A three-month-long federal inquiry into racism, hate and violence directed at Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people wrapped up in Naarm/Melbourne on August 7.

It received hundreds of written submissions, detailing widespread abuse, harassment and structural discrimination against First Nations people.

It was called in response to a racist attack on Camp Sovereignty, in Naarm in August last year, and an attempted terrorist attack on an Invasion Day rally in Boorloo/Perth in January.

At public hearings across the country, harrowing accounts of attacks on First Nations people were given. They included attacks on community events for Stolen Generations survivors, First Nations children being bullied for their culture and police ignoring First Nations’ survivors of domestic violence.

First Nations legal service officers told the inquiry that racism is entrenched in child protection systems, pointing to the removal of children from their families and communities to culturally unsafe environments. Today, more First Nations children are being taken from their families than at any time during the Stolen Generations; about 20,000 children live in out-of-home care across the country.

There were accounts of First Nations communities being subjected to torrents of online racism, at the Gimuy/Cairns public hearing, which the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners described as a “public health........

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