Daley's 'foreigners' comments are not like Foley's - they're worse

Michael Daley's concern that Sydney's young children are being replaced by Asians with PhDs has been compared Luke Foley's remarks about "white flight". The comparison is unfair to Foley – Daley's comments are worse.

The point Foley was attempting to make about "white flight" in an ill-judged interview with the Daily Telegraph last year was not that it was a bad thing that migrants were moving to particular parts of Sydney.

Foley was instead attempting to argue that some of those areas needed better services.

"What about those middle ring suburbs that have experienced, if anything, a slow decline in terms of employment, white flight, where many Anglo families have moved out, and I'm not prepared to see the people of those suburbs denied opportunities that are taken for granted elsewhere," the former Labor leader said in that interview.

Foley admitted he should not have used the phrase. But the point he was trying to make – in his inelegant way – was that he was on the side of "the people of the suburbs" in areas where "Anglo families" had moved out.

Compare that with Daley's sentiment.

"Our young children will flee and who are they being replaced with? They are being replaced by young people from typically Asia with PhDs," Daley told a Politics in the Pub session in the Blue Mountains last September, a recording of which has just emerged.

"There's a transformation happening in Sydney now where our kids are moving out and foreigners are moving in and taking their jobs."

So who is Daley on the side of? He is concerned for "our young children" and "our kids". By definition, in Daley's framing, these young children are not Asians.

Except, of course, that our young children are from Asia. And they're also foreigners. And some people with doctorates are also part of "our" gang.

Daley had the sense to offer an apology on Tuesday. And in attempting to explain himself, he stressed he was commenting in a discussion about Sydney's lack of affordable housing – a problem which, after all, affects us all.

But that can't take away from the essential crudity of his remarks.