Hatred and division in Australia have reached unprecedented levels across our states and territories, cities and townships.

Last year Australia and the world witnessed a horrific and deliberate antisemitic targeted terrorist attack at Sydney's Bondi Beach which took the lives of 15 Jewish Australian men and women, including a 10-year-old girl.

We need our governments, institutions, community organisations, workplaces and leaders to adopt and implement the 2024 National Anti-Racism Framework recommendations handed down by the Australian Human Rights Commission, which include establishing a National Anti-Racism Taskforce.

As an Aboriginal person who grew up in the severely impoverished neighbourhood of North St, North side of Kempsey, Regional New South Wales I am all too familiar with the signs of trauma and its outward expression of fear and desperation.

In my experience, fear derived from trauma can be a major cause of turmoil leading to individual, family and community violence and breakdown. As such, many good people out of the community where I grew up - including members of my own family and even myself on many occasions throughout my life - would too often deliberately or unconsciously avoid very serious and difficult to face personal challenges.

Looking for something or someone else to pin the blame on is the usual response of someone not willing or ready to deal with their problems.

In the case of Australia's racism problem, the familiar pattern stands out to me. Fear is the driving force behind Australia's racism, not diverse opinions, nor the colour of someone's skin, ethnicity, gender, faith and beliefs.

Fear is what convinced the leader of the anti-immigration One Nation party Pauline Hanson, a non-Muslim, last year to humiliate herself and Australia by walking into the Federal Parliament wearing a burqa.

Which reminded me of a May 2025 opinion piece written by renowned Aboriginal Psychologist of 25 years and Nyamal woman Dr Tracey Westerman explaining how the "racial empathy gap" enforces negative rather than positive responses to Aboriginal people.

She describes how racial difference enacts a perceived threat activating a heightened response that is about imagined rather than real fear. It is this fear that many so-called self-professed leaders live by, stoke too often and make a career off, leading so many good and well-intentioned people down a path to nowhere.

These are the type of blind guides that do nothing but further embed racist attitudes and behaviours because they are yet to discover the inner strength, humility and courage to face the truth calling out to them from within.

Unfortunately, racism, our nation's original ugly sin, has reached extreme levels.

Alongside the rise in antisemitism, new data reveals a concerning rise in the number of racist incidents targeting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people reported to the Call It Out First Nations Racism Register.

The 2024-25 Call It Out Annual Report shows more than one in four of reports (26%) involved racism directed at children and young people aged 0-19, an increase of 10 percentage points compared to last year.

Almost a third (29 per cent) of incidents occurred on social media, online and in other media, while 11 per cent were in the workplace and 10 per cent in schools and educational settings.

Last year in Melbourne, off the back of the 'March for Australia' anti-immigration rally held in the city's CBD, Neo Nazis stormed a peaceful gathering of First Nations people at Camp Sovereignty, a sacred site of ceremony, where they punched and kicked community members, targeted women and trampled on the Aboriginal flag.

Such levels of social immaturity may come from a minority of Australians, but these actions reflect the too often pervasive and festering underbelly of racism that continues to permeate throughout our nation, shaping our institutions and affecting our social and cultural views and attitudes towards others.

Fear is what led Neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell and his coward mates to allegedly attack and injure unsuspecting men and women at Camp Sovereignty. Fear is what led Naveed Akram and his father to allegedly brutally kill and terrorise innocent men, women and children last year at Bondi. Fear is the source that enables weak individuals to manifest their beliefs in violent and offensive acts which actively cause quantifiable harm to our communities.

The National Anti-Racism Framework report handed down by the Australian Human Rights Commission in 2024 recommended that governments and institutions must as an immediate priority adopt an anti-racism approach.

Recommendations from the report included reviewing Australia's employment, migration, citizenship, and counterterrorism laws for their potential discriminatory application and effect on different communities; the introduction of a national Human Rights Act; and introducing stronger legal protections against online hate.

Almost three weeks before the Bondi shooting 54 civil society organisations in a joint statement called on the government to urgently fund and implement the National Anti-Racism Framework.

In their joint press release they revealed that one year on since the report was handed down that the federal government had taken no steps to resource or implement the Framework. We don't know if prompt action on the report could have prevented the attack, but it is clear that stamping out racism needs to be a national priority.

As Australia debates hate speech laws, we must not drop off from considering the importance and significance of the National Anti-Racism Framework. By adopting the National Anti-Racism Framework recommendations Australia will be better equipped in understanding and responding to the complexities of racism.

For vulnerable First Nations communities it can be a supportive vehicle that paves the way towards enhancing reconciliation by way of the continuous recognition and monitoring of ongoing harm leading to sustained healing, safety and access to critical reformed services leading to greater health and living standards.

It can be a shining beacon of hope in a world where those who do not have the privilege and protection afforded to them can now have the reassurance that Australia takes seriously their experiences, safety and rights.

Mervyn John Davis Jnr is a Dunghutti and Kamilaroi man, entrepreneur, and thought leader whose work bridges business success with systemic reform.

Mr Davis is the Managing Director of Claystone, a 100 per cent Aboriginal-owned company providing marketing, communications, governance, and training services to Aboriginal and other purpose-led businesses.