ALP colleagues mostly turn on Foley while residents say they know what he means
LUKE Foley was forced into a humiliating backdown after Labor colleagues were incensed he had injected race into the debate over immigration in Sydney’s west by using the phrase “white flight”. Meantime, a wide range of Fairfield residents could see Mr Foley’s point about overstretched resources.
LUKE Foley has been forced into a humiliating backdown after Labor colleagues at both state and federal levels were incensed he had injected race into the debate over immigration by using the phrase “white flight”.
Mr Foley was directly approached by state Labor MPs, including frontbencher Jodi McKay, who believed he was wrong to use the term when discussing the lack of resources like education and jobs in suburbs struggling under the strain of refugee intakes.
Insiders said NSW Labor secretary Kaila Murnain was instrumental in forcing Mr Foley to apologise, to keep peace in the party.
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It is understood he was distressed that he had caused offence in Western Sydney communities, and was apologetic. MPs who approached Mr Foley accepted his apology and the resourcing issues he had wanted to raise but not his choice of words.
In a rare show of support, federal shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen, whose electorate is at the heart of the issues Mr Foley raised, said the state leader was right to address resourcing issues in the region.
It is understood it was the intervention by Pauline Hanson on morning TV that drove senior Labor figures on the Right to high levels of anger.
A senior Labor source said the Hanson intervention was damaging: “When you are endorsed by Pauline Hanson and Mark Latham in the same morning, you may as well start the clock ticking on your leadership,” he said.
“The question is, does Luke even want to win?”
Mr Latham last night slammed Mr Foley’s backflip as “weak and disappointing”, saying he’d been howled down by Labor MPs “who wouldn’t find Fairfield without a special radar system in their car”.
Mr Foley’s former staffer Sabina Husic, sister of federal Labor MP Ed Husic, made her damning assessment of the leader public on twitter, writing: “okay if stopping white flight is the #1 issue for NSW Labor in 2019 I’m extremely ready to move back to Tito’s Yugoslavia circa 1965.”
Mr Foley was roundly attacked by the NSW government yesterday, who painted him as a racist. “The comments were deeply divisive, dangerous and nasty,” Premier Gladys Berejiklian told parliament.
But a string of Western Sydney Labor MPs praised Mr Foley for putting on the agenda the issue of state resourcing in communities welcoming thousands of new refugees.
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph published yesterday, Mr Foley pointed to a “middle ring” of Sydney suburbs he said were facing a “slow decline” after thousands of refugees had been settled in them. “I’m saying, what about that middle ring of suburbs that have experienced, if anything, just a slow decline. In terms of employment, in terms of white flight — where many Anglo families have moved out.”
Labor frontbencher and Member for Bankstown Tania Mihailuk told The Daily Telegraph her party’s state leader was no bigot. “Luke Foley has been brave enough to call this for what it is. Our suburbs are a welcome refugee zone but we need support to match those realities,” she said.
ALP MPs Guy Zangari and Greg Warren also backed Mr Foley for putting the struggling suburbs front and centre.
After enduring a harrowing Question Time and abuse on social media, Mr Foley said: “In the course of a 30-minute interview … I used the phrase white flight. That phrase is offensive to many. I apologise and I will not use that phrase again.”
RESIDENTS SAY AREA HAS ITS HANDS FULL
By Danielle Le Messurier
LUKE Foley copped it from all quarters yesterday but found plenty of support for his claims Fairfield was full — from the people who live there.
And they agreed overcrowding and a lack of infrastructure was driving long-time residents out of the area.
Assyrian Charlie Ukhanna, 75, has been a Fairfield resident for 38 years and agrees there has been a “white flight” — the term Mr Foley was forced to disown yesterday.
Mr Ukhanna said all the Anglo Australians have “run away to their farms”.
“I think there has been (a white flight) 100 per cent ... look around — where are the Aussies?” he said.
“You used to go in the pub and there were all Aussies and now the pub is empty, nobody in there.
“I don’t think they’re coming back. To be honest, there’s no room left.”
Kim Luu, 60, who owns Fairfield Bargain Fabric with husband Chin, 62, said some Anglos had moved from Fairfield due to economic reasons.
“Maybe they have money and leave to go to a better suburb. Maybe they go somewhere cheaper or buy a new house or something,” she said.
Michelle Stralow, 19, and Kathryn Kokkinos, 17, both work in Fairfield and said they “probably see less than 20 Aussies every day”. Ms Kokkinos added: “It’s surprising, because in Smithfield there’s a lot and it’s the next suburb over.”
In Fairfield, Vietnamese account for 16.8 per cent of the population, Chinese 11.4 per cent, Anglo Australians 7.8 per cent and Assyrians 5.7 per cent, 2016 Census data showed.
Margo Connell has lived in the area for 60 years and has noticed the slow ebb of white Australians like her leaving the community.
“A few of the older residents, we do feel like we’re strangers in this area because of how much it’s changed in such a short time,” she said. “It’s not the same ... it’s a completely different atmosphere to what it used to be when there were more Australians.
“I love Fairfield but it’s just becoming a little too overcrowded.”
Stewart Carson, 51, agreed with Mr Foley’s “white flight” comment.
“What he said he can’t say by himself because people are complaining. But it’s true, I never see Australian people here anymore,” he said.
Linda McCall, who has lived in the area since 1985, admitted a massive migrant influx had changed the area but said “it doesn’t really faze me”.
“I get to come to community centres and mix with a diverse range of people here,” she said. “Things change — that’s just the way it is.”
Fairfield Mayor Frank Carbone said people were being driven out because of the lack of infrastructure.
“If you ask me, ‘do I believe there’s a white flight?’ No I don’t think there is,” he said. “I think if people leave Fairfield they leave because the pressures of having 7000 extra people come into the city.”
Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen, the local federal MP, said Mr Foley was shining a light on the lack of services in the suburb.
PAINFUL PHRASE BORN OF RACIAL TURMOIL
THE term “white flight” is a phrase that has been used to stir racial unrest throughout the US for the past 60 years.
It was first used during the 1950s and 1960s when African-Americans began moving into what had previously been solely white communities, leading many white families to leave.
And during the 1970s some white communities even had unwritten agreements that none of them would sell their homes to black people as they feared their houses would plummet in value.
The phrase, which Mr Foley said he had no idea had been used to stir racial unrest, is obviously a painful one for immigrant and minority communities as it’s associated with racial segregation.
University of New South Wales academic Katherine Tsatsaklas released a paper this year debating whether in Sydney “race is a key driver of parental choice, leading to ‘white flight’ away from schools”.
The paper compared policy decisions in Sydney to those in Detroit and argued that “integration is critical”.
HANSON GIVES FOLEY UNWANTED SUPPORT
PAULINE Hanson yesterday commended embattled NSW Labor leader Luke Foley for his contentious words.
“Twenty years ago, I said there would be places we won’t even recognise in Australia,” she told the Today show yesterday.
“They are forming ghettos. People are forced out of the homes they grew up in. Kids don’t want to live in these suburbs anymore because they are not assimilating.
“We don’t put restrictions on them that they must speak English, they must assimilate into our society and respect our laws and our cultures … this is why we have problems.”
But Mr Foley flatly rejected her endorsement, saying: “I won’t have a bar of her divisive race-based politics.”
He also highlighted that he was the only NSW political leader who had ruled out any preference deal with Hanson’s One Nation party.
The furore comes as the federal government considers developing new visa rules that will see migrants living in rural areas.
“There are many regions in Australia that are now facing skilled labour shortages and we are working with regional leaders and businesses to find solutions,” Citizenship Minister Alan Tudge said last week.
“Many migrants are sponsored for permanent residence on the basis of an intent to live and work in regional Australia but don’t stay long in the region once they have their permanent visa.”
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THE FINAL WORD
It’s an identifiable phenomenon in many Western cities that reflect the changing cultural mix of many suburbs. This is a class issue more than a race issue. Luke Foley yesterday morning
I’ve been saying this and I said it 20 years ago ... Good on Luke Foley because it needs to be debated. One Nation leader Pauline Hanson
He crossed the line, the language used was desperate and inflammatory, and it goes to the heart of the type of person he is. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian
It’s an American term. It’s not relevant to Western Sydney. The Refugee Council’s Shakufa Tahiri
White Flight is just a fancy term for racebaiting. Greens MP Mehreen Faruqi
Today the Leader of the Opposition has sunk to the lowest of all lows in a desperate attempt to grab a headline. NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro
I meant no offence, but some people have told me today that they find the term pretty unpalatable, so I certainly won’t use it again, and I apologise. Mr Foley yesterday afternoon
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