Three in four people biased against indigenous Australians: survey

Three-quarters of Australians hold negative views of the nation's indigenous people, a survey has revealed.

Researchers from Australian National University (ANU) analyzed the "implicit bias" of more than 11,000 Australians over a 10-year period and found that 75 percent of participants held a negative view of indigenous Australians, leading to widespread racism.

"The results are shocking, but not surprising," Siddharth Shirodkar, a co-author of the study from ANU's College of Arts and Social Sciences, said in a media release.

"These results show there may be an implicit negative bias against Indigenous Australians across the board, which is likely the cause of the racism that many First Australians experience."

"This study presents stark evidence of the solid invisible barrier that Indigenous people face in society."

Participants' implicit or unconscious bias was measured by how quickly they paired negative or positive words with images of indigenous and Caucasian Australians, according to the survey.

Researchers found that participants were biased against indigenous Australians regardless of their age, gender, occupation, education, religion, ethnicity or political beliefs.

"As it is often unconscious, implicit bias can seep seamlessly into the everyday decisions at all levels of society," Shirodkar said.

"If you implicitly see indigenous people in a negative light then that is going to affect all of your interactions and dealings with Indigenous people. We can only imagine the impact of that collective negativity on outcomes for Indigenous Australians."

The study was published days after tens of thousands of Australians participated in Black Lives Matter rallies protesting indigenous deaths in custody and the rate of indigenous incarceration.

As of March indigenous Australians accounted for about 30 percent of Australia's prison population despite making up only about 3 percent of the broader population.

News Corp Australia reported on Tuesday that in response to the protests the Australian government is pushing for more ambitious targets to reduce the number of Aboriginal Australians in prison, aiming to reduce the rate of indigenous incarceration by 19 percent by 2028 but will reportedly push states to adopt more ambitious targets at a meeting on July 2.

Ken Wyatt, Minister for Indigenous Australians, told News Corp that he was "working to address the factors that contribute to high incarceration rates including health, education and employment."

(CGTN)