Labor is committing immigration suicide

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Via Dr Andy Marks, assistant vice-chancellor at Western Sydney University:

The most troubling result for Labor occurred in its once safe harbour, western Sydney, where the swing against it was about 3.5 per cent – nearly triple the national average…A new vein of voter sentiment is emerging in Sydney’s west and even south. In Banks and Reid, once safe Labor seats, then marginal, and now squarely Liberal, progressive ideals and social conservatism are in flux. In Sydney’s south, Banks rejected the same-sex marriage plebiscite, with 55.1 per cent responding ‘no’, while ‘yes’ – 52.7 per cent – just won the day in the more western Reid.

…Among the most culturally diverse constituencies in the country, these voters rallied behind Reid’s former Liberal MP Craig Laundy’s stance against his party’s proposed anti-discrimination changes.

Momentary leadership aspirant Chris Bowen remarked that his party had lost touch with religious constituents. Possibly. Over 55 per cent of his electorate identify as having a religious affiliation, compared with about 39 per cent nationally.

I am sure there is some values component here but the Coalition also installed same sex marriage, so it’s not exactly clear cut.

What is most extraordinary to me is that these electorates so fulsomely rejected Labor’s massive parental visa bribe, multicultural dogma and pro-China stance. While it might be argued that these policies weren’t as high profile for the rest of the country, they most certainly were in these targeted electorates. The policies were designed to swing them and them alone. Yet they preferred the Coalition’s permanent migrant cuts, China-hawkishness and culture wars.

It appears Western Sydney’s immigrant social conservatism unites with its economic crush-loading and falling living standards to produce a block of electorates that are so hostile to Labor’s open borders extremism that it overwhelms even familial links.

Perhaps not so surprisingly, these electorates share a similar nationalist worldview to the Quexiteers. After all, they didn’t come to Australia only to see it turn into whatever shit hole that they left behind.

If so, all Labor has to do to win the next election is:

  • drop all tax reform and talk up aspiration;
  • pledge to halve immigration;
  • campaign on decongestion, housing affordability, strong borders and rising wages.

The wedge into ScoMo would be massive given he, in reality, is massively boosting immigration for his business mates (via expanding temporaries) to the detriment of everyone else.

Sadly for Labor’s open borders nuts, they are busy turning right when it should left, at Domain:

Labor leader Anthony Albanese will reshape Labor’s economic agenda, pledging to work with business and make “jobs a first, second and third priority” as he prepares to appoint Jim Chalmers as his shadow treasurer.

As they listen to MSM open borders dills like David Crowe:

Aspiration is key. Labor MPs, devastated by their defeat, admit their program did not appeal to aspirational voters. “They saw us as a risk,” said one on Thursday.

The government’s critics have seen everything through the prism of median incomes over the past few years, as if targeting voters by income decile would deliver victory for Labor.

The Coalition appealed to aspiration. It told voters they could get ahead under Morrison but would find it harder to gain and keep wealth under Shorten. It had a simple negative message: “The Bill you can’t afford.”

While disaster looms:

Bill Shorten has told allies he wants to return as Labor leader, but is preparing to be denied his preferred frontbench positions as health or foreign affairs spokesman when Anthony Albanese unveils the opposition’s new-look frontbench this weekend.

Let’s not forget that the LNP also unexpectedly won the NSW election after trailing Labor immigration hawk, Luke Foley, who was replaced by a spineless Michael Daley as Gladys Berejiklian marched off to Canberra to demand immigration numbers be halved.

Labor is committing immigration suicide in NSW and QLD.

About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.