The clock may be well past midnight, but a Melbourne recreation centre is alive with the sounds of dozens of young men kicking lumps out of one another.
Ramadan Soccer was the brainchild of local police, aimed at keeping youths who fasted between sunrise and sunset during Islam's holiest month from seeking trouble on late-night streets. Judging by the looks on the assembled faces - almost exclusively African and black - it has been a big success.
'I'm here to try to stop fighting,' 19-year-old Sudanese refugee Sadan explains. 'Why would you want to end up in jail?'
This annual soccer competition is an example of the kind of initiatives that bolster the country's reputation for offering a helping hand to the planet's most desperate and needy. Yet in recent weeks events have taken an ugly and sinister turn, and Australia's government once again stands accused of whipping up racist sentiments in pursuit of political gain.
The fires were lit this month when Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews claimed African refugees were forming race-based gangs and engaging in crime and violence. Singling out Sudanese refugees and their poor levels of education, he declared they were struggling to settle into the Australian way of life.
Those concerns, Mr Andrews said, explained partly why the federal government had decided to halt African immigration until next July.
When Mr Andrews first made this announcement - two months earlier - there was no mention of any problems. Australia had simply reached its African quota for the year and would be focusing more on people from places like Iraq and Myanmar.