Islamophobia Register Australia calls for targeted funding 

SYDNEY, Australia (MNTV) – Australia’s only national service dedicated to tracking anti-Muslim hatred has been pushed to its brink amid a spike in Islamophobia and a lack of sustainable funding, reports NT News. 

Islamophobia Register Australia Executive Director Aishah Ali told NewsWire the organization had “hundreds of high-risk cases stuck in a backlog” because it simply did not have enough resources to manage the workload any faster. 

To fund its victim advocacy work over the last 12 months, the organization has relied on rollover funding from a Commonwealth social cohesion grant provided in 2024-25 in response to a spike in Islamophobia after Oct. 7, 2023.

“These are cases of children being physically accosted, visibly Muslim women being attacked, these are serious and violent assaults, many of which are traumatic, high-risk cases but we just can’t get through it all ourselves, as hard as we try,” Ms Ali said.

The team at the Register is made up of three part-time staff at the core of victim support and research operations, as well as a contracted wellbeing co-ordinator who works in youth education.

A state grant administered by Multicultural New South Wales provides support for youth education programs but does not cover the Register’s core operations or academic research.

“We have put out a recent call out for volunteers as in-kind support is the only viable option at this stage,” Ms Ali said. 

“It is unfairly placing pressure and expectation on a vulnerable community to support itself from harm perpetuated against it.”

Ms Ali said the Register is inundated with reports from across Australia of active threats to community safety which pose “considerable harm physically, mentally and emotionally” to the nation’s Muslim community.

“We believe this warrants a consistent national response and targeted funding to ensure that all communities are equally afforded protection and safety on an ongoing basis,” she said.

In September last year, Islamophobia Envoy Aftab Malik handed down a landmark report into anti-Muslim hatred which made 59 recommendations.

These included establishing a federal inquiry into Islamophobia, setting up a funding program to safely secure Muslim institutions, as well as a national education program to tackle systemic bias in tertiary institutions. The government has yet to respond to the report.

‘Falling short’

Lawmakers Mehreen Faruqi and Fatima Payman, two of parliament’s few Muslim politicians, are deeply concerned at the Register’s situation and called on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to take stronger action to support the community.

Senator Faruqi told NewsWire the organization’s funding struggles sent Australian Muslims the message that “our lives and our safety simply do not matter”.

“The Albanese Labor Government has found more than $600 million for measures to combat anti-Semitism, yet the Islamophobia Register has to be run by overstretched volunteers while anti-Muslim hate grows and festers,” she said.

“Keeping people safe is one of the government’s most basic responsibilities. The Islamophobia Register is doing the work that the government should have been doing all along: protecting communities, documenting hate and taking action to stem it.

“Muslim Australians should not be this country’s punching bag, vilified for political expediency, courted for votes, and then abandoned when they need protection,” she said.

“Is the government waiting for a Christchurch-style massacre to happen in Australia before it takes any action to combat anti-Muslim hate?”

Senator Payman said the government was failing to help Australian Muslims feel safe, and accused it of allowing Islamophobic sentiment to fester “unabated”.

“Whether it’s not providing sufficient funding for bodies tackling racism and Islamophobia like the register, or not having a clear message on condemning the perpetrators of such violence and hate, the government is falling short in its pursuit of ‘social cohesion’,” she said.

Senator Payman said her own office had been “bombarded” with hateful calls, emails and social media comments in recent months, and the “sheer volume” had taken its toll on her staff.

She argued the government’s inaction continued to “compromise the safety of the workers” in political offices targeted by “Australia’s least adjusted folks”.