Hostage to misfortune

Labor's immigration disaster is driving Australians further apart

The screeching sound from the cross benches in Parliament on Thursday was confirmation that Labor had crawled to the right place on the treatment of illegal migrants guilty of serious crimes.

Yet it is too late to avoid immigration becoming an issue at the next election, coupled with the cost of housing and crowded roads, hospitals and schools.

The annual Scanlon Social Cohesion survey published this week shows that Labor was in trouble on immigration before the High Court decided to release illegal migrants guilty of serious crimes from indefinite detention.

The proportion of Australians who think immigration levels are too high jumped from just under a quarter (24 per cent) to a third (33 per cent), the highest yearly increase since Labor was last in office struggling to control the arrival of illegal migrants by sea.

That will hardly be a surprise when migrants are arriving in unprecedented numbers. In the 12 months to March this year, the most recent period for which ABS data is available, 13,000 migrants were arriving in the average week while 4300 were departing, leading to a net migration intake of 454,400, a number equivalent to the population of the ACT.

The Scanlon survey confirmed that Australians have no issue with immigration in theory. The percentage that believes multicultural immigration is good for Australia remains above 80 per cent.

They only ask that the government sticks to the rules established by consensus since the post-war migration boom of the 1940s and 1950s.

Chief among the rules is that migration numbers should reflect underlying economic conditions. The Scanlon survey reports a significant jump in families experiencing financial stress, with 12 per cent saying they often or sometimes could not pay their rent or mortgage. When migrants are arriving faster than we are adding to the housing stock, something has to give.

Yet the Prime Minister appears to be doing everything he can to undermine support for immigration, ignoring the simple maxim first uttered by John Howard that we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.

Australians expect immigrants to leave past loyalties behind and honour their responsibilities as citizens. Historical grievances, like dog fur and tree bark, are forbidden items in every immigrant's baggage.

That’s why the outbreak of open anti-semitism in pro-Palestinian demonstrations has been deeply troubling for all who value Australia’s peaceful and respectful way of life. It is compounded by the apparent reluctance of police to use the anti-vilification laws with conviction.

The Prime Minister’s equivocating response has not dispelled concerns that there is a level of official tolerance for such un-Australian behaviour. There are few more egregious examples of "both-sideism" than Albanese's refusal to utter the word anti-semitism without including Islamophobia in the same breath.

To stick this convention in reaction to last week's ugly scenes in Caulfield, where protestors prevented Jews from attending synagogue, was perverse. We have never read reports of anti-Islam demonstrations in Broadmeadows or of people too frightened to participate in prayers at the Nicholson St Mosque in Coburg.

Now comes the debacle over the release of non-citizens guilty of serious crimes from detention. The High Court's decision was hardly unexpected, yet the government appeared not to have given the consequences a moment's thought. It is doubtful that the government would have produced new legislation at all were it not for the goading of the Opposition and Peter Dutton’s help in its drafting. It's unlikely that Albanese has the resolve to stare down the woke wing of his party by working on a more permanent solution for violent and dangerous illegal immigrants. He must do so, however, if he is to recover any credibility on immigration policy.

He must avoid any more adventures into the world of separatist identity politics, which has slowly been eroding the social fabric, undermining the principle of citizenship. Australians are very clear on this subject: they expect immigrants to integrate by putting their loyalties as a citizen above group identity.

The Scanlon survey confirms fears that the Voice referendum has pushed Australians further apart. “Division over the Voice potentially adds to social divides and polarisation,” the report finds. “Support for the Voice has been highly polarised on political and demographic lines.

Halfway through his three-year term, the task of the Prime Minister is to put the politics of diversity to one side and focus on what brings us together rather than the fashionable causes that are tearing us apart.