Australia's federal race discrimination commissioner, Giridharan Sivaraman, has accused One Nation and the federal opposition of dehumanizing and scapegoating immigrants, drawing on what he describes as a deep vein of racism. Speaking at a Brisbane seminar on human rights hosted by the state's human rights commission, Sivaraman highlighted a pronounced political fault line in the country.
On one side of this fault line, he said, are two parties: a populist party and the federal opposition, both of which are dehumanizing and scapegoating migrants. This rhetoric encourages people to blame migrants for issues ranging from the housing crisis and traffic to the cost of milk, he added.
According to Sivaraman, such behavior is implicitly racist because the only signal indicating whether someone is a migrant is often their skin color, name, or accent. This draws on a deep vein of racism that has existed since colonization, perpetuating the notion that some people belong more than others or are superior.
Last month, opposition leader Angus Taylor announced a new immigration policy, stating that many migrants would be a net drain on Australia and that his approach would be to discriminate based on values. In his budget reply speech, Taylor proposed reducing overall migration numbers using a cap based on housing construction and banning non-citizens from schemes like JobSeeker, the age pension, and the NDIS. He argued that mass migration was running ahead of the homes, roads, hospitals, schools, and services Australia can provide.
Sivaraman warned that over the next two years, he expects an escalation in the racism that accompanies blaming immigrants, posing a significant issue for his work. He suggested that the only way to deal with this racism is to build class solidarity between black, brown, and white people, emphasizing that racism is one of the causes of inequity for white workers as well.
In response, Taylor said the government's failure is to blame, not migrant communities. He reiterated that migration is important to Australia but argued that numbers have been too high and standards too low. A spokesperson for Senator Pauline Hanson denied that One Nation is racist or populist, stating that the party advocates lower immigration to reduce housing demand.
