CANBERRA, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Indigenous Australians suffer almost three times the amount of racism compared to their non-Indigenous counterparts, the results of a new study showed on Thursday.
Reconciliation Australia, an organization which aims to "promote and facilitate reconciliation between the wider Australian community and those of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island background", released a statement detailing the results, in which it was found that incidents of racism increased in 2016 compared to 2014.
Reconciliation Australia CEO Justin Mohamed said the findings were surprising given the emphasis on reconciliation beginning in 2008, when then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd formally apologized to the "Stolen Generations".
"Our findings show that in the six months prior to the survey, 46 percent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, experienced at least one form of racial prejudice," Mohamed said in a statement released with the study on Thursday.
"This is up from 39 percent in 2014, and is two and a half times higher than an Australian from the general community, of whom only 18 percent had had such experiences.
"What we're seeing since the first survey in 2008 ,just after the National Apology to Stolen Generations, is that whilst we've maintained a lot of goodwill, we aren't moving fast enough on issues of racism and trust."
The report also found that many Australians (57 percent of Indigenous Australians and 39 percent of the general Australian population) agreed that Australia is a "racist country" despite almost four in five Australians (and 93 percent of the Indigenous population) saying they were of the belief that Aboriginal cultures were important to Australia's national identity.
Mohamed said the issue begins at an "institutional level" and more should be done by governments and people in power to address racism and attempt reconciliation with the Indigenous community.
"Part of the problem is that we aren't addressing racism at an institutional level," he said on Thursday.
"Attempts to weaken legal protections under the Racial Discrimination Act are ongoing. Australia is yet to implement its international obligations under the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigeous Peoples and the Australian Constitution still allows for racial discrimination in our nation's founding document."
"The reality is that unless goodwill is followed through with significant reform at an institutional level, Australia will continue to fall short of its full potential as a reconciled nation."
