While Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke’s expected announcement of new anti-immigration measures has been postponed, migrant workers, refugees and international students have already been hit by big rises in discriminatory visa fees.
Seona Cho, a community activist helping organise a campaign around several parliamentary petitions against these discriminatory fee rises, told Green Left that they are fuelling the wave of racist anti-immigrant hate, spearheaded by Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party.
“One Nation points the finger at migrants and the Coalition wants to strip non-citizens, including permanent residents, of access to welfare. Labor condemns this kind of racism — and then sends migrants the bill.
“On July 1, the Labor government suddenly imposed huge visa fee increases with little or no warning. That day, the Australian Korean migrant online community, that I am part of, with more than 90,000 members, erupted.
“Political discussion is normally discouraged on that platform because it can become so divisive, but that day the shock and anger were impossible to ignore.
“For us, this wasn’t just another fee increase. It felt as though the government had put a new price tag on our lives as migrants overnight.”
One of the most extreme examples, Cho explained, is the Resident Return Visa (RRV), which jumped from $490 to $1475 — more than tripling.
“This isn’t a visa for new migrants. It is a visa that permanent residents may need, once their travel facility has expired, to travel overseas and return to Australia — to come home.
“People say, ‘Why don’t you just become a citizen?’ That’s easy to say when it isn’t your citizenship you are being asked to give up. For many migrants from Korea, China and India, taking Australian citizenship can mean losing their original citizenship.
“Citizenship isn’t simply an administrative matter of swapping one passport for another.
“People can live here for 10 or 20 years, work here, pay taxes here and raise their children here — and if they are not citizens, there can still be a price tag attached to coming home.
“One Nation makes migrants the scapegoat. The Coalition turns that division into policy. Labor condemns it — and then sends migrants the bill. Different language, different methods but the same convenient target.
“What frightens me isn’t simply the rise of One Nation. It’s that anti-migrant politics is becoming normalised in Australia. The major parties increasingly seem to be competing not over whether migrants should be targeted, but over how.”
People who fall for One Nation’s propaganda might imagine that migrant workers and international students are exploiting Australia, but Cho asks: “Who is really exploiting whom?”
“Australia wants migrant labour, migrant money and migrant taxes — and then blames migrants for problems they didn’t create.
“Universities want international students’ fees. Businesses want migrant labour. Governments want visa fees and taxes. And when a scapegoat is needed, apparently migrants are useful for that too. How convenient!
“They don’t see how many people come to Australia dreaming of a better life, only to burn through years of savings on soaring rent, living costs, health insurance, visa fees and education and sometimes return home with almost nothing.
“They don’t see the international students doing back-breaking work late into the night and going to class the next morning, or people squeezing into tiny, overcrowded housing as rents soar, still fighting to hold on to the hope that brought them here.
“And we're supposed to believe they are exploiting Australia?
“An immigrant driving an Uber didn’t raise your rent. An international student didn’t decide to keep your wages low. A migrant worker didn’t decide not to build enough public housing.”
Cho said she is not defending migrants simply by arguing that migrants are “useful” to the economy.
“Human beings should not have to prove their economic usefulness before they deserve dignity and respect. Whether someone is a doctor, a nurse, a cleaner, an Uber driver or a nail technician does not determine their worth as a human being.”
The current upsurge in racism serves the interests of a wealthy minority and is against the interests of the working class, Cho added.
“Racism has never built a house, raised a wage or paid a worker’s rent. It does one thing remarkably well though — it makes workers blame other workers while those with real power escape the blame.
“Our enemy is not the worker who came from another country. If we want to talk about exploitation, let’s start with a system that wants migrants’ labour, takes their money and then makes them the scapegoat for problems they did not create.”