Alike to many of the other colonies of the British empire their initial arrival to the Australian landmass would lead to the destruction of the aboriginal population, the native residents of the land. Following this issue discrimination was a prominent issue among many of the colonies through laws, segregation, and other means to remove them from the society. Throughout the previous few decades many laws have been overturned or adjusted to solve many of these discriminatory issues such as the ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination, or CERD, in 1975.

With the assistance of law reform many forms of discrimination became illegal. Despite this there have always been racist individuals in Australia directing their hatred towards the Aboriginal people. Though it maintained a relatively low level, the pandemic and along with that quarantine would cause the level of racist events and discriminatory encounters would increase. Due to the impact on social norms the quarantine forced many into, along with political extremes becoming a more prominent part of politics, those with the desire to preserve traditional values including the racism ingrained into them would become much more prominent. A survey conducted over the course of several years by researchers at Monash University concluded that many of the recent years since 2019 there has been a significantly higher level of these encounters.

Funded by a social movement called Inclusive Australia this research was believed to be first and foremost a Covid response. Board member of Inclusive Australia, Yorta Yorta man Ian Hamm stated this on the matter “I think it’s a bit of a Covid reaction because, when we look at the past 12 months, there has been a fair bit of tribalism, for want of a better word, where people retreated to their particular patches. And probably, regrettably, a bit of intolerance was shown,”. While this is a common event in every country with the rise of these political extremes, in Australia it may seem less prominent due to the shocking 3.1% the native aboriginal people hold in the total population. Among them nearly 20% being impoverished and 5% earning a living wage that can qualify as an upper-level salary. These issues combine make for a significantly less prominent issue among the multitude of other issues we hear globally but nonetheless it requires constant attention and necessary action to maintain a better lifestyle for the native people.