I surprisingly found myself in agreeance with Albanese over the recent American tariff issue when he encouraged Australians to ‘buy Bundy soft drinks rather than some of the American products’. Dutton responded by complaining, ‘The Prime Minister can’t even get a call, let alone arrange a meeting with the President.’
Australia in the short term will probably respond to American tariffs and protectionist trade policies by seeking to ‘deepen’ ties with Asia, which is a euphemism for even more Asian immigration.
Nonetheless, the “America First” trade protectionist policies of President Trump will not be ignored by Australians and eventually this could be seen in the political arena. We could finally move away from our two major political parties being united in agreeance with free trade and free movement of people towards a political debate on the battlelines of Protectionist verses Free Trade, which could begin a stark differentiation on immigration policy.
Federal politics at Federation was largely between the Protectionist Party verses Free Trade Party, this changing significantly with the advent of the Labor Party, capturing the rising awareness of workers’ rights at the time.
The Immigration Restriction Act of 1901 was introduced with dissent, largely from the Free Trade Party.
John Ferguson, who was a Senator for Queensland and resident of Rockhampton argued against the White Australia Policy,
‘The ‘White Australia’ has become a ridiculous cry, and nothing else. I say without hesitation that it is only a political cry, and I do not know what some honourable senators will do if we propose to grow our own sugar with our own people in this way, and take this cry away from them.’
Senator John Ferguson unsurprisingly opposed the Pacific Islanders Labourers Bill, which when passed saw the deportation of Pacific Islanders working in the sugar cane fields.
Where Senator Ferguson argued against the White Australia Policy on the argument of ‘who’s going to grow my sugar’, Alfred Deakin argued that the White Australia Policy protected our Australian civilisation,
‘Our civilisation belongs to us, and we belong to it, we are bred in it, and it is bred in us. It fits us and is our means of progress and advancement. These people (non – Whites) have their own independent development, their own qualities, and also the civilisation, forms of life and government, which naturally attach to them’.
Deakin and his Protectionist Party won the fight for the White Australia Policy and this provided benefit to generations of Australians, the last being my grandparents generation. The White Australia policy preserved and developed the ethnogeneses of Australians for 70 years post Federation. Despite post 1966 and 1972 immigration policies radically changing our demographics, the enmeshment between Australian identity and European heritage still stubbornly remains and the White Australia Policy is a credit to this legacy.
Opponents to tariffs introduced by President Trump have been circulating on social media a radio announcement made by Ronald Reagan in April 1987 where Reagan was critical of tariffs, ‘First, homegrown industries start relying on government protection in the form of high tariffs. They stop competing and stop making the innovative management and technological changes they need to succeed in world markets.’
Reagan made this announcement despite his nationalistic rhetoric of ‘Let’s Make America Great Again’, his massive electoral college wins in almost all states, including in what was once called the ‘steel belt’ which at the time was facing difficult competition amid the importation of Japanese, West German and Taiwanese cars and consumables.
Two years later, in January 1989, Reagan in his last moments of his presidency, read out a strange letter he received from a man, who Reagan said wrote the following to him:
‘You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk, or a Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American.’
Fast forward to 2025 and the flawed idea endorsed by Reagan that anyone can become an American has spread globally, particularly to Europe and other White majority countries who are integrated with the United States.
Bob Hawke who is credited for open trade policies and economic rationalisation, was also an enthusiastic supporter of non – White immigration. In front of the Sydney Opera House when Australia was celebrating Australia Day on the year of the Bicentenary, without anyone asking, Hawke provided his answer to the question to ‘Who is an Australian’ by explaining that the vital component of this answer is, ‘commitment to Australia and its future’. Contrast this with our First Prime Minister, Edmund Barton, where in his support for the White Australia Policy said in Parliament, during the debate, ‘The doctrine of equality of man was never intended to apply to the equality of the Englishman and the Chinaman’.
The consequence of extracting any idea of European, notably British, ethnic heritage in connection with being an Australian is that rather than Australians being taught and reminded to be thankful to God for being born an Australian and seeing it as a miracle, a blessing, a duty to preserve and passed down to your own children and the continual need to jealously protect such identity even at the cost of your life, Australian citizenship today has become a commercial transaction, seen as an entitlement for all and abused by the cunning.
The consequence of trade liberalisation in Australia has resulted the closure of countless manufacturing facilities with only 6% of our GDP comprising of manufacturing. We no longer produce A4 paper, the logging industry is hated our state governments and we no longer manufacture cars. Culturally, the Bathurst 1000 no longer has the same level of national excitement it once had. Up until the mid 2000s, it was very common for Australian families to have either an Australian made Commodore or Falcon and as a kid this made the Bathurst 1000 all the more relatable.
The loss of manufacturing jobs has disconnected our society from understanding the basics of what materially makes up our society. Rather than Australians going to work to make products consumed by their fellow kin, we export raw minerals for Asia to use to value add, while we deindustrialise and decarbonise in a ‘green growth’ economy comprising of endless expensive electrical upgrades, credit based consumerism and all propped up with unrelenting artificial population growth, with housing developers destroying once useful farmland owned by honest Australian families all around the outskirts of our major cities.
Australia’s Tariff Board was replaced by the “Productivity Commission” in 1996. Check out the website, the last post made by the “Productivity Commission” was on 12 March 2025 regarding ‘Closing the Gap Information Repository’. Statisticians warn that Australia’s productivity is in decline, ironically coinciding with the massive immigration intake since 2022.
The “America First” trade policies being made by President Trump in his increasingly ornate Oval Office provide a great opportunity to finally start the long process of untangling ourselves from the American globalist empire with its unrelenting liberal, free trade, free movement or rather mass movement of people and start a shift towards a more protectionist, nationalist and nativist mindset.
Despite the demoralising feeling of the current times, there is great hope for increasing nationalism in Australia. I’m thankful to finally be seeing the emergence of protectionist trade policies introduced by the global superpower to the shock of our lazy leaders as this is challenging the arrogant assumption that globalism won and was an inevitable, permanent and ever-expanding feature of post – World War Two ‘modern life’. The short – term future looks chaotic, but the long-term prospects appear to be heading in the Nativist direction.
We were born as Aussies for such time.
- Contributed by James Smith
Biography:
- Keith Windschuttle, White Australia Policy.