At the 2021 census, the number of ancestry responses categorised within Sub-Saharan African ancestral groups as a proportion of the total population amounted to 1.3%.

[4] Other people descended from African emigrants later arrived indirectly via the First Fleet and 19th century multicultural maritime industry.

[citation needed] In 2005–06, permanent settler arrivals to Australia included 4,000 South Africans and 3,800 Sudanese, constituting the sixth and seventh largest sources of migrants, respectively.

[18][19] The concept of how the American notion of "blackness" was adopted and adapted by Aboriginal civil rights activists has been little known or understood in the US.

[22] In 2018 Kaiya Aboagye, a PhD student of Ghanaian, Aboriginal, South Sea and Torres Strait Islander heritage,[23] underlined the African connection to Aboriginal Australians, citing "long histories of African/Indigenous relationships both inside and outside Australia", despite the many and varied origins and experiences of blackness among peoples in the Global South.

Previously, in 2013 Victoria Police settled a racial profiling complaint lodged by members of the African community by agreeing to review its procedures.

A 2020 study in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology found that South Sudanese-born individuals were significantly overrepresented in as perpetrators of "crimes against the person", such as robbery and assault, but that "rates for less serious crimes, such as public order and drug offences, have remained stable and relatively low for South Sudanese-born youth".

[25] In 2016, the Liberal Party began to campaign against what it identified as "South Sudanese gangs" in Melbourne, following riots at the Moomba Music Festival in the city.

This campaign was criticised by local community leaders, and the Australian Greens MP Adam Bandt said it was using "race to win votes and whip up hatred".

[27] The debate on "African gangs" in Melbourne was a key part in the Victorian Liberal Party's campaign for the 2018 state election under then-Opposition Leader Matthew Guy.