Australia’s fragile multicultural consensus under threat
Anti-immigration rallies around Australia in late August and mid-October exposed public divides over migration, social cohesion and national identity.
Recent articles in Immigration
4 November 2025
When will immigration return to 'normal'?
Despite assurances from Immigration Minister Tony Burke that immigration is “trending back towards historically normal levels”, all indicators suggest it is once again overshooting Treasury’s projection. Indeed, it looks like the descent may have stalled and might rebound.
3 November 2025
The pearling past and the multicultural present: A story of connection and contribution
In the late 1990s, during a field study in Wyndham, a remote town in Western Australia, I met a small tourism operator whose story has stayed with me ever since.
30 October 2025
The morality we need, the asylum they seek
Like many grumpy hacks from an age of lost standards, I've belittled colleagues' usage of the perpendicular pronoun. We're not the Mums needing attention – only the midwives bringing the stories of others into the world. We report and depart.
29 October 2025
Why the Coalition can’t win without losing itself
The Coalition faces not a messaging challenge but a structural impossibility. Voters abandoning them won’t be satisfied by marginally tougher rhetoric.
27 October 2025
On No Kings day, a new America came to life
This is who we are. And this is what our country must be: people with a soul-deep love for Planet Earth and all who inhabit it.
21 October 2025
The migration debate in Australia
Australia’s population growth rate is returning to normal. Instead, of cutting migration, the solution to Australia’s housing crisis is to increase the rate of new dwelling approvals and completions.
18 October 2025
Paper walls at Thailand’s border
Myanmar’s current emergency is not a sudden rupture but a long arc of military rule that has criminalised dissent, dismantled civil society and pushed millions into precarity.
16 October 2025
Reuniting families: reforming Australia’s approach
Saffron Williams is one of six talented young Australians who will travel to the UN General Assembly in New York next week as part of the Global Voices project.
25 September 2025
The perfect storm: Why immigration has become the scapegoat for our age of crisis
Economic shocks, social strains and rising inequality have unsettled democracies everywhere. In this atmosphere of fear and anger, immigration has been cast as the culprit, offering populists a simple story for a complex age.
24 September 2025
‘Release the tapes’: Lawmakers demand answers over alleged US$50,000 bribe of Trump border czar Tom Homan
“Seriously though, has anyone ever been handed US$50,000 cash in a paper bag for something legit?”
12 September 2025
The retreat of social democracy and the rise of the hard right
From Warsaw to Melbourne, from Berlin to Texas, the streets of many OECD countries are witnessing anti-immigration rallies and the surge of far-right populism.
11 September 2025
A good captain can stop this Senator’s social cohesion ‘Titanic’
After the largest public rally with racist associations for migrants we have witnessed since the demise of the White Australia policy, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price's comments really hurt.
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