There is real danger in trying to silence our immigration debate
Australians know that immigration at record levels is changing our country, and not necessarily for the better. During the Howard era, net immigration averaged just more than 100,000 a year. It averaged more than 200,000 a year in the decade before the pandemic.
Over the past three years, under the Albanese government, it’s been averaging close to 500,000 a year. At these levels, there’s downward pressure on wages, upward pressure on housing costs and massive strain on physical and social infrastructure, quite apart from any issues of social cohesion.
Yet when some 50,000 Australians took to the streets last weekend to show their concerns, they were roundly denounced by government ministers as right-wing nut jobs and neo-Nazis – even though the handful of extremists was plainly outnumbered by everyday Australians worried about where our country is heading.
When mainstream leaders refuse to take seriously the big issues that worry voters, they end up empowering the populists and even the extremists they claim to deplore. Nigel Farage has far more poll support than either the British Labour government or the opposition Conservatives because he’s the only one who has consistently spoken out against out-of-control immigration and the insanity of putting reducing emissions ahead of affordable and reliable electricity. Britons who are neither instinctive racists nor environmental vandals have finally lost patience with political parties that have long implied they are.
In this country, political disrupters have not succeeded to the same extent – yet – but they will if neither main party is prepared to engage with voter concerns. The fact so many turned out for protests that weren’t sponsored by anyone in obvious authority and weren’t supported by anyone especially well known – apart from Pauline Hanson, who addressed the Canberra rally – suggests a groundswell of people fed up with social developments they don’t like and governments that don’t listen.
Partly, these “reclaim Australia” protests were a spontaneous response to repeated protests about Palestine. And partly they were a function of sustained frustration with governments that are much better at striking a pose than making a difference. Especially from Labor governments, there’s been a palpable double standard in the treatment of people’s right to protest. Police who’ve facilitated numerous pro-Palestine marches seemed much readier to intervene and make arrests on the weekend when the only flags being waved were Australian.
Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt said the March for Australia was “about spreading hate” and was “organised and promoted by neo-Nazi groups”. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said “nothing could be less Australian”. And Multicultural Affairs Minister Anne Aly said the rallies were a “con by the far-right neo-Nazis”.
But instead of stressing that there were lots of mainstream Australians who took to the streets, alongside a few ratbags, and instead of calling on the government to deliver on its promises to slow down immigration, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said the real issue was extremism, and offered to work with the government to tackle it. Shadow immigration minister Paul Scarr said Australia needs to be “terribly careful” in discussing immigration so “extreme” positions “do not get a foothold in the debate”. During the election campaign, the Coalition was so careful (I read it as paralysed), it failed even to release an immigration policy because upsetting the vested interests – the colleges selling residency in the guise of education and the businesses taking advantage of cheap foreign workers – was too hard.
From both sides of politics there’s been an attempt to de-legitimise discussion about immigration as divisive, extremist and potentially, if not actually, racist. Is it any wonder that people who are starting to feel like strangers in their own country are losing faith in the system if their concerns can’t even be ventilated.
Australians are owed a long overdue mature debate about immigration. It should start with the fact that the permanent migration figure, typically much less than 200,000, is often dwarfed by the numbers coming in as “temporary” students and workers – even though everyone coming for more than a couple of months needs somewhere to live, some means of a support and a way to get around. This explains the recent huge discrepancy between the “permanent” migration figure and the now typically much larger “Net Overseas Migration” figure – the number coming for 12 months or more.
We also need to face up to the fact that immigration is not fundamentally about skills, given that only 3 per cent of migrants have a much-in-demand building trade. Yes, there are some overseas students who subsequently become highly regarded professionals. But as was apparent during the pandemic, when migration temporarily ceased, most recent migrants are working as cleaners, carers, drivers, waiters and fruit pickers. These are necessary jobs that must be done. But if the main purpose of migration is to fill the entry-level jobs Australians are reluctant to do because of inflated expectations after doing dead-end degrees or because of a welfare system that can facilitate opting out of the workforce, we should at least be honest about it.
Then there’s the rapidly growing numbers (now more than 100,000) who come here as tourists, students or workers, only to claim asylum, and who typically then appeal their rejection through the courts. This will almost certainly be the case with every entrant under the 3000 tourist visas issued to people from Gaza, if present asylum applications are any guide.
For governments of both sides, migration has been a way to artificially inflate economic growth without politically difficult economic reforms. Apart from the pandemic, Australia hasn’t had a technical recession since the early 1990s, despite productivity that has been stagnant for a decade. And that’s only because migration has boosted overall economic growth while masking the past two years of declining GDP per person. It’s this very high immigration that explains the paradox of continued economic growth coexisting with declining living standards.
Finally, there’s the issue of social cohesion. With a government that stresses diversity over unity, why wouldn’t some recent migrants keep speaking their own languages, dressing in their own garb, and sticking to their own neighbourhoods? Then there’s the disdain, bordering on scorn, left-wing ministers have for anything that seems to be a celebration of our Anglo-Celtic core culture or our Judeo-Christian ethos, even though they’re the source of the democratic freedoms and human rights that have made our country so appealing as a place to live.
With many more than 50 per cent of Australians telling pollsters that immigration numbers are too high, we can’t let the antics of a few fanatics close down the debate we had to have. If businesses routinely discuss where they’re likely to be in 10 years – including the numbers and type of personnel they might need – why shouldn’t countries, too? If people are shamed into silence, this debate won’t disappear, it will fester, and, as Europe is showing, only become uglier the longer it’s delayed.
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Why is immigration the one subject Australians are not allowed to discuss or debate when almost nothing is more significant for the long-term future of the country? And when the presumed political influence of recent diaspora communities in Australia is driving changes in our foreign policy towards China and Palestine?