we’re being affected two-fold.

“When your body is politicised, it can feel like you have no choice but to opt out of the system.”

That predicament has mobilised people like Nakel Kok Rue, a young South Sudanese woman from Melbourne’s south-east whose program “Let’s Talk” tackles youth suicide within the African-Australian community. Rue says her program was sparked by personal concerns over the number of young South Sudanese taking their own lives.

At least four young South Sudanese men and women between the ages of 19 and 24 have committed suicide this year, with the last two occurring within weeks of each other, and Rue says she is afraid that it will “keep happening if she doesn’t speak about issues like mental health.”

She wants young South Sudanese people to lead programs for the community, rather than rely on schemes run by outside organisations where South Sudanese can often be treated as mere numbers.

Rue believes South Sudanese community organisations are better placed to deal with issues because they are trusted and have “real compassion and understanding.” She describes the current funding models that direct money to white organisations as “disempowering” and having “a negative effect on community”.

Democracy in Colour is not the only group led by people of colour countering racism in this election. Colour Code, the First Nations and migrant-led arm of GetUp, launched their #NoRacismInPolitics campaign after the Victorian Liberal party handed out fliers that used racialised language and imagery to generate fear around black gangs. The leaflets warned that “only the Liberals will stop gangs hunting in packs” and was accompanied by a shadowy image of five young men in hoodies gathered together on a street.



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Last week, on the steps of Victoria’s Parliament House, the group released a statement linking 30 community organisations and calling for equitable representation and self-determination in government, parliament and the media; an end to racial vilification and discrimination in employment, and the health and legal systems; the right to practice culture and speak language without prejudice; and denounces far-right racist groups and individuals.

“A lot of the communities that we represent have been silenced by the political system,” says the senior campaigner for the group, Roj Amedi. “This election we’re holding politicians to account and intend to penalise any who discriminate against us.”

Amedi says Colour Code has members from a broad range of migrant communities across Australia, including strong representation from First Nations and South Sudanese communities. Minority communities, she says, account for about 25% of the national population when united and, as a constituency, should be more respected by the major parties.

“If one community is facing vilification or exclusion, then all of us are facing it. People of colour are realising that we’re better united and far more powerful. But even though our collective demographic adds up to a quarter of Australia’s population, that’s not represented in our parliament, or in our leadership. That needs to shift.”