2026-10-30
A race to the bottom in migrant bashing
By Chris Johansen, Green Issue Co-editor
A political ploy from time immemorial is to nominate an enemy of the constituency you are trying to impress, whether that enemy exists or not, and claim that you are the best person to deal with that enemy. This is a basic One Nation strategy, as evidenced by their denigration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples , Muslims and migrants over the last 30 years as them being the primary cause of the socio-economic woes of the working class of Anglo heritage.
Although not clearly spelled out the One Nation railing against migrants is obviously directed towards non-Anglo migrants. This is evidenced by One Nation’s insistence that newcomers to Australia immediately merge into the monoculture of “the Australian way of life”. As described by One Nation that monoculture looks like life as it was in Australia in the 1950s, when it was truly Anglo-dominant.
But One Nation is on a good wicket as much of Australia does remain racist. A recent example is the overwhelming rejection of a Voice to Parliament for First Nations people. Basically, a humble request to realistically address the wrongs faced by First Nations people over the last 250 years. The majority of voters obviously didn’t consider those wrongs as indeed wrongs. This was worsened by the spreading of misinformation around what the Voice to Parliament was.
My own history traces Anglo racism since WW2. I am Anglo on my Mother’s side. In primary school in the 1950s we were taught of the glories of the British Empire (even though it was then disintegrating), and by implication the superiority of those of Anglo descent. Having no means then of alternative terms of reference I imbibed this indoctrination.
Back then it manifested itself in racial insults against southern European migrants, mainly from Italy and Greece, who were referred to with terms I could not repeat here. Of course, there were no dark skinned immigrants then due to the White Australia policy. The only dark skinned people in the community were Aboriginals, who we were told were a dying race and thus not worth worrying about.
However, by the end of the 50s my doubts about Anglo-white superiority started creeping in, when learning about MK Gandhi’s struggle to liberate India from British rule, Martin Luther King’s crusade in the USA and Nelson Mandela’s struggle against white domination in South Africa.
I left Australia in 1972 to immerse myself in other cultures – Germany, China, Bangladesh, India – to the extent of ultimately feeling part of those cultures. On returning to live in Australia in 2006, I thought I had expunged all of those feelings of Anglo superiority that were indoctrinated in primary school. However, to my own embarrassment, I still detect traces of Anglo superiority in my thoughts and actions.
For those local Anglos of my vintage who have not immersed themselves in other cultures for 35 years or so I would expect that at least some values taught in the 1950s would still be embedded. I am unsure as to how long the Anglo-centric primary school curriculum of the 1950s extended into future decades. Thus, I would expect that baby boomers at least would be fertile fodder for One Nation as far as migration is concerned.
But I’m not suggesting that Australia is unique in harbouring racism. I have noticed that all other countries that I have lived in or visited have their own form of racism. This is usually integrated with nationalism, whereby “others” are considered as inferior. But, somehow, this inferior otherness has never applied to me as everywhere I have been I have felt “welcome”. This was likely due to the privilege I experience as a white (or Anglo) male.
But back to today’s immigration “problem”. Firstly, it needs to be reminded that Australia was built by immigration – all of us are either immigrants or descendants thereof. Even First Nations peoples who migrated here via present day Indonesia some 65,000 years ago. So, fundamentally, an attack on immigration is an attack on all of us.
One Nation attributes the housing crisis, falling standards of living for the less well-off and the rise in crime and terrorism primarily to the influx of non-Anglo migrants, and thus a racial problem, although this is not admitted. As the Coalition finds itself, just over the past year, in a life or death struggle with One Nation, they have felt the need to jump on the anti-immigration band wagon, trumpeting the huge immigration cuts they would bring. Even Labor, a bit spooked by all of this, are doing their best to cut immigration.
A particularly naïve aspect of the Coalition immigration proposal is to “cap net overseas migration each year below the number of new homes completed”. This assumes that each new immigrant requires a new house, when in reality they assimilate into existing housing, increasing the number of people per dwelling. Housing problems in Australia are primarily caused by policies such as negative gearing, lack of rental control and bottlenecks in new housing construction. One of those bottlenecks is lack of migrant labour!
All of this overlooks what would happen if the One Nation, Coalition, and even Labor, immigration cuts were implemented. A sky-rocketing cost of living! The current economy is dependent on recent migrants for agricultural labour (without them food costs would dramatically increase), health and old age and disability services and various labour intensive jobs that incumbent citizens are reluctant to do.
Employers are particularly favourable to recent migrants, back packers and foreign students (who do part-time work) as they can pay them the lowest wages permissible. But often, as regularly reported, they are underpaid as these employees are usually not aware of local labour laws nor their benefits due, and are reluctant to complain if they do find out.
Another sector that would feel the pain of cuts to overseas students would be universities. With government cuts to university funding over the years, overseas student fees now form a major component of university income.
A major target for immigration cutbacks of One Nation and the Coalition is refugees, in defiance of Australia’s prior agreements to take a fair share of global refugees. This is in the circumstance of increasing numbers of global refugees due to wars in the middle East and Africa. This will inevitably further degrade Australia’s reputation as a humanitarian country.
Of course, there is a need to control immigration, according to the country’s need for various skills and humanitarian considerations. But the conservative party proposals seem to be going overboard in this regard, particularly with respect to consequent effects on the economy.
Concerns about an influx of asylum seekers, through legal channels or otherwise, need to consider the reasons why such people seek asylum. War being a current one. But the Australian Government is doing little, if not nothing, to promote peace in the Middle East or elsewhere, instead siding with the perpetrators of those wars. Furthermore, they are not doing anything to prevent the inevitable influx of climate refugees, like continuing the export and internal use of fossil fuels and having a tongue-in-cheek approach to global climate action.
But the immigration dilemma is not likely to go away any time soon. With climate change, an increase in numbers of climate refugees is inevitable. Many of these will be generated from countries adjacent to Australia – the Pacific Island nations threatened with sea level rise and the nations bordering the Indian Ocean already suffering from the deleterious effects of climate change. This will confront all political parties, including the Greens, on how to handle the climate displaced millions, many of whom would see Australia as a place of refuge.
Header photo: SIEV X Memorial, Canberra, honouring the loss at sea of 353 asylum seekers in 2001 trying to reach Australia by boat. Credit: Dhx 1 Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication
[Opinions expressed are those of the author and not official policy of Greens WA]