Contributed: James Smith
The 2020 – 2022 China Virus pandemic was a wild time. Destructive for small businesses during the lockdowns, depressing for extroverts stuck at home, repressive limits on civil liberties, Australians forced into taking the vaccine with coercive and controlling mandates or criticised and made unemployed for refusing to do so and for some Australian political leaders, an intoxicating taste of dictatorship.
If there is one positive, albeit fleeting, political phenomenon we experienced during the pandemic, it was the enactment of policies reminiscent of nativism, the likes of which has never been experienced by younger Boomers, Gen X, Millennial and Gen Z Aussies.
On 19 March 2020 then Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, closed Australia’s borders to all foreigners and in early April 2020 asked visa holders who could not support themselves amid the lockdowns and international students, ‘to make your way home’ along with ‘there is the alternative for them to return to their home countries’. Morrison justified what was then such a drastic closing of the door to Australia, which since the 1960s had only become wider and more open, on the grounds that ‘Australia must focus on its citizens and its residents’. This was radical rhetoric for 2020 after decades of wide-open borders. I had never heard a Western leader ever outright request that foreigners leave Australia.
I was happy to see our borders closed. As a millennial, all I have seen, in particular since Kevin07’s support for a “Big Australia” followed by the rather directionless LNP government since 2013 that finally there was a move for our borders to close. Perhaps, just perhaps, it seemed in March and April 2020 that there could be an arrest or at least slowdown of the rapid changing demographics that are seen across Australia, but in particular Sydney or Melbourne.
In May 2020 when the national lockdowns were lifted, the explosion of pent-up spending was huge, combined with the very generous economic stimulus programs and the early superannuation release. I saw neighbours buy new cars, embark on gardening projects and renovations. Bunnings and local plant nurseries were always busy. It was amazing to see the consequences of a roaring economy in a country where the discretionary spending by her citizens was largely trapped within Australia. Unemployment came down from the peak in the first lockdown and there was a feeling of optimism amid an uncertain time and the United States descending into the violent ethnic protests.
What I loved the most during this time when the lockdowns were lifted and the borders closed, was the incredible interest Australians developed to explore Australia. A family in Sydney embarked on a road trip, say to the South Coast or Mid – North Coast, rather than flying to Bali or Thailand.
To see in regional areas, travelling Aussie families, with their newly purchased caravans, holidaying in regional areas and engaging in outdoor activities, including camping, bushwalking or picnics, along with shopping and dining on our High Streets was reinvigorating and reminiscent of yesteryear.
Many young Australians proceeded to purchase their first home at very low interest rates. In years to come, the young Australians lucky enough to purchase a home prior to November 2020, just before the RBA dropped rates to 0.10% will likely tell their children and their grandchildren that it was an incredible window to get into the property market.
Fast forward to 2024. Australia witnessed a change of government in May 2022. Many people I spoke with said they ‘felt like a change’. This is often the rhetoric you hear after a rather lame LNP decade or so rule.
Under Albanese, we saw our borders reopened and international students return. Albanese never campaigned on wide open borders for Australia. Rather, in December 2021, Albanese did not commit to the LNP plans for restarting immigration at 160,000 for 2022 – 2023 but rather said, ‘migration has always played an important role in the economy and will continue in the recovery, but it’s important we take this opportunity to get the mix right.’
At no point during the 2022 Australian Federal election campaign do I recall Albanese informing Australians that his government would oversee a massive explosion immigration into Australia. To do so would have lost him the election. For 2023, net migration, not total migration, was around 500,000 people. More people came into Australia just last year, than the population of Tasmania.
Australians have observed a rapid rise in home prices from November 2020 to present, combined with difficulties in finding rental homes and with interest rates going from 0.10% to 4.35%, we have witnessed Australian’s allocating more and more of their pay towards servicing the mortgage, paying very expensive rent. Many Aussies are struggling to purchase a house or find a rental home due to competition from other prospective tenants. Despite the rapid rise in interest rates, home prices seem to only be increasing.
Is it any wonder that the explosion in immigration across Australia and almost all other white majority countries, is resulting calls to reverse immigration, or rather specifically a program of remigration. At the very least, there is growing awareness of the great ethnic replacement of whites, which is not a theory, but a cruel reality.
Australia has experienced a negative birth rate since the mid – 1970s, this being around the same time that the White Australia Policy was formally abolished. Yet our population has gone from 14 million to 27 million and on the outskirts of Sydney and Melbourne, what was once farmland, is being rapidly developed for homes. Much of this farmland on the outskirts of our cities was owned by Aussie and Wog families who ran businesses from their property and engaged in small farming and horticulture.
There is a fascinating example of Wog stubbornness in The Ponds, NSW in North – West Sydney where the Zammit family have rejected an offer of $50 million dollars by developers to purchase their 5- acre property. The Ponds and its surrounding suburbs have seen a population explosion since 2010, with construction of detached homes with no backyards and places of worship reflecting the demographics residing in the newly constructed homes.
Is it any wonder why on social media there appears to be a growing backlash against immigration. You do not need to look at statistics to know what country most new migrants come from, you do not need to watch the television to know that the Aussie population in our major cities is quickly falling.
If you do watch television, you will often see migrants or children of migrants on cooking shows, proudly proclaiming their love for their ethnic food that centres around almost everything they cook during the series. Further there is often a childhood sob story of presumably Aussie children making comments of the contents in their lunchbox and their wish to ‘normalise’ their ethnic cuisine in Australia.
Australians should be furious that we continue to see massive population growth, contrary to our negative birth rate. It is normal in other species to see population rises and falls, corresponding with abundance or lack of food. The rise in medical marvels since the 1800s has greatly contributed to population growth amid slow and steady fall in birth rates.
The issue of falling birth rates is becoming an almost global issue. But to artificially inflate the Australian population and in turn completely change the demographics of Australia, all in the name of economics, is evidence that for the political and economically wealthy elite in our country are completely devoid of having any desire to preserve Australia. The Australia that was settled by our convict and free settler ancestors and federated by politicians with a shared vision best reflected by Edmund Barton, ‘a nation for a continent and a continent for a nation’. Further, Australia’s Constitution was drafted by intelligent lawyers who strove to create a system where free trade and protectionist interests could debate their platforms with civility and have disputes adjudicated with integrity. Our Federation inspired our fathers before us to fight for our Commonwealth in two massive bloody wars and a new generation was nurtured by our grandmothers.
There is much more to a nation than money. To me, a nation is a womb, it is feminine, nurturing and life giving. For a nation to survive, she needs the accompaniment of masculine dogmatism, defence, direction and definition. A nation is not idea or an economic free zone, it is a tangible and identifiable collection of people sharing a common heritage.
For we are young and free, we also have one of the oldest continuing democracy in the world. Democracy can only survive where the participating voters are capable to make an informed decision and identity politics can only be avoided if the demographics of the participating voters, remain consistent for generations. Democracy is competitive and elections are won on small margins and in ever English speaking country, we are witnessing more and more identity politics. Prior to the 2010s, it would have seemed ludicrous that the opposition leader in Canada would campaign in support of direct flights between Canadian cities to Amritsar, India. We will see in Australia very similar election tactics catered for foreign interests occur in the foreseeable two federal elections later this decade.
The elite in Australia will continue to push for immigration because with fiat currency and the fractional reserve banking system, it can only survive with perpetual growth and when fiat currency is under strain, the temporary fix is to push for even greater growth, facilitated by flying in more warm bodies to compete within the economic free zone.
I think we should all look towards with admiration of stubbornness of the Zammit family of The Ponds. Perhaps we should all act like stubborn Wogs. Wogs are from the frontier lands of Europe. They have witnessed invasions and destruction of their lands by foreigners, notably the Saracens. They have also seen the restoration of their Christian heritage and native culture.
Life could be suddenly very easy for the Zammit family financially if only they accept the offer of the developers. The actions of the Zammit family show that despite the unrecognisable and sudden change all around them, their five acres mean everything to them.
Money it seems means nothing to the Zammits, if it means preserving their castle.
This neo-liberal, bipartisan, extreme free – trade nightmare can and will end one day. Though it requires Aussies to get engaged, to learn and discuss the issues of immigration and ruthless globalised free trade with our friends and family. ‘She’ll be right’ is a comforting phrase we say when we face challenge and adversity, but we must not be complacent, hard yakka in promoting the values of nativism will be required to save Australia.