UN slams Australia’s migrant racism

Advertisement

By Leith van Onselen

The United Nations’ special rapporteur on racism yesterday slammed Australia’s politicians for inciting racism towards migrants. From The Canberra Times:

The United Nations’ special rapporteur on racism has condemned Australian politicians from major and minor parties whose statements are contributing to an increase in “xenophobic hate speech” and negative views about migrants.

Mutuma Ruteere has also warned that political leaders who do not denounce such views are tacitly contributing to the normalisation of hard-right and racist opinions.

“If they do not speak out they lend legitimacy to them. It’s very easy for darkness to drive out the light. It’s very easy for the bad to demean the good. It’s much harder to clear out the political space once it’s infected by racists,” Mr Ruteere said in Canberra on Wednesday…

He said the “danger” for Australia was the experience of other countries where “the fringe elements keep moving to the centre, to the mainstream [and] the fringe becomes the mainstream”.

It’s called the immigration ‘bait-and-switch’, Mr Ruteere.

For more than a decade, Australia has run a dishonest immigration program that has cynically scapegoated the small number of refugees arriving into Australia by boat, all the while secretly opening the floodgates to economic migrants arriving into Australia by plane.

Advertisement

This subterfuge commenced under the Howard Government during the ‘Children Overboard’ affair and has continued ever since, with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull doubling down against asylum seekers last month.

This scapegoating of asylum seekers has meant that Australia’s annual permanent immigration program of around 200,000 people has been conflated with its humanitarian intake, which numbers only 14,000 currently. Accordingly, any concerns around excessive levels of immigration is wrongly assumed to refer to the humanitarian program.

Meanwhile, Australia’s population has grown rapidly over the past 12 years – driven by economic migration – and this is projected to continue for decades to come, with the population projected to balloon to 40 million by 2055:

Advertisement
ScreenHunter_15288 Oct. 05 14.32

At the same time, Australia’s temporary visa system has become corrupted, leading to increased competition from foreign workers and the erosion of job conditions across many sectors.

Rightly, Australian residents are beginning to push back. They are fed up with growing inequality and the enrichment of the one-percenters. They are fed up with the hollowing-out of the middle class and the casualisation of the workforce. They are fed up with the escalating cost of shelter that has locked them or their children out of home ownership. And they are fed up with increasing congestion, both on the road network and public transport system.

Advertisement

Unfortunately, the left side of politics has refused to engage in the debate and oppose the mass immigration that is destroying residents’ living standards.

As documented in Green Left Weekly in 1998, fears of being associated with Pauline Hanson’s “racist” and “xenophobic” views caused The Greens to abandon their policy of “stabilising” Australia’s population and “a zero net migration policy” to one of opposing cuts to immigration. Since that time, Australia’s population has surged by nearly 30%, mostly via immigration, without a whimper of opposition from The Greens or the left more generally.

The ultimate result has been the second rise of extremist elements like Pauline Hanson. While many do not agree with her on specific issues, they at least respect her honestly and willingness to stand up to the establishment and speak her mind, particularly against mass immigration.

Advertisement

In order to stop the subterfuge, and curb the angst over immigration, we need the left to take the “sensible centre” and argue to increase Australia’s humanitarian intake while cutting back massively on Australia’s economic intake. This way, Australia could relieve the pressures that come from running a mass immigration program, whilst being a good and caring global citizen and overcoming the perception of being “racist” and “xenophobic”.

The important thing is that Australia has a national discussion on the whole immigration issue – specifically whether it is wise to run an immigration program that is almost three times the size of the 20th century average and whether such a level is supported by the community.

If mainstream politicians give voters a say on what size Australia they want, they are far less likely to push back against the establishment. But if politicians ignore their concerns and continue to embrace open borders, then they will revolt and swing to hard right elements like Pauline Hanson.

Advertisement

[email protected]

About the author
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.