Immigration is the biggest issue in Australia today.
And I want to start off with a few statistics to prove it.
Right off the bat, 80 per cent of voters want to cut immigration.
Bob Birrell’s TAPRI – The Australian Population Research Institute – released a report earlier this year showing exactly that.
That means a super-majority of Australians want immigration reduced.
This lines up with a few other polls conducted in recent years, showing that somewhere between 65 per cent and 75 per cent of Australians want to see a reduction in immigration.
Which is to say, the immigration argument has already been won.
Nobody needs any more convincing.
Nobody needs to go out and rally, we don’t need to protest, and we don’t need to letterbox.
Whatever your thoughts are on immigration, the fact of the matter is that most people want to cut it.
The problem is this: the argument has been won, but immigration still hasn’t been cut.
I want to talk about this, and what we can do about it.
Now, credit to the Liberal Party, they have come out and announced that they will reduce it.
Peter Dutton has said he will reduce it to pre-Covid levels.
He said he will reduce international students.
And he’ll put a two-year ban on foreign buyers.
The problem is that we actually went out and asked people what they thought about these policies.
The most obvious and glaring one here is that a majority of Australians don’t want to go back to Covid levels – they want something much stronger.
Firstly, 72 per cent of Australians want to cut immigration from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands.
That isn’t all that crazy – it’s what Australia did for the entirety of the 20th Century, which I think we can all agree worked pretty well compared to today.
In fact, this is quite a salable message even for moderates.
The Conservative Party in the UK are now using this.
It shows strong action without being extreme.
It’s obviously necessary and takes pressure off our strained housing market.
If Peter Dutton went out tomorrow and said, ‘I am going to cut immigration from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands…’ I think he will win from that and that alone.
Now, I’m a bit more of a hard-liner. I actually think that we should have net-negative immigration, like Sweden, meaning more people leaving the country than arrive, for a period of time.
But I’m also realistic. And tens of thousands I think is doable for the Liberals. And would do a world of good
Secondly, we have the issue of international students.
On international students, we asked a fairly cheeky question. Did you want the ratio of international students to citizens to be more in line with America’s ratio? This would effectively mean cutting the number of international students in the country by up to 90 per cent. 68 per cent said they would want that.
Australia today has around 1 million international students in the country, meaning 1 in 27 people here today is an international student. Mostly from China and India.
America, with a population of around 330 million, also has around 1 million international students. So for them, it’s around 1 in 330.
1 in 330. Or 1 in 27. Which would you prefer?
I’m sorry to bore you with the numbers, but basically what this means is that Australia has an idiotic amount of students in the country. Especially during a housing crisis where working families are sleeping in cars.
Somewhere along the way, our leaders decided it was more important to educate foreign students than to house Australians.
Now, remember, the original purpose of immigration was actually to benefit us. I cannot think of a single way that international students benefit Australians. Not one.
People say they subsidise domestic students, but we had free university long before we had international students like this.
People say we need them because we have a skills shortage, but if our universities are so good that people fly here to study in them, why are they not teaching local students these skills?
So no surprise then that most Australians want the number of international students heavily reduced.
The problem is that Dutton won’t say by how much he’ll cut student numbers. Which suggests to me that if we do see any cuts by the Liberal Party, and there’s no guarantee that we will, then they’ll be fairly insignificant. And they also certainly won’t be the kind of cuts that 72 per cent of Australians wanted.
A few other quick stats.
Do you believe the Liberal Party’s plan to lower immigration to 125,000 and pause foreign home buying for two years goes far enough to solve the housing crisis?
62 per cent said no.
Do you believe the mainstream media has created a space for free and open debate on immigration in Australia?
72 per cent said no.
Do you trust the major parties to address your immigration concerns?
70 per cent said no.
The list goes on.
One thing worth mentioning, is that our polling data allowed for breaking down according to which party the respondent voted for last election.
It probably goes without saying that in every single response, Coalition voters were always tougher on immigration compared to other voters.
This represents a strong mandate from LNP voters.
Again. I ask. Why isn’t this happening?
Majority of people clearly want something and they are not being listened to.
The immigration argument has been won.
But nothing is really changing.
We are still a mass immigration nation.
I’ve thought about this for some time, and the conclusion I arrived at was that there’s a good chance we might not actually be a democracy.
Or at least, not as we know it.
I think, in fact, Australia is an oligarchy.
Democracy is, as we know, the rule of the many.
Oligarchy, in its original meaning, is the rule of the few.
If we were a democratic state, then judging by the polling numbers, we would not have decades of high immigration.
Instead, we have powerful groups, lobbies and people calling for immigration.
And getting it.
Now, don’t get me wrong. We have some semblance of democracy. We can still vote. We can change the government. We can even say no in referendums.
But some issues are off the table, and immigration is one of them.
Naturally, the next logical question is: Who are the oligarchs? Why don’t they want to discuss it?
Well, to see who is responsible for immigration, you simply need to see who is asking for more.
Big business groups, property developers, and our major universities.
These are (or represent) some of the biggest and most powerful organisations in the country.
And keep in mind, these are not right-wing organisations.
They may be pro-free market insofar as it means more profits.
But the majority of these groups supported the Voice to Parliament.
Many of them supported or pushed DEI.
Many of them perform Welcome to Country ceremonies.
And also, they incessantly lobby for more immigration.
In a way, I don’t blame them.
As the quote goes, the purpose of the system is what it does.
The purpose of these companies, is to make money.
The problem is that, left-wing ideological capture aside, their capitalistic drive for growth is now actively harming our country.
They are, in this example, the oligarchs.
Of course, they’re not the only people calling for immigration.
There are of course, some homeowners, who may also see immigration as a way to keep house prices growing.
And of course, ideological leftists, who likely and cynically see immigration as a source of their growing political power. And as a way to whip up grievances for their own political benefit, which is a tale as old as time. But also electorally.
As Labor-aligned strategists themselves have said, most new migrants do in fact vote for Labor or the Greens. Recent studies have shown that South-East Asian and Indian voters, who are now our fastet-growing migrant group, typically vote Left.
So with these groups, we can see the incentives at play.
But again, this coalition of wealthy corporations, and migrants, left-wingers are still the minority.
But it is their policies which are granted.
And that is by definition the rule of the few.
The oligarchy.
And the continued rule of the few is not only undemocratic, it poses an existential risk to the survival of Australia.
Because, the continuation of immigration…
Of higher house prices and higher rents.
Of more strained hospitals, roads, and services.
Effectively spells the death of the country as we know it.
It may give the small pool of oligarchs a higher net worth, but it will disenfranchise us of our future, displace us economically, and change us culturally and demographically.
What is the solution here then?
The solution, in my opinion, is not to throw up our hands, and say this is bad.
We know it’s bad.
We’ve won the argument.
80 per cent of Australians want to cut immigration but nothing has happened.
The solution instead, to fight the vested interests, is to become the vested interests.
Our interest is maintaining our country, culture and way of life.
Our interest is keeping our living standards, our wages, our right to a weekend and free time.
Our interest is Australia’s future.
Our personal reason for getting involved isn’t so much to get rich – but more our love for our country, and the opportunity for our kids.
So we look to the oligarchs as an example of what to do, because clearly it works.
And remember, at the end of the day, it’s a battle of their willpower for yours.
So what did they do? Firstly, they formed groups. Councils. Political parties. Regular dinners. It doesn’t matter. Just come together and discuss the problem and figure out ways forward. A small group of people can achieve a lot of things.
If there’s one thing I want to urge all of you to do, it’s this.
Go home, and start a group chat.
It doesn’t matter if it’s local, state-wide or whatever, just get people into a group and start discussing the issue at hand: immigration.
I often get messages from younger people who ask me what can I do, what should I do, what do you need me to do?
And the advice I was given was this: put your big boy pants on and figure something out.
Just build something.
Anything.
Don’t rely on or wait around for other people, don’t rely on me. Don’t put your hopes and ambitions into this party or that. Go build something yourself.
Because what else did the oligarchs do?
They organised and legitimised.
They took casual and informal groups, and turned them into legitimate operations.
Think tanks, campaign organisations, regular talks and so on. Formalise.Professionalise. Legitimise. You can do these things.
And if we’re ever going to win and take our country back, it will rely on all of us to do exactly that.
Lastly, what did they oligarchs do?
They invested. They put money into operations, into lobbies, into campaigns and advertising that moved the argument their way. They knew they’ll get a return on investment.
It’s time we did the same.
I urge you all to put more money into the cause. To invest in setting up your own thing. Because eventually, when we win, you will get a return on investment.
I’d like to finish on this note.
The title of this speech was, ‘Whose country is this anyway?’
I would argue, it is our country.
The Australian citizen has an important stake in this country’s future. Australia isn’t just a wealth-extraction method for a few oligarchs. It’s our home. And it’s our future. And it’s worth fighting for.
This is an edited version of a speech delivered at a Generation Liberty event in Brisbane in March this year.