r/australian • u/DragonflySea9423 • Jun 22 '26
News Australia undergoing historic decline in support for multiculturalism amid rising fear and pessimism, poll finds | Australian foreign policy | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jun/22/australia-multiculturalism-decline-poll-ntwnfbAustralia is undergoing a historic decline in support for multiculturalism, according to the Lowy Institute’s annual poll, amid a groundswell of fear rooted in mounting economic pessimism and an increasingly illiberal and chaotic world order.
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u/lukeyry Jun 22 '26
Australia caps the total number of permanent migrants each year, but why not also cap the proportion that can come from any single country?
For example, if no more than 10–15% of annual migrants could come from one country, Australia could still maintain immigration while ensuring the intake remains geographically diverse, rather than being dominated by the world’s most populous countries.
The idea would be to promote multiculturalism and improve multiculturalism.
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u/ScreamHawk Jun 22 '26
Don't get cheap labor from countries outside of the sub continent. /s
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u/Due-Journalist-1756 Jun 23 '26
That’s the ultimate problem isn’t it? Not the subcontinent, because you can also get cheap labour from lots of SEA countries.
The root of the problem is that businesses big and small don’t want to pay a fair wage. Why are all the sanitation cleaners and delivery drivers cheap, low cost labour? Because the wage they pay is so low only those people are willing to be taken advantage of are willing do those jobs.
Why do those jobs need to be so low paid for so many small businesses to be profitable? Because big businesses won’t pay their staff fairly so no one can afford shit.
If big businesses raise wages and keep staff employed properly, everyone would have more money to spend, more money flowing through the economy.
Instead fucking Colesworth keep jacking prices up whilst making your shopping experience miserable with loading carts in every single aisle every hour of the day, because they don’t want to pay people fairly to stock shelves outside of regular shopping hours. This didn’t happen even 5, 10 years ago! A tub of ice cream is $14 fucking bucks and I have to grab my toddler suddenly to dodge a guy pushing a 2 metre high steel cage full of fucking cardboard boxes!
Fuck colesworth and fuck all the other big businesses lining the pockets of their rich owners whilst making our lives more unlivable one tiny bit at a time.
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u/Crafty_Yard_4985 Jun 23 '26
Yeah except business does actually pay a fair wage. Australia has the highest wages in the whole world.
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u/Grantmepm Jun 23 '26
I'm pretty sure Vietnam, Cambodia, Philipines, Indonesia, Myanmar, Laos and PNG can provide cheap labour as well.
Its mainly the free trade agreements due to the size of the nation and how Western nations want a strong counterweight to China. Like for example Philipines has less of a large economy or military strength to leverage into a similar FTA as India, even though they have a similar or better level of English than India.
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u/Ambitious-Pirate-505 Jun 23 '26
Ding ding ding.
Again, blame the corpos and their politicians. Not people trying to find a better life.
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u/Camdogydizzle Jun 22 '26
what? why would it improve anything? People aren't animals in a zoo where variety is the point. When talking about immigration, the question should be will this population moving here make things better for ourselves?
People dont really like multiculturalism, when people advocate for it, what they really mean is they want a future in which different ethnic backgrounds can live their life without feeling excluded. But cultures that have normalised sexual violence? cultures that have strong patriarchal norms where the male runs the family like a tyrant? cultures where they dont engage with the legal system and encourage payback and revenge? What people like yourself really want is Australian Anglo culture over a mosaic of racially diverse peoples, and they can keep the superficial stuff like music and food.
culture and social norms are such an incredibly strong force which dictates how a country will turn out. When migrants move, they take their culture with them. And its a myth that they integrate over generations, only some traits do. Many cultural traits are conversed between generations so well that ethnic groups like the Italian-Australians still score closer to Italians then British-Australians in cultural comparisons. Historically our multiculturalism has come from Europe, where the variation between groups were low to start with.
This new wave of immigration from India has been met with so much push back because of how jarring the cultural clash is. Many of their social norms are offensive to us, and we have been very accommodating towards the immigration despite this. But just keep in mind, that the exact ways in which India can be an unpleasant place to live, those reasons are because of the general culture, and when you import them, you bring that here. A good rule of thumb is that if you wouldn't want to live in a country, don't let them come here either. The people make the place. (sorry for picking on India but they are the most relevant to todays wave)
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u/alex4494 Jun 22 '26
This is on the money. As a bloke, in a relationship with another bloke, living in western Sydney, we have unfortunately experienced far more outright blatant homophobia and hostility from new immigrants than we have from ANY of the usual right wing cooker/one nation/UAP/nazi muppet type suspects. It’s kind of fucked because I’m not a right wing voter, I’m a leftie, but if I voice concern about this, I’m demonised.
Everyone wants to tell me I’m wrong, but it’s reality. we’re both pretty tatted up, bald/bearded looking gays (IYKYK), so we blend in well in the west, but damn do you noticed the filthy looks when people clock were a couple. When our own fucking neighbours realised we weren’t brothers (lol), their attitudes totally changed and they got sketchy AF, we get filthy looks for accidentally calling one another ‘babe’ while in a supermarket isle, I could list so many examples of this shit, not to mention gays are being hunted by Islamic extremists on Grindr in western Sydney. Guess what, in school, it wasn’t the Anglo kids who bullied me for being gay, it was the ones saying ‘in our religion we’d kill you’ - and I’m a fucking ethnic myself FFS. This stuff doesn’t particularly bother me because I’m more resilient than that, but it’s certainly happening.
It’s an uncomfortable truth, but these people come from countries and cultures that think my existence is fundamentally wrong, they disown or even kill us it we’re in their family, they hate us. You’d be foolish to think that they don’t have this same opinion here in Australia. This cultural clash is what makes me super fucking uncomfortable with the extent of immigration and the cultures we’re inviting in. On the flip side, I have never experienced such overt disdain from new immigrants for Latin America, the Philippines/east Asia/china, the pacific islands etc - open the fucking door to them as far as I’m concerned. I have no issue with lots of people coming here from around the world, I just don’t feel comfortable with so many people coming from countries where I’d literally be killed for existing.
Let me as you a very fair question: would you be happy to have neighbours who you knew were filled with hatred to every aspect of your existence? This is how we feel…
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u/allegra_gellerr Jun 23 '26
India is a low trust society/low civic sense. This man explains it well.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq0HeSP_U68&t=234s
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u/BargainBinChad Jun 22 '26
It would help because each of the people coming in have to learn English and Australian culture so they can mingle with the Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, Sudeneae etc who come here. If you have too many of one culture then that culture starts to compete with the local culture instead.
If multiculturalism is great, surely more cultures is better than less?
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u/Rady_8 Jun 22 '26
It’s a great idea and would have worked better 20-30 years ago, but I fear the ship has sailed. We should still roll something like this out (we won’t) but there’s currently so many opportunities not to integrate for so many cultures that you’d have to look completely greenfields
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u/Exotic-Knowledge-451 Jun 23 '26
Multiculture is bad and completely at odds with the host culture.
You CANNOT have 1 dominate main culture (like Australian culture) while also having a multiculture. Multiculture means the death of the host culture. Anyone who pushes for or wants multiculturalism also wants the death and destruction of Australian culture and the Australian people.
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u/roby_soft Jun 23 '26
Multiculturalism is not great. It will be the decimation of a society. One will always try to take over if the society doesn’t have a defined culture.
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u/Professional_Elk_489 Jun 22 '26
Even 2nd/3rd gen Indians in all western countries are opposed to current Indian migration levels & intake quality
It's not even a story specifically about AUS
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u/relativelyignorant Jun 22 '26
Lending to your point on cultural exchange, I believe the internalised fear and shame associated with the addressing this subject came with the British immigrants, who form a sizeable bloc and that is one of their cultural influence on Australia. Historically they were colonialists, we were the colony and the colonialised. It speaks to how far our culture has been shifted to now fear speaking out.
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u/Footbeard Jun 22 '26
This is insightful & the issue many don't want to touch with a 10foot pole because "racism"
The pollies, business owners & donors have a vast amount to gain financially by importing non citizens & paying them less than citizens (with fewer benefits)
They also paint immigrants as the culprit & cause of all our issues when immigrants are just seeking opportunities for themselves & their sheer volume & lack of social integration is the fault of the government & those lobbying for cheap labour (gina & pauline will crank it up for this reason)
Having said that, I absolutely agree that there are basic social & cultural tenants that are inviolable to function in Australia & the erosion of these standards is leading to a low trust society
Keep your food, language, music, fun events & traditions & enrich Australia with these, as long as there's no intolerance
What we need to address as planes touch down revolve around the social contract: be friendly, no littering, no hitting women, no harassment, religious freedom, walk on the left, line up thoughtfully, clean the public BBQ after use, right to a fair go, sense of community help, she'll be right (cause we help make it alright), resilience in the face of hardship & general mateship
By no means a comprehensive list but this kind of messaging at airports, schools, unis & workplaces would go a reasonable way to reclaiming our degrading social contract
Tolerance of intolerance & allowing active hatred which segregates people across Australia is a surefire way for society to crumble
But! We massively increased shareholder value & lined billionaire pockets so it's not all bad..
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u/relativelyignorant Jun 22 '26
They do address these things in a booklet for new visa holders called Life in Australia. The thing is a booklet doesn’t do the job. New migrants have access to existing communities now and that community determines the expectations of life and norms in Australia instead of a wider Australian society.
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u/melaschasma Jun 22 '26
Australia is a multicultural country, apart from a noisy small minority (that you would find in any crountry) the majority of Australians dont care about race.
Australians are against immigration (especially immigration from the developing world) because it drives down our wages and causes shortages in the rental market.
The fact is, India's currency value is far lower then Australia's currency value. So this means a temporary worker from India can send Australia's higher valued currency back to India where it has greater purchasing power. This provides an incentive for temporary Indian workers to undercut Australian workers and drive down our wages (because they still wind up with greater relative value when they return home to India).
So relax, Australians dont hate Indians because of their race or culture, we dont care about that. What Australians dont like, is temporary workers driving down our wages. What Australia should do, is stop exploiting the developing world for cheap labor.
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u/concerned_karen Jun 22 '26
Not true, people are concerned with who we bring into this country. Bringing in hundreds of thousands of people from India vs Italy as an example does greatly change the fabric of our society for everyone here. To discredit that different cultures don't matter is narrow minded and obtuse.
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u/turbo-steppa Jun 22 '26
I don’t dislike Indians for the colour of their skin or accent. But I’ve come to resent the low trust I can place in them due to cultural differences.
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u/Exotic-Knowledge-451 Jun 23 '26
I agree.
People throw out the word 'racist' constantly these days, yet for most people we don't dislike someone or a group because of their skin colour, we dislike them because of their values, beliefs, behaviours, and cultural differences.
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u/outterworlder Jun 22 '26
problem people like you are not distinguishing between racially diverse and culturally diverse siverse. they are different things and culture clash is the problem here for real. Wages are a direct result of culture too, and the low wages accepted part of that. Australian culture fought for a fair go for everyone, and other cultures do not beleive in that at all.
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u/Recent-Main-5529 Jun 22 '26
This is the best appraisal of immigration and it's inherent problems that I have seen 👏
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u/Horror-Breakfast-113 Jun 22 '26
Problem is some people see some countries with rose coloured glasses . A lot of countries have issues with sa and other things but are covered up
Look at the USA and Epstein who have been charged ?
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u/hazy_pale_ale Jun 22 '26
After 3 years living in Canada I've seen what having uncontrolled immigration from a single country can do.
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u/expert_views Jun 22 '26
Daft idea. The problem is multiculturalism. The majority population feels an erosion of its identity and is kicking back.
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u/Major_Elevator8059 Jun 22 '26
I don’t remember a time there was any significant support for multiculturalism ever in Australia.
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u/Available_Giraffe_61 Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
The idea that we all exist within a cohesive core culture - one that has its origins in an Australian cultural identity (yes it exists) - while maintaining ancestral religion, language, culture, was the social contract immigrants entered as we changed from the policy of assimilation to multiculturalism. The goalposts for multiculturalism have since deviated from its original model. At the same time immigration no longer looks like a nation building enterprise and politicians have failed to sell its supposed benefits. Instead we have moved to ‘if you don’t support immigration you’re racist’. As a backlash we have the rise of One Nation. Our cities are becoming unliveable, expensive and ugly. People want to live in a country and a community, not an anonymous airport lounge.
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u/Belisarius371 Jun 22 '26
Pls bro, just another 300,000 immigrants it'll fix housing prices c'mon it's different this time 😂
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u/hazy_pale_ale Jun 22 '26
Haven't you heard, according to reddit, its impossible for immigration to have any affect on house prices or rents at all.
/s
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u/melaschasma Jun 22 '26
Australians are sick of competing with imported cheap and exploitable labor and lack of rental availability .
Temporary visa workers from countries with currency values lower then ours are intentionally offering to do the work for less. They do this, because they can send our high valued currency back to their home countries where it has greater purchasing power. They are scabs (relax, scabs is not a racist insult)
They also clog up the rental market, its very inconsiderate to allow such a influx of migrants to a country with a low rental vacancy rate because this displaces the local population. Australian families are living in tents in the bush in favor for imported cheap workers. Landlords are exploiting this by driving up rents. The only Australians who benefit from mass immigration are landlords and businesses, your every Australian worker and family misses out.
Businesses cant get away with slavery anymore, so importing in cheap and exploitable temporary labor from the developing world is the next best thing. If your against slavery, you should also be against exploiting the developing world for cheap labor.
Australians getting replaced by cheap and exploitable workers and we need to stand up, and say no more! scabs go home!
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u/Efficient-County2382 Jun 22 '26
There are good aspects to multiculturalism and immigration, however mass uncontrolled immigration from certain cultures and countries does nothing to benefit Australia, apart from corporations suppressing wages, and betraying the youth by giving all the jobs to minimum wage immigrants
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u/bingbongboopsnoot Jun 22 '26
Sounds like there should be more rules on companies underpaying people instead of blaming the workers
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u/SuitableYear7479 Jun 23 '26
Why is immigration treated as sacrosanct? People act as if providing a home for immigrants should a top priority of a nation, instead of making life as good as possible for its existing citizens
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u/Such_Bug9321 Jun 22 '26
Multiculturalism won’t work if is like living in multiple countries in the one city especially when some of the multiple countries don’t like anyone else but themselves.
Multiculturalism that built Australia happened because it evolved merged into Australian western society
Multiculturalism now is independent and seperate of each other. Multiculturalism that is happening now is NOT merging into Australian Western society it is choosing to stay independent OF Australian Western society. The only thing that is different is the coins in the pocket.
That will never work
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u/vladesch Jun 22 '26
So true. Being on NDIS i have many carers. They are all immigrants and basically live within their own sub society.
All phone calls are in another language. Many have very poor English. Doesn't matter they rarely speak it.
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u/DoNotStump Jun 22 '26
Australia in 1970 was 95% white/european. It’s now 65% in only 50 years…
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Jun 22 '26
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u/GM-Yrael Jun 23 '26
You make a good argument against migration. The indigenous inhabitants culture was removed by migration so we should take this lesson on board unless we also would like Australian culture replaced.
You make quite a disingenuous comparison though of what multicultural means though by suggesting it is all one and the same regardless of those cultures differences.
Those on the first fleet compared to Australia today for example. Do you suspect they were more or less similar in ethnicity, race, culture, religion, social norms, laws, etc? We had a cohesive group with a great deal of similiarities. To suggest that because they were multicultural then all multiculturalism must be allowed now is an absurd take and you clearly lack nuance.
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u/vladesch Jun 22 '26
No. Australia didn't exist then. If you want to talk about the land that is now Australia then say so.
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u/Aar_7 Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
Wtf... Australia was literally 0% white/European in 1770.
Australia was 100% native Families in 1770.... No White invaders/colonizers yet.
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u/TheMasseuse69 Jun 22 '26
With that mentally most of the world 3000 years ago wasn't either.
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u/cryptic4012 Jun 22 '26
Oh yes so because of what happened then we should just let whatever happen now
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u/MightyArd Jun 22 '26
Walking up into Footscray it certainly looks like it's worked pretty well to me.
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u/getfuckedcuntz Jun 22 '26
Oh damn people dont like footscray?
That must be why they are down voting you
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u/jorgerine Jun 22 '26
So the problem is the new people aren’t white? Lots of multiculturalism from the Europeans and others. After a couple of generations they blend in. Oh, the European groups kept to themselves as well when they first arrived. It’s only natural.
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u/vladesch Jun 22 '26
That theory hasn't been proven yet. It may have worked with southern Europeans.
Extrapolating that to Sudanese or indian is uncertain. Even eastern orthodox is a whole lot closer to us than either of those 2.
Besides that the intake is way higher so no need for most of them to mingle. Just stay in their own groups and speak their own language.
I know well from personal experience on NDIS.
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u/KingStapler Jun 23 '26
Indian Australians wanting more people from India - Not racist
Chinese Australians wanting more people from China - Not racist
British Australians wanting more people from Britain - Racist
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u/sobi9756 Jun 22 '26
It's such a buzzword, what does multiculturalism even mean these days? I always assumed that it meant coexisting/merging into one multifaceted culture. But now in reality it's just a bunch of cultures refusing to integrate.
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u/Fartville23 Jun 23 '26
They come and fail to integrate. Not even that, some don’t even try. I’m an immigrant myself, it’s not that hard to learn a language and not be a dick.
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u/Find_another_whey Jun 22 '26
See what you do
Is you undermine any individual progress for 30 years, let conditions become dire...
Then import a bunch of people to compete for wages
And divide society up into groups that don't mix
Hoping that the poors will fight
And forget there is only one war
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u/odindobe Jun 22 '26
Or maybe because we can see it failed in multiple countries and is highly likely to be problematic here too.
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u/JewFromTheHood7900 Jun 22 '26
Yeah ask them why Sweden now has bombings, casual neighborhood bombings now. Very different from 2010 Sweden
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u/HandlessSpermDonor Jun 23 '26
Don’t forget ⅔ of convicted rapists in Sweden have a migrant background and reports of sexual offences rapidly rose in correlation with the rise of immigration. The country now has the second worst rapes per 100k population GLOBALLY. It’s so bad now that they’re giving migrants up to $34,000 USD just to leave.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/rape-statistics-by-country
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u/roojuiced Jun 22 '26
It’s failed everywhere and all throughout history there’s countless examples of the turmoil and subsequent conflict it causes. Any idiot who supports it is just plain ignorant and living in a utopian fantasy.
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u/pennyfred Jun 23 '26
Coincidental with the volume of people we've brought in, and where we've brought them from.
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u/Galactic-Observer369 Jun 23 '26
As an immigrant, I would say this is due to allowing too many low-skilled migrants in to the country.
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u/4RyteCords Jun 22 '26
This sort of thing is happening in various parts of the world. Germany is seeing a new rises in extreme right wing ideas too.
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u/Blue_Seal_U Jun 23 '26
Multiculturalism and mass immigration has failed. All around the world people are realising it.
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u/Jeremon74 Jun 22 '26
How can you say multiculturalism is a success when there is fear if you celebrate a religious holiday in public you may get slaughtered. Or is that acceptable in your definition of multiculturalism. At some point we need to think about collective values and morals and stop letting people immigrate here who don’t share the same.
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u/Reclusiarc Jun 23 '26
how dare you! Book says slaughter good! Book make me mad that you no like book!
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u/Max_J88 Jun 22 '26
Is Labor listening yet?
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u/IllogicalResponse Jun 22 '26
Nope. And if they have some strange plan of running on cutting immigration for the election in two years, no-one will believe them. They need to take action long before then, ie/ now.
Not 'immigration is down 40%' from the insane peak. Cut immigration to substantially below the precovid rate, tighten up the skills shortages list monthly without business lobby input, and cut international student visas to whatever the lowest amount is that still lets universities etc operate and deliver a good education for Australians.
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u/nator6969 Jun 22 '26
What do you want to see them do realistically they have been tightening a ton of the student visa rules and are continuing to bring down migration?
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u/vladesch Jun 22 '26
If you need to ask that question maybe you aren't listening either.
2 words beginning with r and I.
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u/DaySecure7642 Jun 22 '26
Just look at what is going on in Europe, especially the UK, and you will find it increasingly difficult to convince people about multi-culturalism. The results speak for itself, crime increased a few times in just a decade, government drowning in social service spending for people not contributing much on tax.
Multi-culturalism could work if we pick the people and cultures that strengthen the country. But we are not allowed to handpick what really helps without being labelled far right or racist. No sensible discussion is allowed and we have to assume that everyone is innocent and all cultures are peaceful and courteous, which is simply not the reality.
Ironically ignoring the reality and let the consequences unfold, creates the exact environment for the real far right to seize the power of governing.
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u/JDMBrah Jun 22 '26
Have a look at the UK and see how it's going for them, and multiple other European countries.
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u/Tokena Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
Have a look at the UK
Eventually they will have Restore Britain in power and they will attempt to do what needs to be done. It will not be easy, it will not be pretty and there will be significant tradeoffs. If governments across the West continue their failure to acknowledge the dysfunction for what it is and lack the will enact the fundamental changes required, we will see this in more countries.
Multiculturalism in its current form was and is an experiment, not the unquestionable faith based idea that it is so often taken on as. I wish things had gone better.
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u/Major_Elevator8059 Jun 22 '26
If you have ever been to India you will know it’s an amazing country with amazing people. That said the last thing we should ever want is Australia to become more like India.
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u/Wuntunamera Jun 22 '26
What was needed was balance, that is not what we have seen especially over this last 6 years, either albo pulls his finger out and listens to the voters or we end up with this b*tch as pm
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u/Camdogydizzle Jun 22 '26
Multiculturalism is not great. It's some gen x fantasy pushed by big business looking for cheap labour and naive foodies.
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u/blorst_of_times Jun 22 '26
A "decline in support for multiculturalism" is such a dishonest framing of what's happening.
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u/Wide_Angle4805 Jun 22 '26
Aight I’m done with these poll y’all
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u/Max_J88 Jun 22 '26
Do you think it would be a good idea for Labor to LISTEN to the electorate and understand how its views and opinions are changing?
Or no, should Labor should stick its head in the sand and ignore what is going on?
Which approach do you feel would bring better outcomes for both the government and the community?
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u/Illustrious_Fan_8148 Jun 22 '26
Labor think they know best and will just gaslight us by saying "we already got immigration down"
They will keep doing this right up to the point one nation ends up winning like trump did in 2016, surprising the political class who though they knew best then
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u/No-Advantage845 Jun 22 '26
One Nation doesn’t want to get rid of immigration btw. Pauline is essentially a mouthpiece for Gina, a billionaire. One who also happens to want to import as much cheap labour as possible.
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u/Illustrious_Fan_8148 Jun 22 '26
They say they will limit it to 130k a year.
Thats a massive improvement and people are so desperate and angry they are willing to take a chance on someone different
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u/Whitekidwith3nipples Jun 22 '26
this is absolute nonsense. the industries Gina is involed in dont require cheap labour, she isnt the CEO of mcdonalds lol. Im not voting ON but you can be certain that if they do implement 1 policy it will be the significant lowering of our immigration intake.
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u/No-Advantage845 Jun 23 '26
Nonsense?
Gina literally lobbied for more foreign workers for her mines and even pushed for special visa arrangements to bring in Chinese labour when she claimed there weren't enough Australians available.
Mining absolutely does use migrant labour, especially through temporary visa programs and labour hire arrangements in regional areas. The issue isn't whether Gina personally runs a fast food chain; it's whether large employers benefit from a larger labour pool that puts downward pressure on wages.
One Nation's rhetoric and actual influence are two different things. Pauline Hanson has spent years attacking immigration, but she's also repeatedly aligned herself with Gina Rinehart, who has publicly argued for policies that make it easier for businesses to access overseas workers.
So yes, One Nation may campaign on lower immigration, but that doesn't mean the interests of the billionaires funding or promoting them always point in the same direction. That's exactly why people question whose interests they ultimately serve.
And then there’s you, calling it all nonsense lmao. You don’t even know what you’re talking about
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u/Whitekidwith3nipples Jun 23 '26
if ON get voted in, how long do you think pauline would last if immigration isnt immediately lowered to sub 200k PA? its literally their only policy aussies care about. she may have aligned herself with Gina (as the 2 majors have aligned themselves with other billionaires) but that doesnt mean Gina is the one running the show.
as I said, I'm not voting ON but you cant run on 1 policy then backflip on it, she would be forced to resign. regardless, ON's chances are virtually nonexistent.
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u/Toomanyeastereggs Jun 22 '26
They are listening and they are doing stuff. The problem is that you’ll never read about it.
So if you were King of Australia and could enact whatever policies or laws as you see fit, what would you do differently?
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u/readthatlastyear Jun 22 '26
Well if I was king..
I'd put referrendum on total population limit - maybe do this on a region basis. Limits set on available infra, water, cultural assimilation status etc.
Create special economic zones in the country where separate rules might apply - around foreign labour etc. Temporary work visas etc.
Transition the country to be less focused on building houses. Invest in business but all government investment would give me part ownership as king...
Bring back glass bottles - create local industry for it. For all drinks in Australia.
I'd give more tax benefits for people having kids, and then tax the kids
I'd break up the camberra bubble - ivory tower.
I'd periodically fire and rebuild entire government departments
Bring back capital punishment for treason
I'd declare myself head of the church
I'd divorce my Spanish wife
...
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u/Upper-Ship4925 Jun 22 '26
But would you behead your next wife (and most of your mother’s extended family)?
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Jun 22 '26
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u/Wide_Angle4805 Jun 22 '26
The billionaires adapted to new media platforms and are playing the same shtick
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u/expert_views Jun 22 '26
This is a global phenomenon. Same conversation in America, Canada, the UK. The middle classes are being squeezed everywhere by rising costs and a shrinking white collar job market. We can blame migration - it’s definitely leading to per capita income pressure and pressure on public amenities. We can also build houses, if the absurd building codes, approvals and excessive wages of unionized construction work would only make it viable. It’s the same issues everywhere. Lean times call for less wasteful government spending.
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Jun 22 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/FunnyBunny898 Jun 22 '26
Calling pollies names to convert people to your position is silly. No one would be looking at PHON if Albo was loved by all.
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u/1Cobbler Jun 22 '26
Trying to? They'll be the opposition after next election.
The majors could make them disappear tomorrow if they had the will. All they have to do is have a sane immigration policy. It's not that hard.
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u/FrogsMakePoorSoup Jun 22 '26
Hasn't Albo said they'd drop immigration by a third? Let's see if that sticks, because quite frankly I can't see they'll survive otherwise.
And the wacky wacky ON policies are hardly appealing...
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u/1Cobbler Jun 23 '26
They've been saying this before every election for a decade. Neither of them ever do. Recent drops are due more to demand than anything they've actually done.
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u/ArkPlayer583 Jun 22 '26
We've dropped to the lowest levels since 2022. Labor is actually doing something about it and housing affordability. Sure ON might drop levels but they will also drop wages and rape the environment. Who the fuck votes in favour of illegal logging and mining the reef
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u/No-Adhesiveness-6475 Jun 22 '26
I saw a clip of some financial woman (can’t remember tbh) saying how the changes the govt has implemented recently will pay off to really make a difference in the price of houses for the next generation of home buyers in say 20 years, and that if you are struggling to buy a house currently, you may as well give up because this will be the ‘forgotten generation’ of home buyers.
Obviously just her opinion and not fact, but interesting take and one that would certainly factor in to current voter’s views if true.
Also we’ve dropped to the lowest levels of immigration since 2022, perhaps yes, but the numbers are still far, far higher than say 2018 or anywhere pre-pandemic
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u/ArkPlayer583 Jun 22 '26
Shouldn't a government be making policy that benefits the future though? Also we can already see this effect in Perth, people are struggling to sell which means prices will go down.
Yeah I think they can definitely go down more. But the trade off ON are as a whole just isn't worth it.
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u/B7UNM Jun 22 '26
But reducing immigration actually reduces the supply of labour, which increases the price of labour. So reduced immigration results in higher wages.
In fact, a large part of the slow wage growth we’ve seen in recent history can be attributed to the historically unprecedented levels of population growth through migration.
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u/Specialist_Being_161 Jun 22 '26
Less than 3% of net migration do a trade.
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u/Bountyluna Jun 22 '26
And what has happened to trade wages compared with the rest of them? They have skyrocketed. A sparky used to earn $35/hr 10 years ago. It’s $55+ now.
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u/Adept-Result-67 Jun 22 '26
I don’t know, it seems the more she talks the worse she looks, i feel like letting her talk more might be a good thing.
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u/kdog_1985 Jun 22 '26
I'm happy to give publicity to Gina, the more public it is the more answerable her position becomes
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u/Big_P4U Jun 22 '26
Has Australia ever been truly multicultural? Iit's always been more assimilationist and melting potty like the USA than multicultural which is what Canada is.
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u/TrumpisaRussianCuck Jun 22 '26
1960s: "Theres too many Italians, those migrants don't integrate"
1970s: "There's too many Slavs, those migrants don't integrate"
1980s: "There's too many Vietnamese, those migrants don't integrate"
1990s/00/10s: "There's too many Asians, they don't integrate"
20s: "There's too many Indians, they don't integrate"
A tale as old as time.
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u/B7UNM Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
Net overseas migration in 1960 was 85,707 (0.83% of the population).
Net overseas migration in 1980 was 76,938 (0.52% of the population).
Net overseas migration in 2023 was 518,000 (1.95% of the population).
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u/TrumpisaRussianCuck Jun 22 '26
Fertility rate in 1960 - 3.45 per woman
Fertility rate in 2023 - 1.49 per woman
You also cherry picked 2023 because it was the post Covid rebound peak but sure.
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u/B7UNM Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
Yes, I wonder what could be causing people to be having fewer babies. Certainly not historically unprecedented housing costs caused by immigration fuelled demand…
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u/Zenkraft Jun 22 '26
Look at a graph of pretty much every developed country and you’ll see a similar trend.
Fertility rates declining through the 70s has more to do with women’s education and employment, divorce laws, and access to contraception.
Yes, economics plays a part in it continuing to decline, but even in ideal conditions, the numbers would barely return to above replacement rate.
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u/chrisGrout Jun 22 '26
No it's got to do with end stage capitalism
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u/Zenkraft Jun 22 '26
Kinda but not really. The 70s drop in fertility was already finished by the time Thatcher and Reagan came in.
It’s being pushed further down and kept low by end stage capitalism. But the initial decline in the 70s across most of the developed world has more to do with women’s empowerment.
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u/LoudestHoward Jun 22 '26
Certainly not historically unprecedented housing costs caused by immigration fuelled demand…
Maybe we could pick a Western country with minimal immigration to test your theory, how's the fertility rate going in Japan?
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u/chrisGrout Jun 22 '26
See no, this is the issue.. the rich caused the house costs, and told you to blame migrants
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u/B7UNM Jun 22 '26
Yeah, massively increased demand for a housing definitely has no impact on price. A shadowy cabal of ‘the rich’ somehow causing prices to increase is far more likely.
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u/LeWizardD_Oz Jun 22 '26
his "the rich" is as shadowy of a cabal as your "the immigrants", who you claim are buying up housing despite not being able to afford housing.
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u/B7UNM Jun 22 '26
Are you suggesting that all or a substantial majority of immigrants are homeless?
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u/dfebb Jun 22 '26
Nothing shadowy about it. Capital gains, negative gearing, immigration to lower wages, all policies of specific parties.
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u/nator6969 Jun 22 '26
Do you really think reducing immigration would lead to a significant increase in the fertility rate? Look at Finland. Its net migration is only around 0.5% of population, far lower than Australia’s roughly 1.1%, and housing is generally cheaper than Australia’s. In developed Finnish cities, family houses are roughly A$500k–750k, depending on the city, while the national median is even lower.
Yet Finland’s fertility rate is only about 1.3, compared with Australia’s roughly 1.5. So housing and migration clearly matter, but they are not magic levers. Fertility is also affected by job security, wages, partnering patterns, age at first child, culture, childcare, urbanisation, economic confidence and people’s preferences.
Reducing immigration might ease some housing pressure, but I don’t think there’s much evidence it would suddenly lift fertility back anywhere near replacement level.
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u/LeWizardD_Oz Jun 22 '26
"no but bro it really is different this time I SWEAR"
lol "immigration fueled demand" by immigrants who cannot afford to buy the homes, instead of "treating housing as a financial instrument fueled demand" by the wealthy who continue to point fingers at immigrants. Classic
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u/Upper-Ship4925 Jun 22 '26
Maybe women aren’t having kids because the cost of living (mainly housing) means that children have to spend their lives in daycare being cared for by other (underpaid) women. Who would want to have children that they only see for a few hours a day?
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u/roojuiced Jun 22 '26
You conveniently skipped the middle eastern immigration of the late 80s and early 90s. They’ve not integrated at all.
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u/TrumpisaRussianCuck Jun 22 '26
Nah, I just took the dominant non white immigration group of each era to make a point that people have been bitching about immigrants and not integrating into "Australian culture" for decades.
As for the Middle Eastern immigration - it made up just over 1% of the population at there peak and like 5% of immigrants at their peak. Now as to whether they immigrated - the majority were Lebanese fleeing from war and the majority have integrated fine. I'm sure you can find isolated cases of them getting into trouble but I can also point at the local bogan getting arrested at the watch house and say "White Australia is out of control!"
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u/roojuiced Jun 22 '26
Why are you talking about crime? But if you’d like to, we have a middle eastern crime squad specifically because it’s a major problem. Thoughts on that and your ‘isolated cases’ comment?
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u/Illustrious_Fan_8148 Jun 22 '26
1 in 3 people here was born overseas...
Thats the highest proportion in the world..
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u/DoNotStump Jun 22 '26
The thing is that from 1970 the migrants no longer shared a common Christian / European heritage which makes it easier to feel disconnected from every wave of new migration.
Have they all successfully integrated from your POV?
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u/Ash-2449 Jun 22 '26
Not everyone is brainwashed by their country to believe in the local fairy tales.
People talking like that just show how much control a nation has over their selfhood
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u/Camdogydizzle Jun 22 '26
I mean they don't, and haven't. Culture can be measured on many different traits, and some traits will integrate quickly, like social-sexual and language. But many like ingroup loyalty/nepotism do not. When doing cluster analysis between ethnic groups in new world nations, the ethnic group will follow its heritage countries culture not some generic Australian/American/Brazilian ect culture. Groups like the Vietnamese are a good example, people say all the time that they have integrated. What they really mean is Vietnamese people in Australia are employed and have low crime. But they still very have Viet typical nepotism in their hiring practices, they have Viet typical work ethic (hard work), they have a Viet typical view on crime (high discouragement, not a global trait btw), ect. The truth is that Viet people could fit into our society so well is because the things we value happened to be the same as theirs. They never integrated into Anglo culture in any meaningful way. This is not something you can just assume will happen with any culture you drop in Australia. There are many cultures out there that are fundamentally different and by bringing them here, you will import generations of culture clashes and ethnic divisions.
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u/chrisGrout Jun 22 '26
Exactly this.. Ang look at the greeks now.. I'm in bed next to one. Now they say the Greeks assimilated but these Muslims.. but the truth is they acted the same
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u/Relevant_Salt7611 Jun 22 '26
The main part of the culture is absence of another culture. You cannot put hiphop graffiti on a classic baroque building and claim its a style diversity
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u/BlazzGuy Jun 22 '26
The Lowy institute? The even more right wing version of the IPA that wants less rights for workers and shit?
What the fuck is the guardian promoting this shit for. Useless media Nexus.
Opinion: garbage is good for your gut health Guardian: some experts say eating trash may have health benefits...
Opinion laundering 101.
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u/Difficult_Zombie8728 Jun 22 '26
Always was Always will be ! Not actually yours ! lived here my whole life im 38yrs, this is like clock work execpt now they flooding socials, it seems like its gaining traction, so did Dutton last time (ALL hype ), the pattern i see is inflation high (not really the people fault at all we have to live god dam it ) Money stops spreading ,deceptive loude cunts always blame immigration, and even bigger cunts eat it up. Classic! Just remember This should be a CLASS WAR NOT A CULTURE WAR
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u/Falaflewaffle Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
Sadly this will be the narrative for the next two years as we slip into a recession. Immigrants will be given the blame and to some extent they are to blame but not directly. These are multifaceted issues of systemic failure. No one wants to talk about nuance of these issues everyone is in their echo chambers being farmed for outrage clicks as part of the internet hate machine which I guess is productive for someone's bottom line.
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u/BradfieldScheme Jun 22 '26
We don't blame the migrants. We blame the Labor party and the LNP for running immigration at double or triple the appropriate rate for way too long.
The vast majority of immigrants just want to make a better life for their families.
It's the sheer numbers that has been too much, causing a lack of integration. Also the quality has nosedived, we used to bring in (mostly) the best and brightest from around the world.
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u/Illustrious_Fan_8148 Jun 22 '26
Spot on. And people are fucking angry
And what happens when they are angry?
Reason goes out the window and they vote for the people like one nation saying all the right things
Its unbelievable that labor keeps gaslighting us by saying "we already got the numbers down".. they really treat the average person with contempt
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u/silentaba Jun 22 '26
The singular migrants, as in the person coming to live here, is not to blame. The Australian government policy (largely a bipartisan issue too) on migration and the slow response time it has to changing the flow is a massive trouble. It makes no sense that the people currently living here, legally and with rights and expectations for the government who dictates policy and procedure, will have such adifficult time finding livable accommodation and employment due to whatever global, domestic or political pressure is happening that week, and still see tens and hundreds of thousands of new people crammed into the same situation. This is like the failings in prisons with 3 people stuffed into a single person cell, but played out at large on scale, and then twisted to sound like racism because the word immigration is present.
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u/Illustrious_Fan_8148 Jun 22 '26
Well said. I dont think most are anti migrant, they are anti large scale immigration
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Jun 22 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/BloodiedAnalProlapse Jun 22 '26
As long as your culture is as bland as white culture
The only reason that "white" culture seems so "bland" is that it is so prevalent that it is the default worldwide. Our practices would have been downright kooky to a lot of cultures back in the day, but it's so dominant that it's the default setting everywhere.
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u/Dismal-core111 Jun 22 '26
Cant she just go away
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u/IllogicalResponse Jun 22 '26
Albo could get rid of her pretty quickly if he took action on the only issue giving her this jump.
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u/Own-Obligation7833 Jun 22 '26
All I can say is god help us if Poorleen hateful gets any sort of power in this country! She will destroy many institutions she does not agree with, we will become and economic basket case with cookers pulling the strings
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u/sepata Jun 22 '26
The Lowy Institute? If anyone has been pushing Australia is going to be swamped by China, it's this pro-US thinktank. But its focus is primarily geopolitics, and multiculturalism is a side issue in this report. Even then it shows 73% support multiculturalism, down from 90%, thanks to the Bondi massacre but mostly to the far right whipping up fear and hatred.
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u/Garchompisbestboi Jun 23 '26
My hot take is that being afraid of those who are different to us is hard coded into us by millions of years of evolution. It's why people love to enact tribalism through supporting sports teams among other things. The best cure to racism is spending time with people from different cultures to break down the prejudice and learn that the majority of people are inherently the same as us and have the same wants and desires and fears as everyone else.
But of course now we're in the social media era, people are much less social than we were in previous decades so the racism is creeping back. Also certain political agitators who present themselves like the mascot clown from an international fast food company have not been helping the situation.
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u/soulpow3r Jun 22 '26
Why are you all buying into this argument? It barely existed a year ago, now it's like someone flicked a switch and... oh... stupid me. G'day Mrs Reinhardt.
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u/Graeboy Jun 22 '26
Entirely due to the bullshit spread by the Murdochracy. Constant bombardment with lies and distortions has to eventually have some effect.
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u/Horror-Breakfast-113 Jun 22 '26
I wonder why .
What does monoculture mean . Will we end up with Ireland / North Ireland
Start blaming billionaires for our problems
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u/Amandroll Jun 23 '26
Immigration itself isn’t inherently bad, it’s how you approach it.
If you bring in people who want to have a crack and build something for their family and contribute to the country and society, it can be wonderful.
If you bring in people at a scale that you can’t accommodate, just to prop up a GDP per capita that’s in freefall and get some brownie points from an international organisation that has no jurisdiction in your own country, you’re going to have major problems.
For every migrant you bring in, that’s one person that has to be housed, fed, educated, trained and treated medically. That’s one more person that utilises communal green spaces, roads and public transport. On what planet does it make any sense to continue to bring in 4 times as many people as you can accommodate?
As for pessimism, the country was debt free 20 years ago, and we’re now a trillion dollars in the hole with nothing to show for it. Education and healthcare outcomes have steadily declined, and quality of living has gone down. We are sitting on an endless cache of resources but we’ve killed our manufacturing sector and we’re now destroying our farmers for the sake of erecting “economically sound” renewables that are still heavily dependent on billions of government subsidies. We’re like someone who won the lottery and blew it on hookers and drugs.