Minister for multiculturalism says rallies weren’t protesting migrants from ‘white, western countries’
Anne Aly says she’s glad the anti-immigration rallies didn’t draw big crowds but neo-Nazis used the rallies to “prey on some legitimate concerns around housing and around cost of living”.
Talking to ABC RN Breakfast, Aly, the minister for multiculturalism, says while it’s fair to say the majority of those that showed up weren’t neo-Nazis, the rallies were “clearly racist”.
She says the anti-immigration rallies weren’t protesting migrants from “white, western countries”.
I would say to those who marched and who argued that they have those, those legitimate concerns, that they were, they were organised by Nazis, the very purpose of them was anti-immigration… one of the very clear calls to action that was listed there was anti-Indian immigration, against people coming from India.
Now that, to me, is clearly racist when you target a specific ethnicity. That is clearly racism.
Australia has a long history of scapegoating migrants for concerns around housing and infrastructure, Aly says.
It is not the migrants who, for want of a better word, blend in to the rest of the community. It is those who are visibly different, who become the brunt of and wear the brunt of these anti-immigration sentiments, and who were the brunt of being blamed for and scapegoated for a whole range of concerns.
Key events
Car crashes into Russian consulate building in Sydney
Caitlin Cassidy
A man is in custody after a car crashed into Sydney’s Russian consulate building this morning.
In a statement, NSW police said about 8am on Monday, officers were called to the building on Fullerton Street in Woollahra following reports of an unauthorised car parked in the driveway.
They said when police arrived and attempted to speak to a man, 39, who was behind the wheel, he allegedly drove into the consulate’s front gate.
The man was arrested and taken to Surry Hills police station where he was assisting police with inquiries.
A 24-year-old constable injured his hand in the incident and was treated by paramedics at the scene. There were no other reports of injuries, police said.
“Inquiries are continuing,” police said.
Lambie criticises ‘thugs’ at anti-immigration protests but takes aim at ‘double standards’ on migrant values
Jacqui Lambie says people who turned up to protest the anti-immigration rallies should have “stay[ed] home with their loved ones”, and alleviated some of the pressure on police.
She told Sky News a little earlier that police were used as “meat in the middle of the sandwich”, and that we should have let the “thugs go out there and make idiots for themselves”.
You have to ask what sort of people are standing up with those Neo Nazis and the thuggery that is going on? Because you’re embarrassing the country and you’re embarrassing yourselves. And quite frankly, I think most Australians have had a gut full of it.
Like other politicians, Lambie said there needs to be more debate on immigration. But she also criticised face coverings, and said some migrants were coming to Australia without Australian values.
When you have your full face covering, if it is not for artistic and safety purposes, we have to ask why you’re allowed to do that. You can’t go into a bank with a motorcycle helmet on. So it is the double standards that are really starting to grind the gears of normal Australians out there.
Hume calls for Coalition to ‘get behind’ the Cop31 climate summit
Jane Hume has called on the Coalition to back Labor’s bid to host the Cop31 climate summit in 2026.
The Liberal senator, who was demoted to the backbench post-election, says it’s “low-hanging fruit” and calls it a “giant trade fair”.
Australia has been locked in a standoff with Turkiye for the bid.
Hume told ABC News Breakfast a little earlier that the summit would be “important economically” for Australia:
I think this is low-hanging fruit. Let’s face it – Cop, while it does bringing in world leaders to make some pretty serious decisions about a low-emissions future – most importantly, it’s a giant trade fair. It’s a trade fair that attracts financiers, tech companies, energy companies from right around the world.
This is a great opportunity for Australia. It’s something that we should be wholeheartedly embracing. Because, let’s face it – the world has moved on. They want a low-emissions future. It’s time that the Liberal party gets behind Cop so that we can talk about it in a sensible way.
Pocock joins condemnation of anti-immigration rallys but says Australia must have ‘sensible debate’ on migration
The anti-immigration rallies have dominated the morning interviews, with all politicians from across the divide (minus the few that attended the rallies) on a unity ticket to condemn them.
The independent senator David Pocock told ABC News Breakfast earlier this morning that some of the behaviour at the rallies was “totally unacceptable”.
But he also said Australia needs to have a sensible debate about migration:
I think this is really damaging when it comes to the message it’s sending to migrants across the country. And some of the slogans and behaviour we saw are totally unacceptable…
On the broader point, one of my frustrations has been that there is a real lack of appetite from the parliament to actually have a debate about this in a sensible way and then come up with a plan when it comes to migration and population that actually wards off some of the … feelings of ‘Well, there is no plan’.
It’s a point that the shadow immigration minister, Paul Scarr, made a bit earlier too – when there isn’t a sensible discussion, the fringe extremists gain control of the debate.
Shadow immigration minister says Coalition support ‘sustainable’ migration
Asked about the Coalition’s own migration policy, Scarr says he supports a “sustainable” level of migration.
The Coalition had promised to drastically cut migration numbers ahead of the May election, but Scarr has promised, since taking the shadow immigration portfolio, that the party will move away from anti-immigration rhetoric.
Sally Sara asks what “sustainable” migration looks like. Scarr says:
That looks like considering things like skill shortages, considering things like our humanitarian intake. Australia has always had a generous humanitarian intake for decades and decades.
Net overseas migration obviously was in negative territory during Covid, and then we had these huge increases during the first two years of the Albanese government, and that has distorted, in many respects, the debate.
Not everyone in the Coalition has gotten the memo to lay off the anti-immigration sentiment. Liberal backbencher Garth Hamilton last month suggested Australia should pay migrants go home.
Scarr says rallies show need to be careful to prevent ‘extremes’ from getting a foothold in immigration debate
Following Aly on RN Breakfast is the shadow immigration minister, Paul Scarr, who put out a statement last week in solidarity with the Indian community ahead of Sunday’s protest.
Scarr tells the ABC it’s important to have discussions and debates on migration in Australia, but it needs to be controlled to prevent fringe extremists taking over.
We just need to be terribly careful when we’re discussing issues such as immigration, that the fringes, the extremes don’t get a foothold in the debate.
I think when we see neo-Nazis address a crowd of people in some of our major cities that raises material concerns with respect to social cohesion in our country.
Scarr says the tone of the protests differed across the country – some of the scenes in Melbourne he describes as “particularly disturbing” – but believes there were many people with “goodwill” that marched over the weekend.
Aly defends move to send former immigration detainees to Nauru
The government will this week debate legislation to send hundreds of former immigration detainees in the NZYQ cohort to Nauru.
Nauru will be paid $400m to take up to 280 people, who the government has said have “exhausted all options” to remain in Australia.
RN Breakfast host, Sally Sara, asks how confident the government is that a small Pacific nation like Nauru will have the resources to deal with this cohort. Aly says there have been negotiations between the two nations over resources.
This is a cohort of people who have exhausted every single avenue available to them to stay and remain in Australia, and they have no legal right to remain in Australia.
There’s some back and forth between the two – Aly says people who have exhausted all options should “be able to leave” but Sara pushes back, asserting that the group aren’t able to leave, they’re “being sent”.
Aly then again says the group are being given the “option” to leave, before conceding – after Sara pushes back again – that they’re being “sent” by the government.
‘Nobody ever changed their mind because of a factsheet’: Aly
Aly says the government needs to clearly and succinctly talk about migration, but having worked as a former counter-terrorism expert, says there are some sections of the community who won’t change their mind.
She says there are certain “nefarious” groups who will continue putting out misinformation and disinformation and exploit the “emotional response” people have to issues like housing:
People are driven by emotion, not by facts. And so regardless of how many facts you put out there, there is a there is a section of the community who will still propagate misinformation and disinformation, and who will still use people’s emotional response to things like housing … in order to propagate their agenda.
As somebody who has worked … as a professor in radicalisation and … countering violent extremism, nobody ever changed their mind because they were handed a fact sheet.
Aly warns that the issues of migration and housing shouldn’t be conflated and says that when they are, they feed into the agenda of the far-right extremist groups.
I think that when we conflate immigration with all of these other issues, then we feed into the very agenda of the far-right organisations that were part of these marches.
Minister for multiculturalism says rallies weren’t protesting migrants from ‘white, western countries’
Anne Aly says she’s glad the anti-immigration rallies didn’t draw big crowds but neo-Nazis used the rallies to “prey on some legitimate concerns around housing and around cost of living”.
Talking to ABC RN Breakfast, Aly, the minister for multiculturalism, says while it’s fair to say the majority of those that showed up weren’t neo-Nazis, the rallies were “clearly racist”.
She says the anti-immigration rallies weren’t protesting migrants from “white, western countries”.
I would say to those who marched and who argued that they have those, those legitimate concerns, that they were, they were organised by Nazis, the very purpose of them was anti-immigration… one of the very clear calls to action that was listed there was anti-Indian immigration, against people coming from India.
Now that, to me, is clearly racist when you target a specific ethnicity. That is clearly racism.
Australia has a long history of scapegoating migrants for concerns around housing and infrastructure, Aly says.
It is not the migrants who, for want of a better word, blend in to the rest of the community. It is those who are visibly different, who become the brunt of and wear the brunt of these anti-immigration sentiments, and who were the brunt of being blamed for and scapegoated for a whole range of concerns.
Well says if you are talking about KPop Demon Hunters social media sites might infer that you are 13
Jumping back to Anika Wells on the Today show a bit earlier, she says a trial has found age assurance can be “private, efficient and effective” and means that social media platforms won’t have an excuse not to have age verification in place when the social media ban for under 16-year-olds comes into effect on 10 December this year.
There are three different methods around age verification that exist, says Wells, from showing your drivers licence when you look under 25 at the bottle shop, using face ID to log on to a phone, or where social media companies can see your data and infer your age:
If they’re [social media companies] seeing you talk to 65-year-olds about caravanning, they might infer that you are 65. If they see that you’re talking to 13-year[-olds] about KPop Demon Hunters, they might infer that you are 13 … There are many effective ways that platforms can use to assure themselves of age come December.
Pocock applauds AFL player coming out as bisexual but says code still has ‘long way to go’
AFL player Mitch Brown coming out as bisexual is an opportunity for the sport to have a important conversations, says independent senator and former Wallabies player David Pocock.
Pocock tells ABC News Breakfast that Brown was “really brave” coming out. He says sport has a proud history of challenging society, but football has a “long way to go” when it comes to homophobia:
When I was playing rugby union, the catalyst for some really important conversations at a club level was when a former teammate came out, and us sitting down saying, ‘OK, how do we create a more inclusive environment where people feel like they can be themselves while they’re playing rugby union or AFL … ?’
I think sport has a proud history of challenging society to be more inclusive. But I think when it comes to homophobia, clearly the contact football codes in Australia have a long way to go, and that is about leadership at the top to actually match the changes in society we’ve seen.
Wells says housing affordability an issue but should not be conflated with anti-immigration marches
The communications minister, Anika Wells, says there were “awful scenes” across the country at the anti-immigration marches on Sunday. Joining the Today show, she says there is no place for hatred and believes most Australians would be “horrified” at the protests that took place:
There were known racists who were trying spread division and hatred. And I think it is particularly appalling the people that were aggressive and violent towards our police officers. Australia police are having a very hard week at the moment. They’re just trying to keep our community safe. I think that was particularly egregious.
Asked whether the concerns for some protesters around the cost-of-living and affordability of housing are legitimate, Wells says she wouldn’t “give any credence to the grievances of these people as legitimate”.
But she says she understands how serious an issue housing affordability is.
It’s absolutely a problem. Housing affordability is absolutely something that comes up across the board. Let’s not conflate that with this very separate, serious issue.
Labor says more than 5,000 houses have been built since May 2022
The government says more than 5000 social and affordable homes have now been completed since May 2022, with another 25,000 in the construction and planning stages, through the Housing Australia future fund (Haff) and other programs.
Most of these homes have been built start to finish, with a small portion acquired from existing developments, according to Labor, with more than $3.4bn already spent.
In February 2022 just 340 homes had been completed, with 55,000 social and affordable homes promised by before the end of this decade.
The latest figures include 190 new homes for crisis accommodation and 685 homes in remote areas.
The housing minister, Clare O’Neil, says the programs are “changing the lives of Australians doing it tough”:
Labor’s housing agenda is delivering… the Coalition only built 373 [social and affordable homes] when they were in office.
Good morning
Krishani Dhanji
Krishani Dhanji here with you for the second sitting week of the fortnight.
It follows anti-immigration protests across Australia over the weekend, and we’ll see some reaction to that from Parliament House this morning.
The communications minister, Anika Wells, is doing the media rounds, to discuss the release of the age assurance trial – which you can read the details on here.
The government has also released new numbers of how many social and affordable homes have been completed under their housing programs: the tally has just tipped over 5,000.
And Barnaby Joyce’s net zero bill will be debated again today, Labor is using the opportunity to pile pressure on the Coalition as it still figures out its energy policy.
I’ve got my coffee, I hope you’ve got yours too – let’s get stuck in!