Many people currently in power believe that if we do not talk about race, by literally not using the words, that longstanding societal issues will simply disappear.
Australia used to have a "White Australia Policy". It was introduced in 1901, but began to be progressively relaxed after WW2 before finally being completely abolished in 1973. The policy involved a general ban on non-European immigrants - and even at times Eastern and Southern Europeans too – although it was never exceptionless (e.g. Maori immigration was always allowed, to avoid upsetting New Zealand; originally only Ashkenazi Jews were allowed to immigrate, but in the 1950s they started allowing Middle Eastern Jews as well.)
So, in that respect, Australia does have certain parallels to US history on race; and the dismantling of the White Australia Policy roughly overlaps the US Civil Rights Era, and Australian developments were likely partially influenced by that concurrent struggle in the US.
However, the way post-1973 Australian officialdom responded to the abolition of the White Australian Policy was very different from subsequent developments in the US. The Australian official philosophy was to stop classifying people on the basis of race – the Australian census asks about ancestry, country of birth (for both self and parents), ethnic identity, indigenous status, language, nationality, religion–but never race; all these concepts partially overlap with notions of "race", but none of them can be straightforwardly identified with it. In fact, the Australian Standard Classification of Cultural and Ethnic Groups (ASCCEG), groups ethnicities together based on continent of origin, not "race" – so African-Americans and White Americans are grouped together as "peoples of the Americas", while Egyptians and Kenyans and Afrikaners are all "peoples of Africa".
Now, this decision didn't magically solve all issues with inequality and discrimination in Australia – but did it cause harm? My own honest impression is that, overall, its benefits have likely outweighed the downsides. And, due to the influence of US media, there has been a growing subset of Australians – primarily on the left – who have adopted more US-influenced ways of thinking about and speaking about race and ethnicity – and I'm not convinced that has been beneficial.
Of course, whatever Trump and the GOP are doing isn't necessarily the same thing as what Australian politicians and bureaucrats – on both sides of the political aisle – have done. There are significant differences in context and history. But they aren't completely different either. My own impression as an outside observer of the US, is a lot of narratives which Americans tell themselves (on both sides) make the most sense when you avoid looking at other countries as comparators.
Postscript: inevitably some will respond by bringing Indigneous matters into the discussion–but indigeneity and race are fundamentally different things. To quote Australian Indigenous activist Noel Pearson, "If we were in Lapland, we would be blond and blue-eyed and we’d still be Indigenous.” Consider someone like Dr Gordon Reid MP, the federal Member for Robertson – he publicly identifies as a "proud Wiradjuri man", but physically he appears indistinguishable from Anglo-Celtic Australians.
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Australia used to have a "White Australia Policy". It was introduced in 1901, but began to be progressively relaxed after WW2 before finally being completely abolished in 1973. The policy involved a general ban on non-European immigrants - and even at times Eastern and Southern Europeans too – although it was never exceptionless (e.g. Maori immigration was always allowed, to avoid upsetting New Zealand; originally only Ashkenazi Jews were allowed to immigrate, but in the 1950s they started allowing Middle Eastern Jews as well.)
So, in that respect, Australia does have certain parallels to US history on race; and the dismantling of the White Australia Policy roughly overlaps the US Civil Rights Era, and Australian developments were likely partially influenced by that concurrent struggle in the US.
However, the way post-1973 Australian officialdom responded to the abolition of the White Australian Policy was very different from subsequent developments in the US. The Australian official philosophy was to stop classifying people on the basis of race – the Australian census asks about ancestry, country of birth (for both self and parents), ethnic identity, indigenous status, language, nationality, religion–but never race; all these concepts partially overlap with notions of "race", but none of them can be straightforwardly identified with it. In fact, the Australian Standard Classification of Cultural and Ethnic Groups (ASCCEG), groups ethnicities together based on continent of origin, not "race" – so African-Americans and White Americans are grouped together as "peoples of the Americas", while Egyptians and Kenyans and Afrikaners are all "peoples of Africa".
Now, this decision didn't magically solve all issues with inequality and discrimination in Australia – but did it cause harm? My own honest impression is that, overall, its benefits have likely outweighed the downsides. And, due to the influence of US media, there has been a growing subset of Australians – primarily on the left – who have adopted more US-influenced ways of thinking about and speaking about race and ethnicity – and I'm not convinced that has been beneficial.
Of course, whatever Trump and the GOP are doing isn't necessarily the same thing as what Australian politicians and bureaucrats – on both sides of the political aisle – have done. There are significant differences in context and history. But they aren't completely different either. My own impression as an outside observer of the US, is a lot of narratives which Americans tell themselves (on both sides) make the most sense when you avoid looking at other countries as comparators.
Postscript: inevitably some will respond by bringing Indigneous matters into the discussion–but indigeneity and race are fundamentally different things. To quote Australian Indigenous activist Noel Pearson, "If we were in Lapland, we would be blond and blue-eyed and we’d still be Indigenous.” Consider someone like Dr Gordon Reid MP, the federal Member for Robertson – he publicly identifies as a "proud Wiradjuri man", but physically he appears indistinguishable from Anglo-Celtic Australians.