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.
Recent articles in Immigration
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.
10 September 2025
Courts brace for next wave of 'sovereign citizens'
When I wrote about the “Cavalcade of the Cretinous” in February 2022, I thought the anti-vaccination early incarnations of “sovereign citizens” were just a hopeless joke (“Summernats without the sophistication”) that would quietly go away.
9 September 2025
'Like us': Australia’s uneasy dance with immigration
Over dinner on a recent group tour in Australia, conversation turned to the wave of anti-immigration demonstrations and political statements that have flared across the country.
8 September 2025
The speech we are still waiting for Anthony Albanese to deliver
Last week, rallies were held under the banner of “March for Australia.”
7 September 2025
The good, the bad and the stupid
When Sergio Leone made The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, he showed how flawed characters chasing the same prize could blunder their way into folly and missed opportunities.
6 September 2025
People dumping in the Pacific
Australian governments of all stripes have long maintained a commitment to secure borders and an orderly migration program.
5 September 2025
Neo-Nazis and racist rallies: why it’s important the Australian media call them for what they are
If there was any doubt about neo-Nazi leader Thomas Sewell’s racist and anti-democratic attitudes, they were dispelled on the morning of 2 September when he gatecrashed a press conference by Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan and Treasurer Jaclyn Symes.
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