2025 in Review: immigration policy turns back toward dog whistles and drift
2025 marked a turning point in Australian immigration policy, as long-term planning was abandoned and discriminatory rhetoric returned to the political mainstream.
Recent articles in Immigration
6 December 2025
Refugees aren’t politically progressive by default – and policy needs to catch up
Australian settlement policy often assumes refugees will embrace progressive politics. Research and community experience show refugee political identities are far more diverse – with important implications for law and policy.
5 December 2025
Fear versus facts: why migrants strengthen Australia
Australia’s multicultural society is not a modern experiment or a social crisis. It is the product of shared effort, grounded in First Nations custodianship and strengthened by generations of migrants who have helped build the nation’s economy, culture and community life.
21 November 2025
Assessing the Liberal Party's policy-making capacity
Good policy should be evidence-based. But this is not the case with the Liberals energy policy and seems unlikely with their migration policy.
21 November 2025
The shadow of the Tampa
Nearly 25 years on from the Tampa crisis, Australia needs a parliamentary inquiry to lift the lid on offshore detention.
19 November 2025
Migration myths
Migrants aren’t to blame for expensive houses or stress on infrastructure: in fact they’re making more contribution to our shared assets than Australians.
14 November 2025
As Australia welcomes its millionth refugee, its hardline border policies endure. We can lead by example again
Any day now, Australia will welcome its millionth refugee since World War II.
7 November 2025
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.
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.
Catch up on other sections
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European deportation of Syrian refugees - a sign of the times
