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00:02Hi, I'm Kumi Taguchi. On this episode of Insight, more than half of us think immigration is too
00:08high. What's behind the numbers? I came to a very welcoming country. A terrible foreign
00:14conflict. A small amount of people are determined to import aspects of it to our shores. We weren't
00:20wogs. We weren't Australian. We were clog wogs. I'm not even really allowed to have an opinion
00:25about the country that I was born in. If you come here to do ill, to abolish Australia,
00:30I don't see you as Australian. I'm as Aussie as Vegemite. Migration is part of the solution
00:34as well as part of the problem to the housing issue. Every for sale sign has a migrant's
00:39face. John, you're 45, you've experienced homelessness. How did you end up in that situation?
00:49From a very simple life event, you go from a marriage to a single. So all of a sudden
00:56the houses need to double. Two houses is required now. So I was in Far North Queensland in Cairns,
01:03but the rents have gone up dramatically in Cairns beyond what I could afford. I had to
01:08leave Far North Queensland. I've left my kids and I followed a period of homelessness living
01:14in my car.
01:15You now live and work full time in the Gold Coast area. What is your housing situation
01:20like there?
01:21I call it the golden handcuffs. I have a roof, but I'm locked into that. I cannot get access
01:27to housing locally or back to Cairns where I want to go to visit my kids.
01:33Do you feel like it's affordable where you are now?
01:35I live on a rural property in a shed on a second derailing. If I was to go market rate,
01:40I would not be able to afford that. I would be homeless again. I see a lot of migrants.
01:46I am a truck driver and I visit 150 different construction sites a week. I see the housing
01:52being built. I also see all the for sale signs and the signs of the people selling it. Especially
01:59in certain areas within the Brisbane and Gold Coast region, every for sale sign has a migrant's
02:04face selling the house.
02:06Are you against migrants?
02:09I grew up in Sydney. I'm a product of a positive migrant experience. So I'm not anti-migrant,
02:15but at the moment I'm anti-migration.
02:18Annette, you live in Melbourne. Is housing affordable for you?
02:22Well, I live in a caravan park. So, yeah, it's affordable, but very high. But I don't blame
02:29the migrants for that. I think that has more to do with government policy, especially when
02:34it comes to housing. The housing bubble has been, you know, blowing up for a long time.
02:40And I don't see a lot of migrants buying a lot of houses. I see them buying one house.
02:47The people that own a lot of houses are generally white Australians.
02:52What kind of government policies do you feel like are affecting the housing crisis?
02:55Capital gains, negative gearing, things like that. Things that were put in place so people
03:02could make money and have investment properties, but those properties are empty half the year.
03:07They have Airbnbs instead of full-time rentals. We have the houses. They're just not distributed.
03:15Angela, you live in Sydney's east. Have you noticed a change in your area?
03:19I have seen a big shift in the population. I've seen where there's been pockets of affordable housing to
03:29being no affordable housing and families just not being able to stay in the area. Some of my girlfriends
03:38are single women and the rents have just gone up, so they can no longer afford to really live there.
03:46So,
03:46they've had to move out. Do you know who's been moving in?
03:50It's predominantly, I think, people from the UK and Ireland that have been moving in. They're in very
03:57high-paying jobs and they can just out-compete because it's, you know, a couple can out-compete.
04:03A single woman during the pandemic, there was just a lot more diversity, a few more older people around
04:10just different ages, but now it's become predominantly very transient community. So,
04:17it's changed the way things are.
04:19How do you feel about the current population growth?
04:22Even before the pandemic, I think it needed to slow down. It's about the numbers. I'm very upset with
04:30some of these political parties that pick on minorities when large portions of people are
04:38coming from Western countries and we don't talk about that. They're always picking on minority groups.
04:46It's a combination of what's going on with taxation and the numbers that have led to a crisis. People
04:54have to live somewhere and the occupancy rates are tiny and that is obviously going to push up the price.
05:03Tasman, you have a 13-year-old daughter. How confident are you that she will be able to afford a
05:09house
05:10where you live? I live on the Gold Coast and in 2019, I needed to buy the cheapest two-bedroom,
05:18one-bathroom apartment closest to her school. At that time, I bought it for $300,000. It was the worst
05:26on the street. In that time, I have renovated it and made it our own, but strangely enough,
05:31that same property is now worth $900,000. It's good for me, but I look at the next generation.
05:38Gold Coast is my daughter's hometown. It's somewhere I would want her to have this ability.
05:44And the prices on the Gold Coast, I just don't see it happening for her. It's hard. And you could
05:51say people are getting pushed out of paradise. You've attended so-called March for Australia rallies.
05:57What are you calling for? I'm not against migration. I'm calling for the numbers to be capped. I'm not
06:06for massive migration. I want affordable housing. I want the next generation to have hope so they can
06:14work hard to have a piece of their own. Australians need to have a fair go. And I don't see
06:21where
06:22getting it. Immigration is a hot topic, so what are the numbers?
06:28This is our country! You should be here standing with us!
06:32From the Netherlands to Canada, Poland to the UK, anti-immigration sentiment is on the rise,
06:39and Australia is not immune. More than half of Australians surveyed say migration is too high.
06:46But how high is it really? Migration to Australia is measured as net overseas migration. That is,
06:55the number of arrivals to Australia minus the number of people who leave. This figure includes permanent
07:02and long-stay migrants like students, workers and family arrivals, but excludes short-term visitors
07:09and tourists. In the 2024-25 financial year, net overseas migration was 306,000 people. This followed a record
07:21high of more than half a million people in 2022-23, when international borders reopened after the COVID-19 pandemic.
07:31Over the last 30 years, migration has been the main source of Australia's population growth,
07:37growth, and it has almost tripled since 1995. So what do these numbers mean for a multicultural
07:44country like Australia, and is our infrastructure keeping up? Leith, you're an economist with an
07:51interest in migration and its impact on housing. What do you make of the numbers?
07:56We've never had a period as strong as that, over a five and a half year period, and the pressure
08:00here
08:01has been felt most acutely in the rental market. So according to Coatality, median advertised rents in Australia
08:06have increased by 43 per cent over the past five years across the nation, and that's added on
08:12average $10,600 to the annual cost of renting a home, which is a hell of a hit. Now, according
08:19to
08:20AMP Chief Economist Shane Oliver, he believes that the housing shortage is currently between $200,000
08:24and $300,000, and the Federal Government's own National Housing Supply and Affordability Council
08:29forecasts that demand through population growth is going to exceed supply for the next five years,
08:34and the housing shortage is going to worsen by another 79,000 on top of that.
08:38So this just means that it's terrible news if you're a renter, because unfortunately population
08:42demand is projected to continue exceeding supply. Much of the research finds that immigration has
08:49a neutral to positive impact on the economy long term. Do you agree?
08:55Well certainly if you grow the population by one and a half percent every year, I'm just picking that out
08:59of there. You're going to grow the economy by one and a half percent. But that's not the thing that
09:03matters. The thing that matters is per capita growth and per capita living standards. So GDP is just one
09:08measure. All it measures is economic activity. And on that front, Australia's per capita GDP growth has
09:14actually fallen as we've had this strong migration. And more importantly, I'm more concerned about the
09:18other factors. So my children have been able to live in a detached house with a backyard rather than
09:22having to live in a shoebox apartment. Liveability indicators like traffic congestion, all those sorts of
09:28things. Those are the sorts of measures that aren't captured in this debate.
09:31John, do you feel like you benefit from a strong economy?
09:36Hell no. I think there's this phrase that's thrown around, a rising tide lifts all boats.
09:41People like me, we got wrecked and we're clinging to wreckage. So while we have this kind of the
09:48government's creative accounting says, hey, we didn't have a recession, we had a per capita recession.
09:54So everybody here had a recession. But just as a conglomerate, because we kept bringing in more
09:59people, we avoided the technical headline recession, which the government was trying to avoid.
10:05Alan, you research human migration. Are the financial struggles of everyday Australians linked
10:11to the migration rate? Housing is clearly a major issue. And the experiences of people like John and
10:19Angela are real and they're widely shared. It's a big puzzle that we have to solve.
10:25Migration is a small part of it. The research consistently shows that migration has a negligible,
10:35a relatively small impact on housing costs. And that's partly because migration doesn't only
10:43contribute to housing demand. It contributes to the supply of housing, not just through labour in
10:50the construction industry, which is obviously a direct contribution to supply, but right along the
10:56supply chain that feeds housing. So part of the reason why we see a bottleneck in housing at the moment
11:05is related to the complete standstill of migration during the pandemic and the way that it's been
11:12volatile since then. And so in that sense, migration is part of the solution as well as part of the
11:19problem to the housing issue. Why do you think migration is often perceived, rightly or wrongly,
11:26as the reason behind these frustrations around housing? There are so many complex crises confronting us
11:34at the moment, from geopolitical tension to housing costs, to the COVID pandemic itself, to any number of
11:44supply chain crises. And people feel naturally overwhelmed and anxious in those circumstances.
11:51And when they see experts like me, give them a graph with a sort of spaghetti of lines intersecting,
12:01trying to explain what's going on, which is accurate, they think, that can't be right. It's too complex.
12:08I want a simple explanation. Simple explanations always win. And we've seen that one of the simplest
12:15explanations and the most viscerally acceptable to people in times of crisis is to blame outsiders.
12:24In the pre-modern societies, it's the witches and the infidels that we need to cast out in order to
12:33stop the crops failing and stop the plague of locusts or disease. But it's not going to help us solve
12:41these crises. We've got to science our way out of it. We've got to troubleshoot them one by one,
12:47not just say, oh, this is all because of the migrants. That's not going to help anything. It's just
12:51might make us feel good for a little while, but it won't relieve the sources of our anxiety.
12:58What would happen if the migration rate was slowed down?
13:03Well, there's a saying, Kumi, that demography is destiny. We can absolutely decide to stop doing that.
13:10Absolutely. That is a political choice within our power. That's the Australian people's decision.
13:16However, we must understand that that would affect our standard of living. We would not be as wealthy.
13:22There would be competition for hospital beds. The standard of services would decline. We would
13:27experience what demographers call a demographic winter. That's when there's too many elderly people
13:33for the number of working age people who are supporting them. And our standards of living
13:37and our standards of wealth decline. So it's a choice we need to make.
13:43And that you've worked in aged care. What do you think?
13:48Basically, there were three Australians working where I was working out of 87 staff. And if it wasn't for
13:57the Indians and the Africans, that place would have been empty. And the place I worked at is in a
14:03blue ribbon suburb, very expensive, a million dollars to get in there. And without the immigrants,
14:10it would not run.
14:12Your family migrated to Australia from Denmark when you were a baby.
14:16Do people see you as a migrant? Not unless I tell them. Nobody has ever stopped me in the street
14:23and
14:23asked me where I come from. Ever. So how would you describe yourself?
14:27I am Danish. I was born in Denmark. I'm still a Danish citizen. But I am a permanent resident of
14:33Australia. I studied here. I've paid taxes here since I was 14. I've produced two Australians. I'm the person
14:42that when I was working in factories, the racist people would come and say things to me and expect
14:48me to go along with. For example, I was working in a factory one night and I had the guy
14:54next to me
14:55point at the two Vietnamese guys at the end of the machine and keep calling them boat people.
15:00I called them down, Kiong and Hung, come here. And I said, hands up everyone who arrived on a boat.
15:07And I was the only person with my hand up.
15:09So yeah, I said to him, if you've got anything else to say, keep it to yourself.
15:13How was school for you when you were a kid?
15:16It was weird because once again, you can't tell I'm not Australian. I had kids who would play with
15:24me and invite me home and their parents were lovely to me until they heard my parents speak,
15:29because my parents had very heavy accents. When we had fights in the playground, we'd have,
15:34I went to school in Pran. The Greeks on one side, the Australians on the other, and then
15:39a little group of us clog wogs, as they called us. We weren't wogs. We weren't Australian. We were
15:45clog wogs. So we got to watch the fight.
15:48Kavita, you were born in Australia. Do people see you as Australian?
15:54No. Regularly, I get told to go back to where I came from, which is quite ironic because I was
16:00born here. And it's really interesting because that's not my identity either. My identity is
16:05Australian. I see myself as Australian or Australian Indian. So my voice is not welcome here.
16:12I'm not even really allowed to have an opinion about the country that I was born in and that
16:17I identify as mine as well. And really what that is saying is that there are certain people who have
16:23more entitlement to be seen as Australian or called Australian than others.
16:29When you hear economic pressures being linked to migration, how does that make you feel?
16:36It makes me feel sad. Mainly because I think that a lot of this rhetoric
16:42rhetoric is missing a very key part of the conversation, which is about race.
16:48I think that in the discussions, what tends to happen is that we use colorblind language.
16:54We don't talk about race or talk about the topic in terms of race and what that means.
17:01And therefore, people think that, therefore, it's not a racist discussion. And then so it can
17:08be easily denied that it has anything to do with race. Leith, is it possible to have this
17:13conversation without racist undertones? I think we should be able to focus on the numbers here.
17:18So I'd argue that 2000 was peak Australia. We had the Sydney Olympics. National pride was huge.
17:25The net overseas migration in 2000 was the year 2000 was 110,000 in that year. And it had taken
17:32Australia 12 years to add 1 million people to the population up to the year 2000 through net overseas
17:38migration. In the most recent period we've had, up to June 30 last year, it had taken just two and
17:46a half years to add 1 million people through net overseas migration. So we've run migration more than
17:51four times higher in the most recent period than we did in the year 2000. None of these issues were
17:57cropping up then, or very few of them. We had a significantly smaller migration system of 110,000
18:03people back then. So I don't see why we can't debate the numbers here. It's about the numbers,
18:08not all this other stuff, which is really a distraction. How do you feel about this concept
18:13that some people from overseas are more welcome than others? That's obviously unfortunate. I think,
18:20again, we need to get back to the economics of this and the numbers of people that are coming in.
18:25It's always unfortunate if people are getting targeted based on their skin colour or race,
18:29etc. Nobody wants to see that. To me, a great Australian is someone who embraces the country
18:35and their love of the country. Eddie, when cost of living and housing pressures get linked to
18:41migration, how does that land for you? I came to a very welcoming country. I've never experienced any
18:47race issues. No one has been racist against me. But I do see that they have led way too many
18:56people
18:56into a country with a small population. How can a country keep up with the housing system,
19:03like try to find something affordable even around the city? I live in Western Sydney,
19:09and even that part of Sydney has become very expensive. You moved from Colombia at 16 years
19:15old. Why did you choose Australia? Australia offered the things that I couldn't have in my country.
19:21It offered affordable housing. It offered opportunity. I could build a career here. It was
19:29very hard because I was only 16 and I came on my own. My parents loved me, but because of
19:34the situation
19:35there, it's still very bad. They decided to let me come here. You've gone to March for Australia
19:41protests. What appeals to you about their message? So I started watching the news that it was all about
19:49neo-Nazis. And it was painful because part of me, well, obviously I'm an immigrant, but I love this country.
19:56And so I decided to go there with my camera just to make a video for my YouTube channel. But
20:02what I
20:02found was quite different. They had many views and many, many comments, like, you know, the housing
20:08crisis, affordability. Basically, they're just concerned because they don't see the nice way of
20:15life that I saw 18 years ago when I came here. So I thought that that was quite reasonable. I
20:20don't
20:20think it's about rhetoric or racism. It's not racist. Like same, I would apply it in my country. If you
20:26bring
20:26many Colombians, say if you bring a whole Colombian town here, you will bring also habits that we
20:33are not proud of, but are very normal there. Like one example is that in Colombia, unfortunately,
20:38it's very normal for people to pay for their driver's license. Even law-abiding citizens,
20:45they do it and it's normal for them. Obviously here, that sounds very wrong. But if you bring many,
20:50many Colombians here, it's very easy for them to try and do that type of bribing, that type of things.
20:56In as many ways as I can control, I'm as Aussie as Vegemite. However, I do think with a surname
21:03like Demasthenes, there probably are those that have a stronger case of being true blue Aussie than I
21:09am. To be an Australian, yeah, you can. But I also say people can also not become Australian.
21:18Debate in this country is either febrile or deceased. Plenty of the debates that we're having
21:22are harmful. They simply robbed me of my voice. I was regularly called a boomer. Things like your
21:29transphobic, homophobic, your Islamophobic shutdown debate. What if you and your husband
21:35are sitting at a table together and say, American politics comes up? I rise to the occasion.
21:45I come from a traditional Australian culture. I was born here. I fly the flag every day.
21:55That's the flag that was placed on the coffin at my dad's funeral. And I feel like I'm honouring
22:02those men who fought for the country. Hey Phil, your cuppa's ready. My dad was a veteran in World
22:11War II. He was a rat of Tobruk. Growing up in the house, it has moulded my idea of traditions
22:19and
22:19culture and values. You're in the land of a fair go. You give the shirt off your back to your
22:24mate.
22:25The larrikinism, being able to take the piss out of each other. These are what Australian values are.
22:40I love everything that is Australian. I really do think I'm true blue. Remember when I met you,
22:51Phil, and you took me down to Ross Creek? I think you thought I was going to get sick of
22:55it.
22:56I sat there half the night with you, didn't I? Yeah, certainly did.
23:02John Williamson with his True Blue. I feel that that song was being prophetic when he wrote it.
23:10Are we really disappearing? Are you really disappearing? Just another dying race. Just another
23:18dying race. The lyrics of True Blue resonate with me because a lot of those things have now come to
23:26pass.
23:29I feel like our traditions are being eroded and we're losing sight of who we are as Australians.
23:40I respect people who come to this country, but as long as they respect that this is Australia and we
23:47have our own way of life. By trying to accommodate all the different nationalities, we're losing our identity.
24:02Tasman, we heard there from Anne in Bundaberg. Does what she's saying resonate with you?
24:07Some points do. I see myself as an Anglo-Saxon Australian with a history and I quite enjoy our
24:18history with its failures as well, but from the first fleet to the coming of the colonies,
24:28the five colonies, and as well with federation.
24:33How do you feel about this idea of sort of Aussie culture being diluted?
24:39My father was my cricket coach in our cricket team for 15 years
24:43and I look back as a child and and I had Indonesian Australians, I had Vietnamese Australians,
24:49I had Italian Australians, and we had skip Australians like myself. What's a skip?
24:55An Anglo-Saxon Australian. Can anyone become a skip or a True Blue Aussie?
25:01Well, a skip is an Anglo-Saxon Australian. In my opinion, I could be wrong, but to be an Australian,
25:08yeah you can, but I also say people can also not become Australian.
25:13What would it take to become Australian?
25:16You come to Australia, you have a fair go, you come to work and to better yourself and your family.
25:22You don't come to Australia and undermine Australia. You don't come to Australia and sit on social
25:30welfare. You come to better this country. If you undermine it, I don't see you as an Australian.
25:38If you come here to do ill, to abolish Australia, I don't see you as Australian.
25:43Marty, you're from a Greek migrant background on your father's side. Do you feel True Blue Aussie?
25:50I would say in as many ways as I can control, I'm as Aussie as Vegemite. However, I do think
25:57with a
25:58surname like Demasthenes, there probably are those that have a stronger case of being True Blue Aussie
26:04than I am. But my dad did give me the gift of leaving the culture at the door when he
26:10came here,
26:10you know, he left it there. What did he mean by leaving his culture at the door?
26:15We didn't speak Greek at home. It was kind of like you're Australian and he was always very grateful
26:19for that. So I've never considered myself not Australian, but I do think ethnicity is a factor.
26:25To be a skip, you kind of need to have the, you need to have British roots, I think, to
26:29be called skip.
26:30I think the country is really inclusive and welcoming. And I think it's a testament to
26:35Australian culture that I've never felt like the other, or as though I was on the outside,
26:40until really I was asked this question. And I looked at my own household and I thought,
26:44I think there are, I think ethnicity is a factor as to your nationality. However, I don't think that
26:50dilutes my contribution to the country in any way. How would you describe Australian culture and values?
26:57I think in most ways, I think Australian culture and values are similar to any nation's culture and
27:02values. It's the people within it, it's their history, it's their ethnicity, it's their language,
27:07it's their cuisine. And I think specifically here, I think we were built on a Judeo-Christian
27:14foundation from Great Britain. I think if we were settled by the Indonesians or the French,
27:19we'd have a completely different makeup of our country. And I think we need to be grateful that the
27:25country's so good. And those kinds of things don't come from nowhere. We do have a lot of good
27:31Anglo-Saxon history against, you know, I think severing Australia that we started in 1788 and not
27:39give that lineage to our British heritage happens too often nowadays. And I was a teacher for 15 years
27:44and I've seen it. They're not taught the history anymore. And it's sad. And I think that's really
27:48contributing to the lack of social cohesion. You grew up in a suburb in Melbourne's West.
27:54What was it like when you were younger? Definitely I was crossing because it was a farming place.
27:59And then in the 70s, it's pretty much become a dumping ground for immigrants generally. And I'm
28:04part of that story. You know, that's, that's not a bad thing. That's just what it is. So,
28:07and most of the migrant families, all the migrant families really are grateful to be here,
28:11grateful there's education and you're kind of, you're Australian. However, the demographic change
28:17in the western suburbs now is completely different. And there's, there are problems with what's happened.
28:21You've since relocated to regional Victoria. What prompted the move?
28:26Demographics have completely changed. And there's enclaves there now. And there weren't enclaves before.
28:32And that's because they've been a lot of people from countries that are vastly different to us.
28:39And there's been too many, uh, too quickly. Because if you're not forced to assimilate,
28:44why would you? If you just go to a place and all the same people are there as the place
28:49you've come
28:49from, it's difficult to assimilate. It's hard to do it. And you kind of need to be forced out of
28:53your
28:53comfort zone. And if you're surrounded by people that are the same as where you come from,
28:57it's, it's not going to happen. Poi, you migrated to Australia from Malaysia
29:01in the 1980s when you were 18. Did you experience anything that affected your sense of belonging in Australia?
29:09I think originally when we arrived, um, because my father and mother were educated in Australia in
29:15the 60s, really enjoyed it so much. But they couldn't stay on apart because of the white Australia
29:20policy. Growing up, my father said Australia was such a great country. And it's a country
29:25that I think would give good opportunity to our family. So, uh, so we came in the 80s. So we
29:31kind of
29:31felt at home because we had some family here. But what happened too, in the late 80s in Perth,
29:36was that we actually had, uh, the, the rise of the Australian national interest movement. They
29:41were actually, um, the A&M, uh, headed up by a neo-Nazi called, uh, Jack Van Tongan, who ironically
29:46was also half Indonesian himself, as it turned out. But it did mean that it was a bit difficult,
29:51especially when you go to this, trying to, you know, go around doing a business and then you see
29:56posters like Asians out or racial war. But by and large, I think Australia was quite a welcoming
30:02country. But those things cast a shadow over what would have been, I suppose, a young migrant's
30:08experience at the time.
30:09What does Australian culture look like to you?
30:13I think it's a mosaic. It's not a white marble floor where everything's assimilated. I think we
30:18have an integrated society. I think in any society where you're encountering a lot of, um, I suppose,
30:26disruption, this, um, you know, cost of living crisis, the housing crisis, those things actually
30:32bring to the fore the schisms in society. I think that's where opportunism comes in. I think we need
30:38better conversations.
30:39In terms of feeling like you belong in your adopted country, what things have you done
30:44to make you feel like you belong?
30:46So in my early twenties, I became Australian citizen. I'm still the only Australian citizen
30:51in my immediate family. Everyone else is holding on to the Malaysian passport.
30:55I found employment in the public service. Money wasn't great, but I felt like I wanted to do
31:01something to contribute to the society that welcomed my family and welcome to honour the fact that they
31:07also welcomed my parents back into, into Australia, you know, and I don't believe that Australian
31:12society should be all Anglo-Saxon. I'm just so ever grateful that our First Nations people didn't
31:17actually impose an immigration policy in 1788 because everybody else is a migrant in Australia.
31:24Eddie, you migrated here at 16. How long do you feel like it took you to integrate into Australian society?
31:31I'm still integrating into this society. It's a journey. Like, obviously, I'm not going to change
31:37who I am, but I do assimilate. I do integrate. I do respect the values here that I see that
31:45are good,
31:46the good things. Obviously, I don't agree with some things that happened in the past, but again,
31:50by promoting that wrong part of history, then we're just creating hate.
31:57Do you feel like Australians welcome you?
32:00Definitely. Like, if they see that I respect them, then obviously they will respect me.
32:04I'm a foreigner here, so why am I going to tell an Australian to change their way of thinking?
32:12You came here 18 years ago. Do you think migrants today have the same challenges integrating?
32:19I think so. I think when you bring so many people so quick, it doesn't give them time to assimilate,
32:26to integrate. There are more pockets of people living together of the same nationality,
32:33so for them it's quite easy to just stay in that spot where they can go to the praise of
32:38worship or
32:38whatever and then maybe never meet an Australian because they can just stay there. So they just tend to
32:46stick together and forget that they came to Australia. Simon, your grandparents were Holocaust
32:54survivors and they migrated here after the Second World War. As a Jewish person, have you always felt
33:01part of mainstream Australia? Yes and no. When I was a kid, I was in an interesting position because
33:08I didn't really hang out with the Anglo kids, nor did I, yeah, I didn't feel part of the mainstream,
33:15so it was kind of me, a few other Jews, Indians and we would all play cricket together. So the
33:23paradox is
33:23I guess we ended up feeling very Australian when we played cricket, but I always knew that probably
33:30because of my grandparents that there was something different about us, but I felt at the same time
33:35a proud Jewish Australian. Did you relate to this idea of multiculturalism?
33:42Absolutely. Multiculturalism has been a key feature of my life. My parents insisted that I
33:48not go to a Jewish school, but I go to a school where many cultures existed happily together and I
33:56am
33:57very grateful to that. Many people of course go to Jewish schools and have very positive experiences,
34:02but in my case I effectively travelled before I travelled. I learned the world, I learned that
34:07basically most people want the same things and kids are kids and kids don't really care
34:13essentially what skin colour you are, that things like that are taught.
34:17Has your sense of belonging changed in recent years? Oh, certainly. I doubt you'd find a Jewish
34:23person in the last few years whose life has not been profoundly changed. Life has gone completely
34:31topsy-turvy, obviously because of the catastrophe in Israel and Palestine and the sense that no matter
34:39what we say, our conduct as Australians is passed through the activity of a foreign conflict and a
34:48foreign disaster. And that's completely changed my sense of where I fit in this country. And
34:55Australians, Jewish Australians have played such a huge role as have many ethnic groups in Australia.
35:03And it pains me a great deal to see that my effectively a terrible foreign conflict or a foreign
35:11disaster catastrophe, whatever you want to call it, probably a small amount of people are determined to
35:17import aspects of it to our shores. And ultimately, most Aussies just want to get along with our day,
35:22with our life, do our jobs and just be left the hell alone. And that's what I love about Australia.
35:30And it's what I think we have to preserve at all costs. We, as moderate people, whether it's moderate
35:35left or moderate right, have to turn around to people and say, no, that is not acceptable. We are all
35:40here.
35:40Our grandparents knew what it was like when people said hateful things. And it's just not acceptable.
35:47We cannot scapegoat individual cultures, whether it's Muslim or Jewish or Indigenous. It's absolutely
35:54unacceptable. Ali, you migrated from India when you were 21. What was your idea of multiculturalism
36:02before you came to Australia? India itself is quite a diverse country. So I grew up in a country with
36:07a lot of religions, a lot of different languages. But my idea of Australia was that it is much more
36:13accepting and respecting of different cultures and diversity. I would feel a sense of belonging as
36:20a minority more so here than unfortunately in the place I grew up, which is Gujarat in the western part
36:26of India.
36:27How did you feel there? And why did you leave, I guess? I left after the anti-Muslim program,
36:34the riots. A lot of my friends were killed because they're Muslims. So I came here to study and my
36:38father sent me away to sort of experience the world outside that limited experience I had in India.
36:45So I land in Sydney, went to a university, worked in pubs as a nightclub bouncer. And as a Muslim
36:53and Indian,
36:53I cop both ways sometimes, but I felt belonging most of the times.
36:59You're a Muslim community leader in Brisbane. How well do you think newer migrants are integrating into broader society?
37:07Look, it's a struggle, especially nowadays. It's not easy. And that's mainly because quite often a lot of young people,
37:14even they are born here, they're made feel foreign because of the faith they follow, because of the stereotypes,
37:19because of the racism and open attacks on not being part of this Judeo-Christian country because they're Muslims.
37:27And that quite often makes them feel alienated, isolated. And that unfortunately sometimes could lead to people
37:34pulling into the silos because they feel that if they go out of their silos, then they will not be
37:40accepted and attacked for who they are, which they can't change.
37:43What do you do to overcome these feelings of alienation?
37:47I've learned this working in the pubs out of all places, that if you communicate with most people,
37:53most people are reasonable and they'll understand. And most people are good people.
37:57It's just that unfortunately they form stereotypes because of their limited experiences.
38:01So if you, for example, go to Bali and talk to somebody who works in a pub there, they'll think
38:06that all Anglo-Saxon Aussies
38:08are drunk troublemakers. Or if you go to certain areas in south of United States, people think all Colombians are
38:14drug dealers.
38:15But that's a limited experience based on a stereotype formed by their experiences.
38:20So I'll try to counter that and give them a different experience. We did a little experiment.
38:26We brought some students from a Catholic school and a state school to an Islamic school.
38:30And I got some of my students from my Islamic school to go to the Catholic school and a state
38:34school
38:34to experience the whole term there. And it was fascinating to see that at the end of it all,
38:40they were all just Aussie kids who had similar experiences. They cared about the same thing.
38:44They didn't want to do the homework. They wanted to make sure that they get to use their phones in
38:49the school.
38:49And that was the biggest issues. So I think that is what I try to do in my life.
38:55Mar, you're the son of South Sudanese migrants. You grew up on the outskirts of Melbourne.
39:00You were a member of a gang as a teenager. Why did you get involved in that?
39:06We grew up in like a low income family, you know, and then grow up with a father in the
39:10household.
39:11So it has that guidance and that structure that a father provides.
39:14So within the gang and within that brotherhood, I found community and union.
39:18How do you feel young South Sudanese people are perceived?
39:22In general, I feel like the procedures like young, violent, arrogant,
39:29non-listening and non-God-fearing citizens, you know, which is a complete lie.
39:35The majority of the kids are good kids, you know, God-fearing and they're straight up.
39:39It's just a small percentage of us that make us look bad.
39:41What do you say to those who question whether or not South Sudanese are embracing the opportunities here?
39:48Look at the community, the actual community, not just the ones you see on the news.
39:52Go do your homework, go in the community and go talk to us, come sit with us, come eat with
39:56us.
39:57You'll see us really excelling. The girls in our community are doing an amazing job, you know,
40:01finishing uni, graduating, getting these jobs, getting houses, providing for the community,
40:05paying taxes, doing everything Australia does. It's basically us and Afghans, I think,
40:09we're the freshest to Australia. So yeah, we're going to struggle, we're going to fall,
40:13but don't knock us down and tell us to go back to our country. This is our country.
40:16We're Australian just like everyone else is Australian, you know. I was born here,
40:20I don't know Sudan, I don't know South Sudan like that. I may love it, I may have risks to
40:24it,
40:24but I'm Australian as anyone else's and same for my peers.
40:28I don't mind being ribbed for being Jewish if it comes from a good place. I think most people can
40:32usually tell if it's a good place or not. That's the Australia that I love and that's the Australia
40:36that I wish for the future. I want everyone to stop pointing the finger at everyone else.
40:47I didn't feel Australian growing up because I didn't feel welcomed in this country.
40:51I remember one time, I wanted to play football with the white boys at school
40:55and they didn't let me and I knew the reason, they knew the reason, you know, they rubbed me wrong.
41:02It created like something in my head to realise that I'm different, you know,
41:06I'm not the same as them.
41:09I can't be fully South Sudanese if I don't know my roots, my family, but then I can't be fully
41:13Australian if I'm not even accepted by the Australian people. It's like you're stuck in the middle.
41:24Due to not feeling South Sudanese or Aussie in Australia,
41:29you might even hear in my accent the way I speak, the way I act, the way I dress,
41:32it's very American inspired.
41:37In Australia, there's no other Africans we can look up to and be like, or want to be like them.
41:41We're kind of like the first black Africans in Australia.
41:45It's a struggle to find your identity.
41:51My mother and father separated when I was year three.
41:55So I found a lot of our culture disappeared or got lost.
42:01We don't want to lose our culture, you know.
42:04As I'm becoming older and my own man, one thing I'm doing now and I'm learning is cooking.
42:09Today we're doing mulat weka, am I correct?
42:15So I'm trying to learn all our traditional dishes that I can pass on to my kids.
42:20It also helps me break a gender norm in my country, you know, where men don't cook.
42:24I don't like that, I want to challenge it. This is the way of doing it.
42:26Can you add the meat?
42:30It's only now that I'm finding my identity and becoming Australian in South Sudanese.
42:34Also accepting Australian culture, morals, principles.
42:40Things from Australian culture I do take.
42:42So in South Sudanese culture, parents and children, they're not really friends until you get to a
42:46certain age. But what I found with my white friends or Australian, they talk to them like
42:50friends and I admire those, it's beautiful. And that's something I do with my mum now,
42:54I talk to them openly with no fear, no judgement, no worries, no barriers. Although growing up I
42:58didn't, now I do feel Australian and no one can take that away from me. I am what I am.
43:04Mar, you feel Australian now. How does that shape your place in the broader community?
43:10It gives you a sense of responsibility in a sense, you know. There's a lot of things going
43:14on in our community, a lot of youth violence, a lot of household disruptions, a lot of fatherless
43:19children. So it gives me a responsibility to try to change that and challenge that in my community,
43:24which will help Australia as a whole country. And you do a lot of community work. What does that look
43:29like? First, I started a record label in my hometown for the kids. So I started that, funded it through
43:34my own money and gave children in my area a platform where they can come and create music in a
43:38safe
43:39environment and try to have a career and make a living. Marty, you believe your hometown changed due to
43:45migration. Do you feel your concerns are being heard? I think generally it's become more of a
43:52conversation now and it probably wouldn't have happened even a few years ago. If you had a
43:57conservative point of view even a few years ago, people would kind of whisper, say, I agree with
44:01you, but I don't have the guts to say it myself. Now a lot of people have kind of, I
44:05think a lot of
44:05people have had a gut full and are sick of being told this colonisation narrative that all settlers are
44:13evil. Like if you can look at colonisation not as a net positive, you just don't know your history.
44:21And I think people are sick and tired of being told that because something happened 100 years ago or 50
44:26years ago that I'm somehow responsible or that people are responsible for things that had nothing
44:32to do with. And my experience being a migrant in Australia is everyone's been, I've never experienced racism.
44:37Do you feel like your political allegiances have shifted in recent years?
44:42Me, yeah. I think Churchill said if you're not a communist when you're 20 you don't have a heart
44:48and if you're not a capitalist by the time you're 40 you don't have a brain. Because I used to
44:51be a
44:51Greens voter in my 20s. I did an arts degree. I was indoctrinated. I was a lefty. I voted Greens.
44:56I voted Labor. It's kind of my political progression or regression depends on your own political view.
45:02Do you mind me asking who you vote for now?
45:05One Nation.
45:07Leith, why are people like Marty turning away from major political parties?
45:12Well, because they've experienced the downside. It's one of the strongest growth rates in the
45:16advanced world and they've witnessed the fallout. Infrastructure, housing all crush loaded,
45:23services have not kept pace and unfortunately we've just grown too fast, too quickly.
45:28Poor support for One Nation is up. What do you think of that?
45:32I think it's a bit sad. There's a very vocal minority that basically if you hang around certain
45:38forums on social media where they're the loudest, you know, white supremacist. I think I have faith
45:47at election time that our very unique democracy which has both mandatory voting and preferential voting
45:55will bring things to the centre. I think Australians generally are pretty chilled. I've got friends
46:00from other European cultures, migrants, and they think Australians are generally quite laid back.
46:04Kavita, are you optimistic about Australia's future?
46:07The last few years since the referendum, the racism has just gotten out of hand and I'm experiencing
46:16incidents, comments, responses and just everyday interactions that I had left in the 80s.
46:24And I thought that I'd never have to experience again. And we hear a lot like the dominant narrative
46:31in our history and our identity is really that Anglo-Saxon. And not to say that we shouldn't
46:37acknowledge that side of our history, the colonialists and the settlers, but I think we're definitely
46:44missing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices and their history. And we're also missing
46:50the history of the immigrants that have come to this country. If we took into account all of Australian
46:57people's lived history here and we come together and reconcile what that means together as a community,
47:05I think we could actually move forward and be more unified rather than prioritising
47:11the lens from one particular racial group in the country.
47:16Tasman, your daughter's 13. When you look to her future as an adult, how do you feel about that?
47:23In the Queensland climate, between the cost of housing per wage, I'm concerned for her.
47:30I come from the view that a part of the cost of housing is due to mass migration.
47:40When you say migration, I'm not against migration. I'm against the number.
47:46I would also say in Queensland, I believe we've had massive migration, but we've also had a domestic
47:53migration coming to Queensland in the last five years as well from other states.
47:59And I've watched it unravel for the last five years. It may be better in other states,
48:04but our state, Queensland, especially on the Gold Coast, it's quite concerning.
48:09Simon, what does a successful multicultural Australia look like to you?
48:13I think a lot of what I've heard is, you know, social cohesion is fraying and at least part of
48:22the problem is the migrant. But I think in my view, a large part of it is the other way
48:27around.
48:28As Australians, we need to stand for something. And it's so easy to turn around then and just say,
48:34oh, look at that Indian guy, that Muslim guy, that Jewish guy. He doesn't adhere to our values.
48:40But what values are we actually inculcating? What do we stand for? What is Australia?
48:44Is multiculturalism just a sort of a free for all where anyone comes? What are the core tenets
48:50upon which our country is based? Blaming migrants is a very easy, but ultimately very myopic thing to
48:56do because the problem is deeper going back not just the last few years, not since October 7 or not
49:03before that, but going back decades, World War I, World War II, Vietnam. These are things that were
49:07effective wounds in our psyche. It's very, very easy as humans to just look at one problem and in this
49:15case, the migrant. In terms of what a successful multicultural Australia looks like, I consider
49:22myself a patriot, but I also consider myself a progressive. And I'd like to see more progressive
49:28patriotism. I'd like to see people on the left who are actually proud to be Australian and not to shy
49:34away from that. We do believe in the fair go. And we love teasing each other. I want to go
49:42back to
49:43teasing each other. I mean, I think that we're all just so tense and so serious at the moment.
49:48I miss that. I don't mind being ribbed for being Jewish if it comes from a good place. I think
49:53most
49:53people can usually tell if it's a good place or not. That's the Australia that I love and that's
49:57the Australia that I wish for the future. And that's what I like about Australia. We don't all
50:01have to be extreme and we should stop scrolling as much as possible. Australia looks like this room.
50:07We have different opinions. We're all sitting together having a conversation about how we
50:10make our country better. That is what Australia looks like. Annette, when you strip back the numbers,
50:17you take away the politics. What do you want for Australia's future? I want everyone to stop pointing
50:24the finger at everyone else. A lot of things have been said today, naming certain ethnicities,
50:33certain religions. We look at the media, that is amplified. It is shouted from the rooftops. It's not
50:41factual. This is what was happening before World War One and World War Two. People were wrapping
50:47themselves in flags and going, you're the problem. Do we really want to go there again? No.
50:53What values do you care about? Mateship. The number one Australian,
50:59mateship. You look after your mates. You help them. A fair go. It is an Australian thing.
51:07That, can I give you a hand mate? That is very Australian. You don't get that across Europe.
51:14You don't get that in a lot of countries, that I'll give you a hand. And yes, they may be
51:19teasing
51:19you as they give you a hand. They may be calling you some awful things, but that is the Australia
51:24I grew up in. Yes, I was a clog wog, but my friends looked after me. My friends accepted me.
51:31They ate my strange foods. I ate their Vegemite. You know, it was quid pro quo. That is the Australia
51:37I
51:37want. Accepting. Thank you. And thank you to you all for being in this room and having such a respectful
51:43conversation. I really appreciate it. Thank you too for your company. Welcome back. It's great to see
51:47you. I'll see you next time.
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