Coalition leader Angus Taylor targeted migrants in his budget reply speech on May 14.
In particular, he suggested Muslims must be scrutinised: “We’ve also taken in some people with the wrong values … We saw this with the Bondi tragedy inspired by radical and violent Islam.” This extends his April 16 proposal that Palestinians arriving from Gaza “should all be reassessed”.
Tayor proposed permanent residents who are not citizens be ineligible for welfare payments and NDIS support and for the number of migrants to be tied to housing construction. He promised a Coalition government would cut migration, especially in the next few years to allow “the housing market to catch up”.
His bid to deny migrants any income security, during their minimum four years residence and one year’s permanent residence before they can even apply for citizenship, would discourage potential migrants. They will worry about staying in work, or, if refugees, even getting jobs, or becoming totally dependent on their families.
The Liberal and National parties are taking the cue from Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party (PHON) and singling out immigrants to scapegoat for the cost-of-living and housing crises.
To understand why they are doing this requires answering the question of who profits.
Those without prejudices against migrants can point to the taxes paid by the more than 1 million non-citizen permanent residents, some of whom have lived here for decades.
Also, Australia’s capitalist economy substantially relies on skilled migrants to fill jobs in construction, and others to fill vacancies in health care, including NDIS, accommodation and food services. This is why there is some division among the ruling class about levels of migration.
With polls showing PHON’s rise, Taylor is desperate to win back sections of its voter base — an older, poorer, less-educated and less urban part of the population. However, neither this cohort, or the vast majority of working people who are feeling the cost-of-living crunch, will be better off under PHON or a PHON-Coalition government.
This is because their class interests are not aligned with those of Gina Rhinehart, who infamously proposed paying mining workers $2 a day.
Decades of cuts to income support and social services, and tax changes, alongside wage suppression, has kept the poor poor. This is because it the government has shifted wealth away from the people who make it into the hands of “investors” — corporate owners and real estate companies, which draw their income from capital.
Since the vast majority of workers are not capitalists, or even aspiring capitalists, they know the system is not working for them but don’t know what exactly to do about it. Racist popularism can cloud the search for real solutions.
Given the growing alienation from the major parties, Labor decided its federal budget had to look a little different from the past and introduced a few measures to raise taxes on future wealth, particularly property owners and speculators.
You could expect the Coalition, traditional servants of capitalist class, would want to distract from any talk of wealth taxes.
Their measures to remove government support altogether from those who cannot vote, feeds most parties’ lurch to the right. PHON spearheads that and Labor follows its anti-migrant lead.
Racism, a product of colonial Australia, can be easily stoked and Taylor knows this.
Neither migrants and the rate of immigration, nor those on welfare, are to blame for the housing and cost-of-living crises. Those on unemployment and welfare benefits, and student payments, are now typically trying to survive on about $300 a week below the poverty line. That is not real income support.
Taking away all supports from migrants who are not citizens will not help those trying to survive on benefits.
The marginal housing price reductions that Labor is offering, at best only meet the needs of those with the means to make a deposit. But this will not secure affordable homes for most.
What’s needed is a massive public housing program that can address the supply of homes and the cost of housing for workers. This could be done by taxing the rich, not attacking migrants and those on the NDIS scheme.
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