![In 2017 I stood in the ACT Supreme Court facing 16 charges that flowed directly from my public criticism of corruption and racism within Australian institutions. I had spent years documenting and exposing systemic bias against Indigenous and multicultural communities through platforms such as blakandblack.com. My work combined my Jewish heritage and my considerable Aboriginal ancestry – identities that have informed a lifetime of resisting injustice. What I expected from that court experience was a fair hearing; what I encountered instead was a striking illustration of how power is distributed and protected in this country. What struck me most about the courtroom was not the prosecution’s zealousness or the public spectacle of being investigated by the Australian Federal Police (AFP). What struck me was the homogeneity of the people who had been mobilised against me: the judge, the lead prosecutor, their solicitor, the senior members of the Director of Public Prosecutions’ (DPP) team we engaged with through the process – all of European descent. The six AFP officers who led the investigation into my activities – the people who executed the search of my home, who interviewed me, who constructed the narrative that my words were criminal – were, too, all of European descent. The same pattern extended to almost every government witness the ACT called in the case: again, almost exclusively people of European descent. That pattern was not merely an impression; it was an emblem. Here I was, an Indigenous person with Jewish roots, put before a system almost entirely staffed by the descendants of settlers. The prosecutor even sought an order that, if I were convicted, my website be taken down – a demand aimed explicitly at silencing the platform I had used to challenge entrenched power. I was not convicted; the website remains active; I continue to write and speak. But the experience left me keenly aware of how institutional power works and how its composition matters. This is not an exercise in personal grievance against individuals. It is an analysis grounded in the patterns of representation that shape outcomes – who gets to call the shots, who makes the rules, whose voices are treated as normal and authoritative, and whose are treated as marginal, suspicious, suspect or expendable. If we are serious about justice, we must look not only at individual actions but at the demographic architecture of the institutions that exercise coercive power: courts, police, prosecutorial agencies, parliaments, corporate boards and executive suites. The demographic reality To ground the argument, it helps to look at the data. Australia’s national statistics and multiple institutional reports make clear that people of European ancestry remain vastly overrepresented in positions of political, corporate and legal power. • Population and ancestry. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Census and related cultural-diversity publications show that the majority of Australians identify ancestries associated with Europe – English, Irish, Scottish, Italian, German and other European origins – when they report their ancestry. The 2021 ABS release “Cultural Diversity in Australia” provides detailed ancestry breakdowns and indicates that reported ancestries linked to Europe remain the dominant category nationally [ABS, Cultural Diversity, 2021]. At the same time, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples comprise a small proportion of the national population – around 3.2% in the 2021 Census [ABS, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Population, 2021]. • Parliament and political leadership. The composition of federal and state parliaments has improved incrementally in some dimensions (gender, some measures of cultural background) but remains overwhelmingly dominated by representatives who are of European descent. Analyses of the 47th Parliament (elected 2022) and prior Parliaments show that members of European ancestry form an overwhelming majority of seats and ministerial positions; members drawn from Indigenous and non-European migrant backgrounds remain markedly underrepresented relative to their share of the national population [Parliamentary Library research; see below]. • Corporate boards and executive ranks. Australia’s top corporate boards – the ASX 200 / ASX 300 – continue to be dominated by directors who are Anglo-Celtic or of European background. Public reporting on board composition and industry diversity audits have repeatedly shown that ethnic and cultural diversity at board and senior executive levels lags behind the diversity of the Australian population as a whole [Diversity Council Australia; AICD reporting; see references]. • Legal profession, bench and prosecutorial ranks. The leadership of the legal profession and the judiciary remains heavily Anglo-Celtic, particularly at the senior levels. Numerous reports by legal professional bodies and independent researchers have documented the persistent underrepresentation of Indigenous lawyers and lawyers from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds in senior roles (silks, senior counsel), judicial appointments and leadership positions within legal institutions [Law Council of Australia; Australian Human Rights Commission commentary]. • Policing and enforcement agencies. Workforce diversity reports from police agencies and federal law enforcement bodies show low representation of Indigenous people and limited cultural diversity in senior ranks. The AFP’s own workforce reporting and annual reports show continual attention to Indigenous employment targets, but Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people remain a small minority of total staffing, and senior executive ranks are overwhelmingly non-Indigenous [AFP Annual Reports; see below]. State police forces also show similar patterns of limited Indigenous and CALD representation in leadership. These empirical patterns are not trivial. They matter because representation is a key determinant of how institutions perceive, interpret and act on claims of wrongdoing, dissent, or social harm. The demographic composition of decision-makers shapes what is regarded as normal, which voices are treated as credible, and which concerns are foregrounded or ignored. Why representation matters: more than optics There are at least three mechanisms by which the homogeneity of institutions matters for justice and fairness. 1) Decision frames and cultural competence. People bring their life experiences, cultural frameworks and assumptions to decision-making roles. When judges, prosecutors, police officers and corporate directors have largely similar social backgrounds, their shared assumptions about what is reasonable, credible and dangerous will tend to be narrow and mutually reinforcing. Cultural competency – an understanding of how speech, protest, storytelling, and political critique function in different communities – is rarely a strength of institutions that have not historically included those communities. This is not to say that individuals from one background always act in bad faith; it is to say that systemic blind spots emerge when diversity is absent. 2) Networks, access and resource allocation. Access to legal and political power often depends on networks, shared schooling, and professional pathways that disproportionately favour people of European descent in Australia. These pathways channel resources and influence to those inside the networks and make it harder for outsiders to secure the same protection or presumption of legitimacy. The practical consequences include who gets legal aid, who can mount prolonged trials, and who benefits from discretionary prosecutorial decisions. In my own case, continuing to fight the charges and keep my website online required resources – legal talent, time, emotional resilience – that many people facing comparable prosecutions would not have had. 3) Legitimacy and trust. The appearance and reality of fair process is essential to public confidence in institutions. When entire leadership cohorts appear homogeneous relative to the communities they regulate, that disparity corrodes trust. Indigenous Australians, migrants and other minority communities report lower trust in police, the justice system and political institutions when their experiences are framed by historic dispossession, exclusion and discrimination. Legislative and judicial outcomes that are perceived to be produced by a one-sided group are less likely to be seen as legitimate. Historical legacies and structural barriers Australia’s present institutional configurations are the products of centuries of colonial settlement, migration policy, and institutional entrenchment. The legal and administrative systems that govern Australia are built upon a settler-colonial state whose foundational moments dispossessed Indigenous peoples of land, language and authority. Over time, state institutions were institutionalised in ways that privileged Anglo-centric norms and networks. This history created structural barriers that have a contemporary impact: • Educational and socio-economic disparities. Dispossession and social exclusion have produced deep socio-economic gaps that affect schooling, tertiary access, and professional pipeline opportunities for many Indigenous and migrant communities. Educational attainment, which remains a key determinant of access to professions such as law and politics, is shaped by historical and contemporary inequities. • Recruitment and retention practices. Institutional recruitment and promotion practices – from informal “who you know” hiring to gatekeeping in elite professions – reproduce existing demographic compositions. Without deliberate and measurable change, those practices perpetuate homogeneity. • Cultural safety and workplace norms. Institutions often require assimilation to prevalent cultural norms. Where the dominant culture is white and Anglo-centric, Indigenous and culturally diverse people may find workplaces hostile or exclusionary, reducing retention and advancement. • Bias, conscious and unconscious. Real human biases – conscious or unconscious – influence hiring, promotion, prosecutorial discretion and judicial decision-making. Those biases are compounded when decision-makers are disproportionately drawn from one demographic. Concrete illustrations A few concrete areas make these abstract dynamics visible: • Criminal justice outcomes. Indigenous Australians are dramatically overrepresented in prisons and in almost every criminal-justice metric [ABS: Prisoner statistics]. Disparities in policing, charging decisions and sentencing are shaped by historical disadvantage as well as by institutional practices. Where the police, prosecutors and judges are largely non-Indigenous, cultural misunderstandings and institutional distrust can escalate conflict rather than resolve it. • Freedom of speech and dissent. When political critique arises from marginalised communities, institutions accustomed to privileging elite norms may treat that critique as deviant or dangerous. My own experience of being investigated by the AFP and prosecuted by the ACT DPP – and the proposal that my website be taken down – illustrates the general point that when those who challenge entrenched interests are confronted by a homogeneous enforcement apparatus, the risk of silencing is real. • Corporate and political decision-making. Policy priorities, regulatory choices and corporate governance decisions reflect the lived experiences of those who sit in leadership roles. If those leaders are overwhelmingly drawn from a single cultural background, policy blind spots will persist on issues such as Indigenous recognition, multicultural engagement, language access and culturally informed approaches to regulation. A measured assessment of the data It is worth pausing to consider reputable sources that document the representational imbalances: • The ABS provides the primary demographic snapshot of ancestry and Indigenous population. Its 2021 publications on cultural diversity and on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples offer the baseline for understanding population composition and the relative share of Indigenous people in the national population [Australian Bureau of Statistics, Cultural Diversity in Australia, 2021; ABS, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Population, 2021 – links in references]. • The Parliamentary Library and other researchers have produced work on cultural diversity in the federal parliament and the relative underrepresentation of Indigenous and non-European backgrounds among elected representatives [see Parliamentary Library research on cultural diversity in the 47th Parliament and related analyses – links in references]. • Diversity Council Australia (DCA), the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) and other industry bodies have repeatedly highlighted the shortfall in ethnic diversity on ASX boards and in senior management relative to the diversity in the broader community. While gender diversity has seen targeted attention and measurable progress, ethnic and cultural diversity in leadership remains comparatively neglected in many sectors [DCA; AICD reporting]. • The Law Council of Australia and human-rights organisations have documented the shortage of Indigenous lawyers, the slow progress on judicial diversity, and the structural obstacles in the legal profession that impede cultural plurality at senior levels [Law Council of Australia; Australian Human Rights Commission reports]. • AFP annual reporting and workforce data indicate that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people remain a minority within the AFP workforce and that diversity in senior leadership is limited [AFP Annual Reports; see references]. These sources collectively show an unmistakable pattern: representation at the levers of power is far narrower than Australia’s multicultural reality. A challenge to the "reverse discrimination" argument There is a recurrent narrative – voiced frequently in public debate – that restorative or affirmative measures amount to “reverse discrimination” against white Australians. That claim often rests on a misreading of the baseline distribution of power and advantage. If a demographic group holds the majority of parliamentary seats, dominates the judiciary and the ranks of prosecutors, controls the heads of enforcement agencies and fills the senior suites of corporate Australia, then measures that aim to counteract those imbalances are not special favours: they are attempts to align institutional composition with the nation’s diversity and to repair the historical under-representation of particular communities. A few points are relevant to that argument: • Equity initiatives seek to correct structural advantage, not to punish individuals. Policies designed to broaden access, provide training pathways, or require transparent appointment processes are meant to expand opportunity and to make institutions more effective and legitimate. • Representation improves outcomes. Empirical research across many countries and sectors demonstrates that diversity in decision-making bodies improves deliberation, reduces groupthink, and leads to better policy outcomes and corporate performance. Diversity is an asset, not a liability. • Claiming victimhood from a position of structural advantage mischaracterises the context. When a demographic already enjoys disproportionate representation across power structures, framing remedial measures as an existential threat confuses individual discomfort with structural injustice. Practical reforms: what would meaningful change look like? If we are to move beyond rhetoric and towards structural reform, a combination of legal, institutional and cultural changes is required: 1) Transparent appointment processes. Judicial appointments, senior public service roles, board appointments and chief executive selection should be conducted through transparent, merit-based processes with explicit criteria and public reporting on candidate demographics. Independent advisory selection panels that include community representation can reduce patronage and narrow pipelines. 2) Pipeline investment. Long-term investments in education, scholarships, mentorship and bursaries targeted at Indigenous and underrepresented communities are necessary to create the talent pipelines that feed the professions. This includes support for Indigenous law students, scholarships for public-policy training, and targeted leadership programs. 3) Accountability and targets. Corporations, government agencies and the legal profession should adopt measurable targets for cultural and ethnic diversity at senior levels, combined with public reporting on progress. Targets should be realistic, timebound and accompanied by genuine accountability mechanisms. 4) Cultural competence and workplace reform. Institutions must invest in training and cultural-change programmes that address unconscious bias, create culturally safe workplaces, and support retention for diverse staff – not merely recruitment. 5) Community engagement and co-design. Policy and legal reforms that affect Indigenous and multicultural communities should be co-designed with those communities. Genuine consultation that yields power-sharing outcomes is essential. 6) Reform of prosecutorial and policing practices. Prosecutorial guidelines should include cultural context considerations and require disclosure and assessment frameworks that account for historical disadvantage. Police recruitment, community policing models and disciplinary frameworks should be reformed to build local trust and reduce over-policing. 7) Support for dissent and free speech. The criminalisation of protest and political critique must be approached with caution. Laws that unduly restrict public debate, particularly when enforced unequally, damage democratic discourse. Judicial and prosecutorial discretion should be exercised with an eye to protecting legitimate political expression. A final reflection and a call to accountability When I stood in that courtroom in 2017 the issues at stake were practical and immediate: a website that exposed corruption and racism; charges that threatened to curtail my ability to speak; a prosecution that looked, at least in composition, like an outworking of the very structures I had spent years critiquing. The outcome of my case – I was not convicted; my site remains online – does not erase the broader problem. It simply underlined what many of us already knew: representation matters, and when institutions fail to reflect the diversity of the country they govern, decisions will be shaped by narrow experiences and priorities. This is not an accusation against any individual actor. It is a call to look at patterns and to act on them. Australia is a multicultural nation, a settler society with deep Indigenous roots and a tapestry of migrant histories. If we are to make good on the promise of equality, our institutions must reflect that reality – not in tokenistic gestures but in meaningful shifts in recruitment, appointment, policy design and culture. To those who fear “reverse discrimination”: ask yourself whether the status quo is truly neutral. Look at who sits in parliament, who chairs boards, who presides in courts, and who leads law enforcement. If the faces and life experiences of those people do not match the broad diversity of our society, then addressing that gap is not an attack; it is a requirement for a fairer, more effective country. We must stop pretending that a homogeneous set of institutions can govern a multicultural nation without distortion. We must stop accepting that those who cry victimhood at the prospect of increased diversity are making an argument grounded in equality rather than entitlement. The question is straightforward: Will we reckon with the facts and build institutions that reflect Australia’s full tapestry, or will we continue to cling to myths about neutrality while real power remains concentrated in the hands of a few? For my part, I will continue to speak up, to document, and to press for the structural changes that are necessary for genuine justice. My experience in court was painful and costly, but it was also instructive. If that trial taught me anything, it is the central truth that representation is not an abstract ideal – it is a practical condition of fairness and legitimacy. References and further reading • Australian Bureau of Statistics, “Cultural Diversity in Australia: Topics and releases from the 2021 Census,” ABS, 2021. • Australian Bureau of Statistics, “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Population, 2021 Census,” ABS, 2021. • Parliamentary Library, Parliament of Australia, Research on cultural diversity in the 47th Parliament and related notes, Parliament of Australia (see Parliamentary Library research publications). • Monash University, Mapping Social Cohesion project (Andrew Markus), for research and analysis on ancestry, multicultural settlement and social cohesion. https://www.monash.edu/mapping-population/mapping-social-cohesion • Diversity Council Australia (DCA), reports and resources on workplace cultural diversity and leadership. https://www.dca.org.au/ • Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD), corporate governance and board composition resources, including analysis of diversity trends. https://www.aicd.com.au/ • Law Council of Australia, “Diversity and inclusion in the legal profession” resources, discussion papers and advocacy. https://www.lawcouncil.asn.au/practice-resources/diversity-in-the-profession • Australian Human Rights Commission, “Leading for Change: A blueprint for cultural diversity and inclusive leadership” and related materials on leadership diversity and systemic reform. https://humanrights.gov.au/ • Australian Federal Police, Annual Reports and Workforce Diversity reporting (for institutional data on AFP workforce composition and Indigenous employment initiatives). https://www.afp.gov.au/what-we-do/publications-and-documents/annual-report • Australian Bureau of Statistics, “Prisoners in Australia” publications, data on Indigenous overrepresentation in custody. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/prisoners/latest-release Bakchos, a man between two cultures.](https://blakandblack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Bakchos-with-blue-and-white-scarf-660x530.jpg)
In 2017 I stood in the ACT Supreme Court facing 16 charges that flowed directly from my public criticism of corruption and racism within Australian institutions. I had spent years documenting and exposing systemic bias against Indigenous and multicultural communities through platforms such as blakandblack.com. My work combined my Jewish heritage and my considerable Aboriginal ancestry – identities that have informed a lifetime of resisting injustice. What I expected from that court experience was a fair hearing; what I encountered instead was a striking illustration of how power is distributed and protected in this country.
What struck me most about the courtroom was not the prosecution’s zealousness or the public spectacle of being investigated by the Australian Federal Police (AFP). What struck me was the homogeneity of the people who had been mobilised against me: the judge, the lead prosecutor, their solicitor, the senior members of the Director of Public Prosecutions’ (DPP) team we engaged with through the process – all of European descent. The six AFP officers who led the investigation into my activities – the people who executed the search of my home, who interviewed me, who constructed the narrative that my words were criminal – were, too, all of European descent. The same pattern extended to almost every government witness the ACT called in the case: again, almost exclusively people of European descent.
That pattern was not merely an impression; it was an emblem. Here I was, an Indigenous person with Jewish roots, put before a system almost entirely staffed by the descendants of settlers. The prosecutor even sought an order that, if I were convicted, my website be taken down – a demand aimed explicitly at silencing the platform I had used to challenge entrenched power. I was not convicted; the website remains active; I continue to write and speak. But the experience left me keenly aware of how institutional power works and how its composition matters.
This is not an exercise in personal grievance against individuals. It is an analysis grounded in the patterns of representation that shape outcomes – who gets to call the shots, who makes the rules, whose voices are treated as normal and authoritative, and whose are treated as marginal, suspicious, suspect or expendable. If we are serious about justice, we must look not only at individual actions but at the demographic architecture of the institutions that exercise coercive power: courts, police, prosecutorial agencies, parliaments, corporate boards and executive suites.
The demographic reality
To ground the argument, it helps to look at the data. Australia’s national statistics and multiple institutional reports make clear that people of European ancestry remain vastly overrepresented in positions of political, corporate and legal power.
• Population and ancestry. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Census and related cultural-diversity publications show that the majority of Australians identify ancestries associated with Europe – English, Irish, Scottish, Italian, German and other European origins – when they report their ancestry. The 2021 ABS release “Cultural Diversity in Australia” provides detailed ancestry breakdowns and indicates that reported ancestries linked to Europe remain the dominant category nationally [ABS, Cultural Diversity, 2021]. At the same time, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples comprise a small proportion of the national population – around 3.2% in the 2021 Census [ABS, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Population, 2021].
• Parliament and political leadership. The composition of federal and state parliaments has improved incrementally in some dimensions (gender, some measures of cultural background) but remains overwhelmingly dominated by representatives who are of European descent. Analyses of the 47th Parliament (elected 2022) and prior Parliaments show that members of European ancestry form an overwhelming majority of seats and ministerial positions; members drawn from Indigenous and non-European migrant backgrounds remain markedly underrepresented relative to their share of the national population [Parliamentary Library research; see below].
• Corporate boards and executive ranks. Australia’s top corporate boards – the ASX 200 / ASX 300 – continue to be dominated by directors who are Anglo-Celtic or of European background. Public reporting on board composition and industry diversity audits have repeatedly shown that ethnic and cultural diversity at board and senior executive levels lags behind the diversity of the Australian population as a whole [Diversity Council Australia; AICD reporting; see references].
• Legal profession, bench and prosecutorial ranks. The leadership of the legal profession and the judiciary remains heavily Anglo-Celtic, particularly at the senior levels. Numerous reports by legal professional bodies and independent researchers have documented the persistent underrepresentation of Indigenous lawyers and lawyers from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds in senior roles (silks, senior counsel), judicial appointments and leadership positions within legal institutions [Law Council of Australia; Australian Human Rights Commission commentary].
• Policing and enforcement agencies. Workforce diversity reports from police agencies and federal law enforcement bodies show low representation of Indigenous people and limited cultural diversity in senior ranks. The AFP’s own workforce reporting and annual reports show continual attention to Indigenous employment targets, but Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people remain a small minority of total staffing, and senior executive ranks are overwhelmingly non-Indigenous [AFP Annual Reports; see below]. State police forces also show similar patterns of limited Indigenous and CALD representation in leadership.
These empirical patterns are not trivial. They matter because representation is a key determinant of how institutions perceive, interpret and act on claims of wrongdoing, dissent, or social harm. The demographic composition of decision-makers shapes what is regarded as normal, which voices are treated as credible, and which concerns are foregrounded or ignored.
Why representation matters: more than optics
There are at least three mechanisms by which the homogeneity of institutions matters for justice and fairness.
1) Decision frames and cultural competence. People bring their life experiences, cultural frameworks and assumptions to decision-making roles. When judges, prosecutors, police officers and corporate directors have largely similar social backgrounds, their shared assumptions about what is reasonable, credible and dangerous will tend to be narrow and mutually reinforcing. Cultural competency – an understanding of how speech, protest, storytelling, and political critique function in different communities – is rarely a strength of institutions that have not historically included those communities. This is not to say that individuals from one background always act in bad faith; it is to say that systemic blind spots emerge when diversity is absent.
2) Networks, access and resource allocation. Access to legal and political power often depends on networks, shared schooling, and professional pathways that disproportionately favour people of European descent in Australia. These pathways channel resources and influence to those inside the networks and make it harder for outsiders to secure the same protection or presumption of legitimacy. The practical consequences include who gets legal aid, who can mount prolonged trials, and who benefits from discretionary prosecutorial decisions. In my own case, continuing to fight the charges and keep my website online required resources – legal talent, time, emotional resilience – that many people facing comparable prosecutions would not have had.
3) Legitimacy and trust. The appearance and reality of fair process is essential to public confidence in institutions. When entire leadership cohorts appear homogeneous relative to the communities they regulate, that disparity corrodes trust. Indigenous Australians, migrants and other minority communities report lower trust in police, the justice system and political institutions when their experiences are framed by historic dispossession, exclusion and discrimination. Legislative and judicial outcomes that are perceived to be produced by a one-sided group are less likely to be seen as legitimate.
Historical legacies and structural barriers
Australia’s present institutional configurations are the products of centuries of colonial settlement, migration policy, and institutional entrenchment. The legal and administrative systems that govern Australia are built upon a settler-colonial state whose foundational moments dispossessed Indigenous peoples of land, language and authority. Over time, state institutions were institutionalised in ways that privileged Anglo-centric norms and networks.
This history created structural barriers that have a contemporary impact:
• Educational and socio-economic disparities. Dispossession and social exclusion have produced deep socio-economic gaps that affect schooling, tertiary access, and professional pipeline opportunities for many Indigenous and migrant communities. Educational attainment, which remains a key determinant of access to professions such as law and politics, is shaped by historical and contemporary inequities.
• Recruitment and retention practices. Institutional recruitment and promotion practices – from informal “who you know” hiring to gatekeeping in elite professions – reproduce existing demographic compositions. Without deliberate and measurable change, those practices perpetuate homogeneity.
• Cultural safety and workplace norms. Institutions often require assimilation to prevalent cultural norms. Where the dominant culture is white and Anglo-centric, Indigenous and culturally diverse people may find workplaces hostile or exclusionary, reducing retention and advancement.
• Bias, conscious and unconscious. Real human biases – conscious or unconscious – influence hiring, promotion, prosecutorial discretion and judicial decision-making. Those biases are compounded when decision-makers are disproportionately drawn from one demographic.
Concrete illustrations
A few concrete areas make these abstract dynamics visible:
• Criminal justice outcomes. Indigenous Australians are dramatically overrepresented in prisons and in almost every criminal-justice metric [ABS: Prisoner statistics]. Disparities in policing, charging decisions and sentencing are shaped by historical disadvantage as well as by institutional practices. Where the police, prosecutors and judges are largely non-Indigenous, cultural misunderstandings and institutional distrust can escalate conflict rather than resolve it.
• Freedom of speech and dissent. When political critique arises from marginalised communities, institutions accustomed to privileging elite norms may treat that critique as deviant or dangerous. My own experience of being investigated by the AFP and prosecuted by the ACT DPP – and the proposal that my website be taken down – illustrates the general point that when those who challenge entrenched interests are confronted by a homogeneous enforcement apparatus, the risk of silencing is real.
• Corporate and political decision-making. Policy priorities, regulatory choices and corporate governance decisions reflect the lived experiences of those who sit in leadership roles. If those leaders are overwhelmingly drawn from a single cultural background, policy blind spots will persist on issues such as Indigenous recognition, multicultural engagement, language access and culturally informed approaches to regulation.
A measured assessment of the data
It is worth pausing to consider reputable sources that document the representational imbalances:
• The ABS provides the primary demographic snapshot of ancestry and Indigenous population. Its 2021 publications on cultural diversity and on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples offer the baseline for understanding population composition and the relative share of Indigenous people in the national population [Australian Bureau of Statistics, Cultural Diversity in Australia, 2021; ABS, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Population, 2021 – links in references].
• The Parliamentary Library and other researchers have produced work on cultural diversity in the federal parliament and the relative underrepresentation of Indigenous and non-European backgrounds among elected representatives [see Parliamentary Library research on cultural diversity in the 47th Parliament and related analyses – links in references].
• Diversity Council Australia (DCA), the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) and other industry bodies have repeatedly highlighted the shortfall in ethnic diversity on ASX boards and in senior management relative to the diversity in the broader community. While gender diversity has seen targeted attention and measurable progress, ethnic and cultural diversity in leadership remains comparatively neglected in many sectors [DCA; AICD reporting].
• The Law Council of Australia and human-rights organisations have documented the shortage of Indigenous lawyers, the slow progress on judicial diversity, and the structural obstacles in the legal profession that impede cultural plurality at senior levels [Law Council of Australia; Australian Human Rights Commission reports].
• AFP annual reporting and workforce data indicate that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people remain a minority within the AFP workforce and that diversity in senior leadership is limited [AFP Annual Reports; see references].
These sources collectively show an unmistakable pattern: representation at the levers of power is far narrower than Australia’s multicultural reality.
A challenge to the “reverse discrimination” argument
There is a recurrent narrative – voiced frequently in public debate – that restorative or affirmative measures amount to “reverse discrimination” against white Australians. That claim often rests on a misreading of the baseline distribution of power and advantage.
If a demographic group holds the majority of parliamentary seats, dominates the judiciary and the ranks of prosecutors, controls the heads of enforcement agencies and fills the senior suites of corporate Australia, then measures that aim to counteract those imbalances are not special favours: they are attempts to align institutional composition with the nation’s diversity and to repair the historical under-representation of particular communities.
A few points are relevant to that argument:
• Equity initiatives seek to correct structural advantage, not to punish individuals. Policies designed to broaden access, provide training pathways, or require transparent appointment processes are meant to expand opportunity and to make institutions more effective and legitimate.
• Representation improves outcomes. Empirical research across many countries and sectors demonstrates that diversity in decision-making bodies improves deliberation, reduces groupthink, and leads to better policy outcomes and corporate performance. Diversity is an asset, not a liability.
• Claiming victimhood from a position of structural advantage mischaracterises the context. When a demographic already enjoys disproportionate representation across power structures, framing remedial measures as an existential threat confuses individual discomfort with structural injustice.
Practical reforms: what would meaningful change look like?
If we are to move beyond rhetoric and towards structural reform, a combination of legal, institutional and cultural changes is required:
1) Transparent appointment processes. Judicial appointments, senior public service roles, board appointments and chief executive selection should be conducted through transparent, merit-based processes with explicit criteria and public reporting on candidate demographics. Independent advisory selection panels that include community representation can reduce patronage and narrow pipelines.
2) Pipeline investment. Long-term investments in education, scholarships, mentorship and bursaries targeted at Indigenous and underrepresented communities are necessary to create the talent pipelines that feed the professions. This includes support for Indigenous law students, scholarships for public-policy training, and targeted leadership programs.
3) Accountability and targets. Corporations, government agencies and the legal profession should adopt measurable targets for cultural and ethnic diversity at senior levels, combined with public reporting on progress. Targets should be realistic, timebound and accompanied by genuine accountability mechanisms.
4) Cultural competence and workplace reform. Institutions must invest in training and cultural-change programmes that address unconscious bias, create culturally safe workplaces, and support retention for diverse staff – not merely recruitment.
5) Community engagement and co-design. Policy and legal reforms that affect Indigenous and multicultural communities should be co-designed with those communities. Genuine consultation that yields power-sharing outcomes is essential.
6) Reform of prosecutorial and policing practices. Prosecutorial guidelines should include cultural context considerations and require disclosure and assessment frameworks that account for historical disadvantage. Police recruitment, community policing models and disciplinary frameworks should be reformed to build local trust and reduce over-policing.
7) Support for dissent and free speech. The criminalisation of protest and political critique must be approached with caution. Laws that unduly restrict public debate, particularly when enforced unequally, damage democratic discourse. Judicial and prosecutorial discretion should be exercised with an eye to protecting legitimate political expression.
A final reflection and a call to accountability
When I stood in that courtroom in 2017 the issues at stake were practical and immediate: a website that exposed corruption and racism; charges that threatened to curtail my ability to speak; a prosecution that looked, at least in composition, like an outworking of the very structures I had spent years critiquing. The outcome of my case – I was not convicted; my site remains online – does not erase the broader problem. It simply underlined what many of us already knew: representation matters, and when institutions fail to reflect the diversity of the country they govern, decisions will be shaped by narrow experiences and priorities.
This is not an accusation against any individual actor. It is a call to look at patterns and to act on them. Australia is a multicultural nation, a settler society with deep Indigenous roots and a tapestry of migrant histories. If we are to make good on the promise of equality, our institutions must reflect that reality – not in tokenistic gestures but in meaningful shifts in recruitment, appointment, policy design and culture.
To those who fear “reverse discrimination”: ask yourself whether the status quo is truly neutral. Look at who sits in parliament, who chairs boards, who presides in courts, and who leads law enforcement. If the faces and life experiences of those people do not match the broad diversity of our society, then addressing that gap is not an attack; it is a requirement for a fairer, more effective country.
We must stop pretending that a homogeneous set of institutions can govern a multicultural nation without distortion. We must stop accepting that those who cry victimhood at the prospect of increased diversity are making an argument grounded in equality rather than entitlement.
The question is straightforward: Will we reckon with the facts and build institutions that reflect Australia’s full tapestry, or will we continue to cling to myths about neutrality while real power remains concentrated in the hands of a few? For my part, I will continue to speak up, to document, and to press for the structural changes that are necessary for genuine justice. My experience in court was painful and costly, but it was also instructive. If that trial taught me anything, it is the central truth that representation is not an abstract ideal – it is a practical condition of fairness and legitimacy.
References and further reading
• Australian Bureau of Statistics, “Cultural Diversity in Australia: Topics and releases from the 2021 Census,” ABS, 2021.
• Australian Bureau of Statistics, “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Population, 2021 Census,” ABS, 2021.
• Parliamentary Library, Parliament of Australia, Research on cultural diversity in the 47th Parliament and related notes, Parliament of Australia (see Parliamentary Library research publications).
• Monash University, Mapping Social Cohesion project (Andrew Markus), for research and analysis on ancestry, multicultural settlement and social cohesion. https://www.monash.edu/mapping-population/mapping-social-cohesion
• Diversity Council Australia (DCA), reports and resources on workplace cultural diversity and leadership. https://www.dca.org.au/
• Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD), corporate governance and board composition resources, including analysis of diversity trends. https://www.aicd.com.au/
• Law Council of Australia, “Diversity and inclusion in the legal profession” resources, discussion papers and advocacy. https://www.lawcouncil.asn.au/practice-resources/diversity-in-the-profession
• Australian Human Rights Commission, “Leading for Change: A blueprint for cultural diversity and inclusive leadership” and related materials on leadership diversity and systemic reform. https://humanrights.gov.au/
• Australian Federal Police, Annual Reports and Workforce Diversity reporting (for institutional data on AFP workforce composition and Indigenous employment initiatives). https://www.afp.gov.au/what-we-do/publications-and-documents/annual-report
• Australian Bureau of Statistics, “Prisoners in Australia” publications, data on Indigenous overrepresentation in custody. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/prisoners/latest-release
