PM’s migrating position on newcomers to our land

‘The roads are clogged, the buses and trains are full,’ our PM has declared. Must be time to cut immigration.

“The roads are clogged, the buses and trains are full,” Scott Morrison declared on Monday, presumably not referring to the ScoMobile bus he sent empty across a swath of Queensland. Ergo, time to cut immigration. Let us pay a short visit to him on Sky News’s Sunday Agenda in March last year, when he was interviewed by our learned colleagues Paul Kelly and Peter van Onselen. “A number of prominent people have argued that we should cut back the immigration program,” said Kelly in his tones of caramel-coated granite. “What’s your response to that?” Immigration had dropped substantially since those days, ScoMo said, before proceeding with no small degree of passion: “The second point I’d make is this, and that is population growth is currently running for the non-working population at around twice the rate of the working population. So it’s over 2 per cent for the non-working population, and around 1 per cent for the working-age population. So those who are advocating for cutting back on immigration, what that will simply do is make that gap even wider and it means there will be fewer people in the working age paying for pensions, paying for services, paying for all the things that a very necessary. Now, I’m no great big Australia advocate but I’m a pretty commonsense politician and decision maker when it comes to these sorts of issues.”

Shift happens

These conversations never feel whole without bringing in the immigration-cut enthusiast that is Tony Abbott — raising the Tone, if you will. Replied ScoMo: “Well, it is up to him to make his case.” We guess he did. As Abbott said yesterday: “I certainly think this is an important step in the right direction.”

Steering committee

The debate has also served to remind that, when it comes to automobiles, the Libs are a broad church. Yesterday Peter Dutton said: “We want people out of cars and spending more time with their families and doing things they want.” But in 2014, Joe Hockey appeared to suggest market forces had taken care of one chunk of the population: “The poorest people either don’t have cars or actually don’t drive very far in many cases.” It took Abbott to take a different route in Battlelines: “The humblest person is king in his own car.” Though no one encapsulated the possibility of the car quite like NSW premier Robert Askin who, regarding protesters lying in front of the motorcade of visiting US president Lyndon B. Johnson, turned to his guest and advised: “Run the bastards over.”

Tone dearth dreaming

Speaking of Abbott, an old war has taken a different shape: Malcolm, Lucy and Alex Turnbull have signed on as followers of Vote Tony Out, a new Instagram account dedicated to ending Abbott’s stint as member for Warringah. It should come as no great surprise to learn that the Turnbulls are early adopters. The former PM and his wife were already following the account yesterday morning when a mere 66 people had discovered it. The next step will be for them to go to the website it’s linked to and avail themselves of the merchandise, which is billed thus: “It’s time to build our Tribe. Wearing a ‘Time’s Up Tony’
T-shirt is such a positive experience. Share your thoughts with others and see the magic happen. You will find that you aren’t alone in your thoughts. There are many of us out there …”

Mum’s the word

Deputy Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek was meanwhile tipping the bucket on the Prime Muppeteer: “People won’t forget that Scott Morrison is the guy who called working mothers ‘double dippers’ and ‘rorters’ for wanting to access paid parental leave.” Eventually it was time for questions from the media. “So will the opposition be supporting the proposal for a more flexible paid parental leave scheme?” was the first cab off the rank. Plibersek returned to her theme with gusto and considerable fidelity: “First of all, we won’t forget that it was Scott Morrison that called working mothers ‘double-dippers’ and ‘rorters’ for wanting to get access to paid parental leave.” That happened in 2015, which remains fresh in our memories — in contrast to, say, 2013, when Labor turned on single mothers. As SBS reported in the wake of Labor’s election loss much later that year: “Former prime minister Julia Gillard has defended her government’s controversial decision to cut welfare payments to single mothers. The two men vying for the federal Labor leadership — Bill Shorten and Anthony Albanese — have both disowned the policy and admitted the party did the wrong thing when it implemented welfare cuts this year.” As Gillard explained in her defence of the policy back then: “I’m a big believer in the dignity that comes from work.”

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