In recent years, particularly since the Tampa and children overboard incidents and the 9/11 attacks, there has been a marked change in public and political perceptions of Middle Eastern migrants and the Arab–Australian community. In August 2001, for instance, the chair of a parliamentary inquiry into Australia’s relations with the Middle East, David Jull, introduced the committee’s report with the ‘reassuring’ observation that ‘for the most part, the tensions and conflict in the Middle East have not affected the relations between the various community groups in Australia’.
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