Published: 18 September 2025
Last updated: 18 September 2025
The report into Islamophobia, released last week by the government-appointed envoy Aftab Malik, spells out in harsh detail the scale of prejudice and hostility towards Muslims in Australia.
The report is welcome. Animosity towards Muslims errupted internationally after September 11 and the extent to which it has entrenched itself is a cause for concern. There is no place for racial and ethnic prejudice of any sort in Australia, and Jews recognise this as much as any Australians.
The envoy made a comprehensive raft of recommendations to address Islamophobia, and the government will take its time in assessing how many of Malik’s 54 recommendations it will implement – as it has with the antisemitism plan released by Jillian Segal in July.
But the Islamophobia report generated little of the controversy that followed the antisemitism report. Segal's report was criticised for the punishments it recommended for institutional failure to address antisemitism, and for the IHRA definition of antisemitism that it said should be adopted across all of government.
Critical silences
Nevertheless, Malik’s response contains key omissions that have been glossed by earlier media reportage. They revolve around what constitutes Islamophobia and how to define it. Malik addressed the nub of the issue with the very first line of his introduction: “Many may find it surprising to learn that there is no universally accepted definition of Islamophobia”.
