As One Nation rises by recycling anti-immigration rhetoric, both major parties are fumbling their response – missing the chance to offer a clear, credible and principled long-term plan.
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Category: Immigration
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Best of 2025 – Our politicians continue to fail us on immigration policy
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Best of 2025 – Assessing the Liberal Party’s policy-making capacity
Good policy should be evidence-based. But this is not the case with the Liberals energy policy and seems unlikely with their migration policy. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – Australia’s fragile multicultural consensus under threat
Anti-immigration rallies around Australia in late August and mid-October exposed public divides over migration, social cohesion and national identity. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – Courts brace for next wave of ‘sovereign citizens’
When I wrote about the “Cavalcade of the Cretinous” in February 2022, I thought the anti-vaccination early incarnations of “sovereign citizens” were just a hopeless joke (“Summernats without the sophistication”) that would quietly go away. (more…)
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A beautiful mosaic: celebrating multicultural Australia
Multicultural Australia has enriched the nation’s cultural life, creativity and global standing. These achievements deserve recognition and defence at a time of growing hostility to migration.
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2025 in Review: immigration policy turns back toward dog whistles and drift
2025 marked a turning point in Australian immigration policy, as long-term planning was abandoned and discriminatory rhetoric returned to the political mainstream. (more…)
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Refugees aren’t politically progressive by default – and policy needs to catch up
Australian settlement policy often assumes refugees will embrace progressive politics. Research and community experience show refugee political identities are far more diverse – with important implications for law and policy.
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Fear versus facts: why migrants strengthen Australia
Australia’s multicultural society is not a modern experiment or a social crisis. It is the product of shared effort, grounded in First Nations custodianship and strengthened by generations of migrants who have helped build the nation’s economy, culture and community life.
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Assessing the Liberal Party’s policy-making capacity
Good policy should be evidence-based. But this is not the case with the Liberals energy policy and seems unlikely with their migration policy. (more…)
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The shadow of the Tampa
Nearly 25 years on from the Tampa crisis, Australia needs a parliamentary inquiry to lift the lid on offshore detention.
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Migration myths
Migrants aren’t to blame for expensive houses or stress on infrastructure: in fact they’re making more contribution to our shared assets than Australians. (more…)
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As Australia welcomes its millionth refugee, its hardline border policies endure. We can lead by example again
Any day now, Australia will welcome its millionth refugee since World War II. (more…)
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Australia’s fragile multicultural consensus under threat
Anti-immigration rallies around Australia in late August and mid-October exposed public divides over migration, social cohesion and national identity. (more…)
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When will immigration return to ‘normal’?
Despite assurances from Immigration Minister Tony Burke that immigration is “trending back towards historically normal levels”, all indicators suggest it is once again overshooting Treasury’s projection. Indeed, it looks like the descent may have stalled and might rebound. (more…)
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The pearling past and the multicultural present: A story of connection and contribution
In the late 1990s, during a field study in Wyndham, a remote town in Western Australia, I met a small tourism operator whose story has stayed with me ever since. (more…)
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The morality we need, the asylum they seek
Like many grumpy hacks from an age of lost standards, I’ve belittled colleagues’ usage of the perpendicular pronoun. We’re not the Mums needing attention – only the midwives bringing the stories of others into the world. We report and depart. (more…)
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Why the Coalition can’t win without losing itself
The Coalition faces not a messaging challenge but a structural impossibility. Voters abandoning them won’t be satisfied by marginally tougher rhetoric. (more…)
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On No Kings day, a new America came to life
This is who we are. And this is what our country must be: people with a soul-deep love for Planet Earth and all who inhabit it. (more…)
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The migration debate in Australia
Australia’s population growth rate is returning to normal. Instead, of cutting migration, the solution to Australia’s housing crisis is to increase the rate of new dwelling approvals and completions. (more…)
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Paper walls at Thailand’s border
Myanmar’s current emergency is not a sudden rupture but a long arc of military rule that has criminalised dissent, dismantled civil society and pushed millions into precarity. (more…)
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Reuniting families: reforming Australia’s approach
Saffron Williams is one of six talented young Australians who will travel to the UN General Assembly in New York next week as part of the Global Voices project. (more…)
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The perfect storm: Why immigration has become the scapegoat for our age of crisis
Economic shocks, social strains and rising inequality have unsettled democracies everywhere. In this atmosphere of fear and anger, immigration has been cast as the culprit, offering populists a simple story for a complex age. (more…)
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‘Release the tapes’: Lawmakers demand answers over alleged US$50,000 bribe of Trump border czar Tom Homan
“Seriously though, has anyone ever been handed US$50,000 cash in a paper bag for something legit?” (more…)
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The retreat of social democracy and the rise of the hard right
From Warsaw to Melbourne, from Berlin to Texas, the streets of many OECD countries are witnessing anti-immigration rallies and the surge of far-right populism. (more…)
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A good captain can stop this Senator’s social cohesion ‘Titanic’
After the largest public rally with racist associations for migrants we have witnessed since the demise of the White Australia policy, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s comments really hurt. (more…)
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Courts brace for next wave of ‘sovereign citizens’
When I wrote about the “Cavalcade of the Cretinous” in February 2022, I thought the anti-vaccination early incarnations of “sovereign citizens” were just a hopeless joke (“Summernats without the sophistication”) that would quietly go away. (more…)
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‘Like us’: Australia’s uneasy dance with immigration
Over dinner on a recent group tour in Australia, conversation turned to the wave of anti-immigration demonstrations and political statements that have flared across the country. (more…)
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The speech we are still waiting for Anthony Albanese to deliver
Last week, rallies were held under the banner of “March for Australia.” (more…)
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The good, the bad and the stupid
When Sergio Leone made The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, he showed how flawed characters chasing the same prize could blunder their way into folly and missed opportunities. (more…)
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People dumping in the Pacific
Australian governments of all stripes have long maintained a commitment to secure borders and an orderly migration program. (more…)