Latest / Inside Politics / Best of 2025: The rallies, the neo-Nazis, the flag-draping: How politics on immigration have led to this point

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Best of 2025: The rallies, the neo-Nazis, the flag-draping: How politics on immigration have led to this point · Inside Politics

• 0:01
  S1: Hi, it's Jacqueline Maley here. Happy new year. We're on
• 0:04
  S1: a little break over summer. Lucky us. Before we return
• 0:07
  S1: at the end of January for another year of Inside Politics.
• 0:11
  S1: Today we're returning to an episode recorded in the wake
• 0:13
  S1: of the divisive March for Australia protests, which became the
• 0:16
  S1: vehicle for a hodgepodge of causes including immigration, an issue
• 0:20
  S1: that would lead to Jacinta Nampijinpa Price's sacking from the
• 0:23
  S1: frontbench of the opposition. This episode features chief political correspondent
• 0:28
  S1: Paul Circle and federal political correspondent Natassia Chrysanthos. Welcome, guys.
• 0:36
  S2: Hi, Jack. Morning.
• 0:38
  S1: So, Paul, last weekend we saw these big anti-immigration rallies
• 0:41
  S1: being held across the country. They were called the March
• 0:43
  S1: for Australia rallies. They made the news, obviously, and there
• 0:46
  S1: was particularly some violence at the Melbourne rally where we
• 0:49
  S1: saw neo-Nazis showing up. And one was even sort of
• 0:53
  S1: given permission to take the microphone and publicly address the
• 0:55
  S1: rally in a sort of endorsement, almost, of that particular group.
• 0:59
  S1: And this was despite an insistence from the organisers that
• 1:02
  S1: the rallies were attended by mainstream Australians. What reaction did
• 1:06
  S1: we see this week from Canberra?
• 1:08
  S3: Yeah, they were big rallies. I mean, they weren't as
• 1:11
  S3: violent or as incendiary as the Cronulla riots, but they
• 1:13
  S3: certainly carried echoes of it in terms of the size
• 1:15
  S3: and the tenor of some of the debate at these rallies.
• 1:19
  S3: In terms of how the reaction played out in Canberra
• 1:21
  S3: this week, the Prime Minister was particularly keen to strike
• 1:24
  S3: a measured tone. He wanted to acknowledge the legitimate concerns
• 1:28
  S3: of some of the people at the rally.
• 1:30
  S4: Do you think there were good people with legitimate concerns
• 1:33
  S4: at these anti-immigration rallies this weekend?
• 1:35
  S5: Of course, there's always good people will turn up to
• 1:38
  S5: demonstrate their views about particular issues. But what we have
• 1:43
  S5: here is neo-Nazis being given a platform.
• 1:49
  S3: He didn't want to cast them all as extremists. He
• 1:51
  S3: wanted to acknowledge that there has been high migration post
• 1:55
  S3: Covid after a period of low migration when lockdowns occurred, It,
• 1:59
  S3: which coincided with a housing crisis, and people feeling like
• 2:02
  S3: their lot in life was getting worse. We had an
• 2:05
  S3: inflation crisis as well, and when those problems are occurring
• 2:08
  S3: in society, there's a common tendency, as demonstrated through history,
• 2:12
  S3: to blame other groups in society, including migrants. So you
• 2:16
  S3: saw Albanese trying to kind of sit in the middle
• 2:19
  S3: of this debate. Sussan Ley tried to set the agenda
• 2:22
  S3: earlier in the week by saying the Prime Minister needed
• 2:24
  S3: to show leadership at this time of kind of fraying,
• 2:27
  S3: fraying of our social fabric. But the coalition's message got
• 2:31
  S3: muddied as the week went on, because some of the
• 2:34
  S3: more forceful right wingers in the party, including Jacinta Price
• 2:37
  S3: and Alex Antic, used some, at times controversial language to
• 2:42
  S3: talk about this issue. Jacinta price draped herself in the
• 2:45
  S3: Australian flag, which is the garb that many of these
• 2:47
  S3: protesters were using on Sunday.
• 2:50
  S6: Senator McKim, on a point of order.
• 2:51
  S7: Yes. Thank you president. I asked for a ruling, please,
• 2:57
  S7: on whether the senator is who's wrapped in, uh, the
• 3:02
  S7: national flag at the moment is contravening the standing order
• 3:05
  S7: that prevents props.
• 3:06
  S4: Thank you, acting President. So disappointing from the Greens, but
• 3:09
  S4: also so typical. You can wear a kifa in here.
• 3:13
  S4: Perhaps you should remove that article from you whenever you
• 3:15
  S4: walk through these chambers. For the benefit of all Australians
• 3:18
  S4: in this country. Yes. Snark all you like. It's revolting.
• 3:23
  S3: Alex Antic, the, uh, most far right liberal senator, suggested
• 3:28
  S3: that the neo-Nazi group led by Thomas Sewell, who we saw, uh,
• 3:32
  S3: harass Jacinta Allan, the Victorian premier, at a press conference,
• 3:35
  S3: was effectively in some sort of psyop operation with ASIO.
• 3:39
  S3: And they're not a real organisation. And this is all
• 3:41
  S3: a government set up to try and create the impression
• 3:44
  S3: that neo Nazis are a prominent force when actually Anti-migration
• 3:48
  S3: views are widespread. So there were some out there comments
• 3:50
  S3: in the Parliament this week, uh, and worth just very
• 3:54
  S3: briefly putting it into a bigger context. We've had the
• 3:58
  S3: ASIO boss, Mike Burgess, talking for years about the increased
• 4:01
  S3: risk of politically motivated violence. At the same time as
• 4:05
  S3: populist movements are on the rise in the US with
• 4:07
  S3: Trump and in large parts of Europe. So all of
• 4:11
  S3: these extremist elements and these risks we've been hearing a
• 4:16
  S3: lot about are kind of coalescing and creating this big
• 4:19
  S3: national conversation around radicalism in Australia.
• 4:22
  S1: Yeah, and sort of some elements are hopping off the
• 4:24
  S1: internet and into real life tasks. You had a look
• 4:27
  S1: at immigration figures this week. So let's just go straight
• 4:29
  S1: to the facts, because there is this perception, rightly or wrongly,
• 4:32
  S1: among some sectors of the Australian population, that there are
• 4:35
  S1: too many migrants, and particularly in our big cities, where
• 4:38
  S1: you do see a lot of, I think probably temporary
• 4:41
  S1: migrants and people blame them, perhaps for the housing crisis
• 4:45
  S1: and also maybe for sort of infrastructure gluts or kind of,
• 4:47
  S1: you know, jamming up infrastructure. What are the actual facts
• 4:50
  S1: on migration figures?
• 4:51
  S8: Well, if you look at the last two decades, so
• 4:55
  S8: since about oh four in the Howard era, you've had
• 4:58
  S8: a pretty steady approach to migration, where the population is
• 5:03
  S8: generally grown between 1 and 2% every year. Um, and
• 5:07
  S8: since 2004, migrants have contributed more to population growth than
• 5:13
  S8: natural increase, which refers to the number of people being
• 5:15
  S8: born minus the number of people who died. So migrants
• 5:17
  S8: have made up the kind of majority of population growth
• 5:20
  S8: for the last 20 years. Um, the big anomaly, I suppose,
• 5:27
  S8: as Paul said, happened during Covid. So we were on
• 5:30
  S8: track at that. That kind of steady rate of growth
• 5:32
  S8: between 1 and 2%. Then borders were shut. You had this,
• 5:35
  S8: this historic dip in, um, migration to negative migration. And
• 5:43
  S8: then when borders reopened, you had a historic surge. Um,
• 5:47
  S8: now when kind of, uh, people in the protest have
• 5:52
  S8: and it happens in Parliament as well, bring up this
• 5:55
  S8: argument that a million people came into the country in
• 5:58
  S8: two years. That's true. Um, but what that doesn't kind
• 6:02
  S8: of account for was it came off the back of
• 6:04
  S8: negative migration and actually the budget papers. So the budget
• 6:08
  S8: papers forecast migration for the next four years, every year. Um,
• 6:13
  S8: and they've gotten all muddled up with all these kind
• 6:15
  S8: of contradictory expectations, not being able to predict when borders
• 6:18
  S8: will open or close things like that. But for example,
• 6:21
  S8: if you go back to the 2019 budget delivered by
• 6:24
  S8: the Morrison government, which is the last pre Covid budget,
• 6:29
  S8: I suppose, and you look at its forecast for population
• 6:33
  S8: growth and you, which was a kind of steady steady
• 6:37
  S8: rate and you take that forward. The population um would
• 6:42
  S8: have been in 24 in 2024. Sorry. It would have
• 6:45
  S8: been almost 28 million. What we ended up with was
• 6:49
  S8: 27.4 million. So the population levels that we see now
• 6:53
  S8: are roughly on par with what governments were supposedly planning
• 6:57
  S8: for five six years ago. So that's when you get
• 7:00
  S8: to this kind of argument that that governments have been
• 7:02
  S8: ushering in this kind of mass migration by stealth. Um,
• 7:06
  S8: that doesn't add up when you look at what governments
• 7:09
  S8: have been planning for, and then you get into a
• 7:10
  S8: reasonable debate about housing and infrastructure and all of that.
• 7:14
  S1: Yeah, yeah. So basically, Covid kind of really stuffed everything up.
• 7:17
  S1: And I think that, um, or stuffed up all the projections. Okay.
• 7:20
  S1: So Paul, let's talk about the political debate around migration,
• 7:23
  S1: because as you say, it has become sort of globalized.
• 7:27
  S1: Both labor and the coalition know that some voters, um,
• 7:30
  S1: have concerns around there being too much immigration. And both
• 7:33
  S1: parties went to the election with promises to cut immigration.
• 7:38
  S1: That obviously didn't work so well for the coalition. But
• 7:41
  S1: Labor's won government. Are they going to cut immigration?
• 7:44
  S3: Yeah, well Labor's continuing on with their policies that they
• 7:47
  S3: had before the last election to bring immigration down from
• 7:50
  S3: those post Covid highs. Peter Dutton turned this into one
• 7:54
  S3: of the most salient issues of the last term, not
• 7:56
  S3: off his own bat. He picked up on something that
• 7:58
  S3: was occurring in the community. I'm interested to ask now,
• 8:02
  S3: is it right to say that the post Covid numbers
• 8:05
  S3: did lead to a much higher perception of high immigration
• 8:08
  S3: and a perception that immigrants were fuelling social issues in Australia?
• 8:13
  S3: Or is that a bigger feature of political debate than
• 8:15
  S3: it has been in polling of individuals?
• 8:18
  S8: I think it depends who you are and where you live, right,
• 8:20
  S8: and what your economic concerns are. I think research tells
• 8:24
  S8: us that, that people who are concerned about economic security
• 8:27
  S8: or housing insecurity are more likely to be concerned about immigration. Um,
• 8:32
  S8: you know, you had in this recent period that really
• 8:35
  S8: intersect with the housing debate, but but in previous times,
• 8:38
  S8: you know, you've got traffic and congestion issues, and that
• 8:41
  S8: also turns into a conversation about immigration. So I think
• 8:45
  S8: everyone's kind of reality on that front will be different.
• 8:48
  S8: But there's no doubt that, um, it the political narrative
• 8:53
  S8: I think has, has helped to kind of consolidate that argument.
• 8:59
  S8: And I think that that housing immigration link there is
• 9:05
  S8: there there is a relationship there. But immigration is not
• 9:08
  S8: the only factor that influences housing. Housing shortages, housing prices
• 9:11
  S8: is it's a it's a much more complicated picture. What
• 9:14
  S8: I find really interesting is just talking to people in Parliament,
• 9:18
  S8: including coalition ministers, MPs, post-election, and a lot of them
• 9:21
  S8: will say people didn't buy it like we were. We
• 9:24
  S8: were drawing this simplistic link. Being like migrants and international
• 9:27
  S8: students are the reasons you can't buy a house. And
• 9:29
  S8: it didn't land with people. And I think you saw
• 9:32
  S8: that in the election result. Um, which is why I
• 9:37
  S8: find it quite interesting that the coalition, in many ways
• 9:41
  S8: this week is still kind of giving this conversation a
• 9:45
  S8: similar framing.
• 9:47
  S1: The coalition leadership tried to strike a pretty, um, even
• 9:51
  S1: tone on this stuff. But we did see Coalition Senator
• 9:55
  S1: Jacinta Nampijinpa price makes them particularly sort of controversial comments
• 9:59
  S1: about the Indian community in particular that she got backlash on.
• 10:02
  S8: So you've got kind of Lee, I think, trying to
• 10:05
  S8: play both sides a little bit, being very kind of
• 10:08
  S8: much more empathetic, kind of where all migrants. I'm a migrant,
• 10:12
  S8: we love the migrant communities, while at the same time
• 10:15
  S8: kind of weighing into this debate around the housing link,
• 10:20
  S8: which didn't quite work for the coalition last time. And
• 10:22
  S8: then as she's she's really trying to walk that line.
• 10:27
  S8: You've got Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, who comes on afternoon briefing
• 10:30
  S8: and after a bit of questioning from the host, basically
• 10:34
  S8: alleges that labor is bringing in specific groups of migrants
• 10:38
  S8: so that it can win votes.
• 10:40
  S9: So who do you think they're trying to bring in
• 10:41
  S9: to to make them vote for labor?
• 10:44
  S4: Well, those that are more labor leaning that that are
• 10:46
  S4: likely to be.
• 10:47
  S9: But there are right wing and left wing people in
• 10:49
  S9: every community. Right. So who specifically are they?
• 10:52
  S8: Now Australia's got a non-discriminatory migration system that that doesn't
• 10:56
  S8: preference nationality, but price basically contradicts that. And then when
• 11:02
  S8: pressed on who is Labour trying to bring in singles
• 11:05
  S8: out the Indian community?
• 11:06
  S4: Well, as we've seen, you know, I mean, you yourself
• 11:09
  S4: mentioned that there is a concern with the Indian community
• 11:12
  S4: and only because there's been large numbers and we can
• 11:14
  S4: see that reflected in the way that the community votes
• 11:17
  S4: for Labour at the same time.
• 11:19
  S8: This is probably worth acknowledging the overwhelming kind of target
• 11:24
  S8: in terms of anti-immigration sentiment on the weekend. And you
• 11:27
  S8: have several really upsetting, um, reports of racism that people
• 11:33
  S8: experienced on the streets of Sydney and Melbourne and so forth.
• 11:36
  S8: And then you have price now, a Liberal senator going
• 11:39
  S8: on national television and basically validating that concern that that
• 11:45
  S8: led to significant racism on our streets.
• 11:48
  S1: Well, and not just that saying that they're queue jumpers almost.
• 11:50
  S8: Yeah, yeah. And and, um, the laborers vote stacking and. Yeah, no,
• 11:57
  S8: no kind of credible allegation, no evidence for it. There
• 12:01
  S8: was I think it's safe to say that Lee wasn't
• 12:04
  S8: happy about that situation.
• 12:07
  S10: Our Australian Indian community are amazing. You contribute as Australian
• 12:13
  S10: Indians so much to our country. We know how hard
• 12:16
  S10: you work, your family values and the contribution you make
• 12:20
  S10: across this country. And as Opposition leader, I value that incredibly.
• 12:25
  S8: Price had issued a statement about an hour afterwards. Um,
• 12:30
  S8: but again, her statement was Australia has a non-discriminatory migration program.
• 12:37
  S8: Suggestions otherwise are a mistake. Uh, there wasn't a kind
• 12:40
  S8: of a lot of ownership over that mistake.
• 12:44
  S1: And no apology to the Indian community.
• 12:45
  S8: And no apology. And then she came out the next
• 12:47
  S8: day and said, I don't think I need to apologize.
• 12:49
  S8: So and the Indian community, it is it is a
• 12:52
  S8: significant voting block because it's a lot of people, and
• 12:54
  S8: labor and the coalition both caught that community. There is
• 12:57
  S8: a lot of active outreach among Indian Australians, and there
• 13:00
  S8: are a lot of them are very politically engaged. Um,
• 13:04
  S8: so I don't think this bodes well for the coalition
• 13:07
  S8: and Sussan Ley, as she vows to rebuild the coalition's
• 13:10
  S8: reputation in multicultural communities that ultimately contributed to its massive defeat.
• 13:16
  S1: Okay. But I just want to look at the overseas context,
• 13:18
  S1: because we do look overseas and we see that in
• 13:21
  S1: the UK, in the United States, in Germany, just to
• 13:23
  S1: name a few countries, there is some fraying of social
• 13:26
  S1: cohesion that is due to conflict over migration. I guess
• 13:30
  S1: you could say, and tensions. And you have xenophobic protests
• 13:34
  S1: against asylum seekers in the United Kingdom, for example. How, Paul,
• 13:38
  S1: are Australian politicians sort of very concerned or very alive
• 13:41
  S1: to the possibility that that kind of stuff could be
• 13:45
  S1: imported here?
• 13:46
  S3: Well, I think they definitely are. Um, and in a
• 13:49
  S3: number on a number of different fronts in politics. Now,
• 13:51
  S3: you see the internet kind of shrinking the world. Movements
• 13:54
  S3: that pop up in a in a like minded Western
• 13:57
  S3: country can very quickly be replicated by people in, in,
• 14:00
  S3: in another country because they're able to, um, pick up
• 14:04
  S3: the same tactics and talking points. And you see that
• 14:06
  S3: from the US. You're seeing that now. Um, some of
• 14:09
  S3: the UK protests that have occurred in small towns looked
• 14:12
  S3: a little bit like the ones we saw on the
• 14:13
  S3: weekend here. Um, there was a huge, uh, online discussion
• 14:18
  S3: in Australia about the so-called UK migrant gang rape crisis, which, um,
• 14:24
  S3: quickly turned into an issue last year because of its
• 14:26
  S3: prominence on Elon Musk's platform. And then I saw lots
• 14:29
  S3: of Australian far right debate just in in the weeks
• 14:32
  S3: after that. So you're seeing this, this kind of aping of, um,
• 14:36
  S3: of events overseas and I think a point, a just
• 14:41
  S3: a point of difference between us and some of these
• 14:43
  S3: other countries is what we've we've been able to do
• 14:47
  S3: in terms of securing our borders over the last 20 years.
• 14:50
  S3: John Howard used to talk about keeping control of borders
• 14:53
  S3: and keeping public kind of acceptance of the migration program alive.
• 14:58
  S3: And key to that is stopping the sense that the
• 15:01
  S3: borders are porous and that small boats are flowing in. Um,
• 15:05
  S3: without any control, which feeds a sense of anxiety in
• 15:08
  S3: the community. He brought in the Pacific solution. Labor obviously
• 15:12
  S3: overturned that had a huge political crisis over it under
• 15:14
  S3: the Rudd Gillard government's um, reluctantly brought back, uh, a
• 15:21
  S3: stronger border policy processing. Yeah. The Abbott government brought in
• 15:24
  S3: boat turn back policies. And now that's an absolute fixture
• 15:27
  S3: of labor politics, as demonstrated by Tony Burke last week
• 15:30
  S3: signing another very expensive deal with Nauru. So we do
• 15:33
  S3: have a fundamental difference with, for example, the UK, which
• 15:36
  S3: has a very, very porous border at its at its
• 15:40
  S3: English Channel crossing. But we are seeing on the, on
• 15:43
  S3: the fringes of our society, not quite in the center
• 15:47
  S3: as it is in other parts of the West, but
• 15:49
  S3: on the fringes, a growing sense that there are too
• 15:51
  S3: many migrants in our community. That certain pockets of, particularly
• 15:56
  S3: Melbourne and Sydney are starting to not look like Australia,
• 15:59
  S3: that that white Australians particularly are lower middle class and
• 16:03
  S3: working class. White Australians don't have prosperous lives because heavy
• 16:07
  S3: industries have closed, because the fossil fuel industry is, is,
• 16:11
  S3: is dying, and that the globalisation that we've seen in
• 16:15
  S3: the last 30 years has not benefited, uh, some groups
• 16:18
  S3: of Australians. And that, you know, we've used high levels
• 16:22
  S3: of migration to grow our economy instead of trying to
• 16:25
  S3: find solutions to actually grow productivity.
• 16:27
  S1: Yeah. So that's what I find interesting because as you,
• 16:30
  S1: you've just taken us through a potted history of the
• 16:32
  S1: sort of asylum seeker debate, which was a huge issue,
• 16:34
  S1: like when I was in Canberra, it was a huge
• 16:36
  S1: political issue, and it's basically settled and it's basically bipartisan
• 16:39
  S1: now that we have a very strong border protection policy.
• 16:43
  S1: But now the debate has actually shifted to completely legal migration,
• 16:47
  S1: migration that is sanctioned and indeed encouraged by our government
• 16:51
  S1: to prop up economic growth and to prop up the population.
• 16:54
  S1: But I suppose you see a whole cohort of voters
• 16:56
  S1: who feel like they've never signed on to that, who
• 16:58
  S1: feel like they've never specifically agreed to having these levels
• 17:01
  S1: of what, you know, the right wingers call mass immigration,
• 17:04
  S1: which is not a term that I would use. But
• 17:06
  S1: I guess what I'm getting at is whether or not
• 17:09
  S1: both sides of politics are now labor, because they're in government,
• 17:11
  S1: have actually done enough to proactively convince or show Australians
• 17:15
  S1: the benefits of migration to our country in terms of services,
• 17:19
  S1: in terms of population growth, in terms of economic growth, and,
• 17:22
  S1: you know, specialized workers that we desperately need.
• 17:25
  S8: I kind of I don't know. And this is a
• 17:27
  S8: conversation I think I've been having a lot this week,
• 17:29
  S8: and I think just normal people would be having because
• 17:33
  S8: it it does touch everyone. I feel like a lot
• 17:35
  S8: of Australians do get that. I think most Australians do
• 17:38
  S8: get that. I think most people have, but I think
• 17:41
  S8: I think it's.
• 17:41
  S3: In the center of.
• 17:42
  S8: Interesting.
• 17:43
  S1: Is it being led by politicians, though, and particularly to
• 17:45
  S1: the cohort of Australians who feel that there may be
• 17:48
  S1: getting ripped off by, by, Um, you know, the immigration
• 17:51
  S1: system as it is.
• 17:53
  S8: I wonder when we're talking about that cohort of people.
• 17:57
  S8: And I think, like like, you know, recent surveys will
• 18:02
  S8: tell us, you know, there is a kind of higher
• 18:04
  S8: level than usual of concern about immigration as a trend
• 18:08
  S8: in Australia. Whether that whole group of people are the
• 18:11
  S8: kind of people who are so motivated by that concern
• 18:14
  S8: that they'd come out and march. I don't know. I
• 18:17
  S8: think I kind of just like putting it in perspective
• 18:20
  S8: a bit. I feel like this cohort is a a
• 18:25
  S8: group of people. I think other people have kind of
• 18:28
  S8: less passionate feelings, perhaps, about the rate of immigration, even
• 18:33
  S8: if there is a level of underlying discomfort or whatnot.
• 18:36
  S8: But I feel like that cohort, probably the ones that,
• 18:39
  S8: you know, turned up to the rally, I don't feel
• 18:42
  S8: like they're kind of views on this thing are really
• 18:45
  S8: being guided by mainstream politicians. Like it's coming more from, like,
• 18:50
  S8: the right wing.
• 18:50
  S1: Yeah, sure. And I think a lot of it is
• 18:52
  S1: as as we say, a lot of it's influenced by
• 18:54
  S1: internet culture. But I guess I'm asking about the, the,
• 18:57
  S1: the political, the onus on politicians to make proactively a
• 19:01
  S1: case for immigration and its benefits. Have they failed?
• 19:05
  S8: I feel like they like. And hearing them talk about
• 19:08
  S8: this week. Right? Everyone will be like, everyone's a migrant,
• 19:11
  S8: migrants have made great contributions to our country, etc., etc. um,
• 19:15
  S8: whether it's that that line's not convincing or it feels
• 19:19
  S8: a bit basic at this point. Um, whether it's a
• 19:23
  S8: matter of being more up front when it comes to
• 19:27
  S8: policy platforms and elections around your forecasts, around immigration, so
• 19:30
  S8: people feel like they're on the same page.
• 19:33
  S1: I feel like they're being informed.
• 19:35
  S3: And the government hit its migration numbers for months and
• 19:37
  S3: just released it quietly this week.
• 19:39
  S8: Yeah, I wouldn't I don't think that's quite like that's again,
• 19:43
  S8: that goes back to the permanence.
• 19:44
  S1: I mean, and the reality is that most ordinary voters
• 19:46
  S1: aren't going to be looking at the migration projections in
• 19:48
  S1: the budget papers, but I just wonder if there's a
• 19:51
  S1: little bit of, um, a little bit of reticence on
• 19:53
  S1: the part of politicians from both sides of politics to
• 19:56
  S1: admit how much immigration drives economic growth and how much
• 20:01
  S1: we need and desperately rely upon migrants, in particular in
• 20:05
  S1: sectors like the aged care industry and in healthcare generally,
• 20:10
  S1: and even in industries like financial services, where I think
• 20:13
  S1: it's about a quarter of workers are from overseas. So yeah,
• 20:16
  S1: I just wonder if they're a little bit reluctant to
• 20:18
  S1: to admit that publicly. I Paul, I want to ask
• 20:21
  S1: about the neo Nazis that we saw in Melbourne this week,
• 20:25
  S1: which strangely seems to be, I don't know, a comfortable
• 20:28
  S1: home for neo Nazis.
• 20:29
  S3: The point you just made. Sorry. Yeah. Can I just
• 20:31
  S3: make one more point on the reluctance? Um, just before
• 20:35
  S3: we move on, because there was a good example this week. So, yeah,
• 20:37
  S3: I do think there is reluctance because if you're a
• 20:39
  S3: treasurer and you've just gone through a period of, uh,
• 20:43
  S3: really damp economic growth, only kept out of recession by
• 20:47
  S3: by high migration levels, you're effectively admitting that without bringing
• 20:52
  S3: in a lot of migrants, you have run the economy
• 20:54
  S3: into the ground. So we've had we've had we've had
• 20:56
  S3: uncreative policy making and a lack of bravery in policy making,
• 21:00
  S3: which has created a productivity problem. That's been where, where,
• 21:03
  S3: where a gap has been plugged by migration. And just
• 21:05
  S3: this week we saw how crucial. And you mentioned aged care, jacki,
• 21:09
  S3: how crucial migrant workers are because the government delayed home
• 21:13
  S3: care packages and aged care created a bit of a
• 21:16
  S3: mini crisis in Canberra this week, forcing the government to
• 21:18
  S3: backtrack and roll out aged care home packages more quickly,
• 21:21
  S3: and a key reason the government's cited for not being
• 21:24
  S3: able to care for people in their homes is that
• 21:26
  S3: we don't have enough workers in Australia willing to do
• 21:29
  S3: these jobs. We need more migration to plug these skills
• 21:31
  S3: gaps for. So for all the concern about housing, legitimate
• 21:35
  S3: or not, there's a lot of concern on the other
• 21:37
  S3: side around skill shortages, which we saw in Covid. And
• 21:40
  S3: we still see now in a bunch of key industries.
• 21:42
  S1: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, Peter Dutton in particular,
• 21:45
  S1: when they had their sort of big targets to slash
• 21:48
  S1: migration that they took to the election never really addressed
• 21:52
  S1: the difficulty of the fact that the economy basically wasn't
• 21:55
  S1: going to run, you know, on the levels of migration,
• 21:58
  S1: that he.
• 21:59
  S3: Was totally incoherent policy from Dutton with no solution on
• 22:02
  S3: how that would work.
• 22:02
  S1: Economically. Yeah. So let's talk about the neo-Nazis. As reluctant
• 22:06
  S1: as I am to give them any airtime. We did
• 22:08
  S1: see them surface in Melbourne. We saw a neo-Nazi leader
• 22:12
  S1: bail up Jacinta Allan, the Victorian premier, at a press
• 22:15
  S1: conference in a public place, which was a little bit
• 22:17
  S1: of a security risk. How can politicians or how are
• 22:20
  S1: the politicians at a federal level, responding to this sort
• 22:22
  S1: of creep of extremism into the mainstream debate that you see.
• 22:27
  S8: For example, the Prime Minister grappling with this in his
• 22:30
  S8: tone and remarks this week, um, this very careful, um,
• 22:36
  S8: you know, there are good people not we don't want
• 22:39
  S8: to demonize everyone. You know, he was pressed on this
• 22:42
  S8: in the caucus as well, because not all labor MPs
• 22:44
  S8: were were satisfied, um, with that response, Ed Husic came
• 22:48
  S8: out a few days later and said, I think something like,
• 22:50
  S8: show me a good fascist. Um, the Prime Minister's justification
• 22:55
  S8: was that it goes, I guess, back to the kind of, um,
• 23:01
  S8: internet radicalisation theme, um, which is by demonising these people publicly,
• 23:08
  S8: you could push them into a rabbit hole. And I
• 23:11
  S8: think the other big thing that counter-extremism experts will say
• 23:14
  S8: when it comes to, um, right wing radical groups is
• 23:18
  S8: and we saw this around Welcome to Country around Anzac
• 23:20
  S8: Day as well. They are trying to hijack mainstream debate.
• 23:23
  S8: They are making what sounds like rational argument to kind
• 23:29
  S8: of bring people more into a racist and extremist ideology. Um,
• 23:35
  S8: I think you've seen the Prime Minister be very cautious
• 23:38
  S8: about playing into their hand there. Um, I think that
• 23:43
  S8: is what is also probably a bit interesting about the
• 23:47
  S8: way that the coalition has responded. Like the coalition, I
• 23:52
  S8: think where the where the labor government has tried to
• 23:56
  S8: move on from a legitimate discussion of immigration this week,
• 24:00
  S8: it's acknowledged it, but it hasn't wanted to engage with it.
• 24:02
  S8: You've seen the coalition engage with it more. Um, you
• 24:06
  S8: had one nation try and launch a Senate inquiry into immigration.
• 24:10
  S8: The coalition then kind of jumped on that and amended
• 24:13
  S8: it slightly, also trying to call for this debate into immigration.
• 24:17
  S8: Where that all started was with these weekend rallies, which
• 24:20
  S8: we saw were hijacked by neo-Nazi groups. Um, so I
• 24:25
  S8: think there is there are different levels of kind of
• 24:28
  S8: caution around the parliament in terms of how political debate
• 24:33
  S8: should or should not engage with that kind of extremist
• 24:38
  S8: element to some of these conversations taking place.
• 24:41
  S1: I mean, it is actually really difficult line to walk.
• 24:44
  S3: And I think media is grappling with this in the
• 24:46
  S3: same way, like they are. They're so in-your-face and so
• 24:49
  S3: disgusting that it demands attention, but.
• 24:52
  S1: They can't not report.
• 24:53
  S3: It. The attention.
• 24:54
  S1: It's a phenomenon that exists. But but yeah, I don't
• 24:57
  S1: want to talk about neo-Nazis on this podcast ever. If
• 24:59
  S1: I had my druthers, I know.
• 25:01
  S3: And they have a there's a document from 2021 which
• 25:03
  S3: Cam Wilson from Crikey reported. It's from the National Socialist Network.
• 25:07
  S3: So the group that Thomas Sowell runs and it's a
• 25:10
  S3: handbook on, quote, media baiting, and it quotes media baiting
• 25:13
  S3: is a huge portion of our recruitment drive. There are
• 25:15
  S3: currently hundreds of minor nationalist groups in Australia, but none
• 25:18
  S3: of them ever amount to anything without media attention, even
• 25:21
  S3: if the articles are mostly negative. The readers of the
• 25:23
  S3: article are not the target audience. We're trying to win
• 25:26
  S3: over youth who are already sympathetic to the cause and
• 25:28
  S3: are seeking an outlet for their views. So inadvertently, we
• 25:33
  S3: are driving their recruitment.
• 25:35
  S1: We're being used as tools. Yeah. Alright.
• 25:37
  S3: Right now again.
• 25:39
  S1: Let's stop talking about neo-Nazis then. Guys, this has been
• 25:42
  S1: such an interesting discussion. I wish we could talk for longer,
• 25:44
  S1: but we're out of time and I'm sure we'll revisit it.
• 25:47
  S1: Task particular thanks to you. We haven't seen you in
• 25:49
  S1: a while. It's a pleasure.
• 25:50
  S2: Pleasure to be here. Thanks.
• 25:51
  S1: Thanks, guys.
• 25:52
  S3: Thank you. Bye.
• 26:02
  S1: Today's episode was produced by Josh towers with technical assistance
• 26:06
  S1: from Kai Wong and Debbie Harrington. Our executive producer is
• 26:09
  S1: Tammy Mills, and Tom McKendrick is our head of audio.
• 26:13
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• 26:35
  S1: Jacqueline Maley, thank you for listening.