Until recently, surfer-eating sharks, kangaroos disrupting air traffic and Naomi Watts have been the main topics of bulletins about Australia.

But in recent months Australia has been in the news for its highly visible sexism, racism and climate denial.

The world has reading in recent days damaging reports of a Muslim woman assaulted on a Melbourne train a week ago. Unfortunately for the Abbott regime this is being linked to government actions.

New York-based International Business Times headed its item:

‘Alleged Muslim Woman Attacked on Train Raises Questions of Anti-Muslim Views in Australia’

The story quotes Scanlon Foundation survey findings that “19 percent of Australians struggle with some form of racial or religious discrimination”. It claims “racism is at its highest level since Scanlon Foundation began the survey in 2007”

The cumulative effect of these news events and other conspicuous recent actions of the Abbott Government has been to shift the perception of Australia from a progressive, confident, independent nation keen to shed its colonial baggage – including white, Anglo, male supremacy – to a more insular, fearful place in need of a powerful ally.

The prestigious New York Times last Wednesday ran an extended piece about Abbott’s puzzling enthusiasm for engagement in the Middle East:

“Though he has been in office only a year and has had meager experience in foreign affairs, Mr. Abbott moved quickly to send a squadron of fighter jets and 600 military personnel to the Middle East to be ready to join the fight against the militants in Iraq and Syria, even before President Obama formally rallied American allies.”

The Times questions the benefits of this for Australia, and quotes former defense official professor Hugh White, now at the ANU:

“Abbott thinks of brave little Australia standing up with the United States for what is right. The only things that keep the world swinging on its axis, in his mind, are the men and women — mostly men — who speak English as a first language and who are willing to go out there and do the hard yards.”

From media reports abroad, this shift is not perceived positively. Especially as it appears to impact vulnerable Muslim women in Australia.