In Australia, the distinction between "left" and "right" wing is less and less useful. It's theatre. The more useful distinction is top 1-20% versus the rest. Cushioned by Australia's iron/coal/gas/gold bonanza, they gaze at themselves, govern for themselves.
Since May Election, I refer tongue-in-cheek to a uni-party or "Sussan Albanese" government. They're not serious about tackling: productivity woes, manufacturing trainwreck, stagnating wages and welfare, rental/housing crisis, expensive energy.
Instead, voters likely get six more fun-filled years of: expensive "renewable" energy, severely unaffordable housing, unyielding population pressure, government and non-market jobs, hyper real-estate speculation, and our fake-net-zero "superpower".
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The August March
From the top 20% perspective, the problem isn't Albanese's nearly 1.4 million first-term immigration, thrashing Rudd by near 80%.
Near 10% of the population is on "temporary" visas, including nearly a million on "student" visas, 400,000 on "bridging" visas. This punishes the locals, but Albanese calls it progressive patriotism and strong borders.
No, the "problem" was voters themselves, who've consistently rejected this onslaught, in polls during and since COVID. Egged on by government ministers, biased media reminded itself voters were "racist", undoubtedly "neo nazis" were driving August's March.
For Sussan A the "solution" is simple. Just take mass-migration and net-zero - the two key questions for our democracy – out of the political contest.
Liberals Andrew Hastie and Jacinta Price almost appear to side with voters not Labor. So, the uni-party lines up against them. Piling on is the previous Liberal leader, who offered voters "nuclear" net-zero, gas-reservation, and 180,000 net-migration.
Remains to be seen, if Hastie's really committed to low migration. In this report, he too regards a quarter-million as "normal" or average.
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The historical average of 80,000? Sorry, voters, never happened. Want a pause, of zero net-migration? Out of the question, don't you want a lifetime mortgage of your own?
The first Albanese term induced an industrial scale of immigration/climate lies hitherto unknown in Australian politics. Particularly from Albanese, Treasurer Chalmers, Climate Minister Bowen, and Home Affairs [now Housing] Minister O'Neil.
With Ley Liberals neutered, it gets worse, the partisan Chief Statistician now joining in.
Fibs Minister Leigh, immigration was "higher" under the Coalition. Posturing about social cohesion, current Home Affairs Minister Burke lies that he's "cut migration" 40%, yet also he "doesn't control" migration.
The October March
August March had issued flyers saying, big business wants endless migration. But there are many valid objections, the majority is with the March, Labor/Liberals are a uni-party. Also, we've imported more Indians in five years than Greeks and Italians in 100.
This last statement triggered howls. But this was a criticism of Albanese Labor not Indian immigrants - it's not their fault.
For October 19 March, venues were the same, with revised flyers. The pitch was: a nation without fair wages, housing, safety, community, and identity.
They even had three citations, but these weren't compelling. When they say, don't count on unions, "because diverse workplaces are less likely to unionise", that's too kind.
ACTU and unions couldn't care less about the poor conditions and wage theft that come with mega-migration. They want to be just like all the other "stakeholders".
"Australia could become 95% Indian, and they [the uni-party] wouldn't care," read the new flyer. Provocative, but that proposition won't be tested. More realistically, the proportion of migrants in the population (as distinct from the electorate) may climb well above the present 30%, to align us more with middle east autocracies.
Contrast this with India and China, No. 1 and 2 source-countries for Australian immigration. Both are nearly all native-born. As is Japan.
These nations can read OECD productivity charts. The mass-migration "multicultural" Anglophone nations UK/CA/AU/NZ are struggling. The flyer's principal statement is spot-on, but you'll never hear this from the official opposition:
"What do you think adding seven million people to Australia's population in 20 years does? Our housing shortfall is not a supply issue - it's a mass migration issue. We will never meet demand, when demand is infinite"
Many of 17 million voters, but few of their 227 federal reps, would endorse this. Though not engaging with the statement, governing classes and ABC demonised October March somewhat less. Counter-protesters, however, have learnt to parrot that low-migration is "neo nazi". In Canberra, that's what the NTEU/ANU pro-Palestine set spat out.
The March is becoming the "opposition"
It's a year since I first declaimed Albanese had already won on immigration. Meaning, net-migration would never fall below a floor of a quarter-million.
Albo and the "educated" left tend to diss our American ally and upvalue totalitarian China. But voters aren't fooled.
When totalitarian Xi meets Australia's "courageous" 62-70% emissions target with a derisory 7-10%, the West applauds this as a landmark. Our Ross Gittins will tell you, we're not allowed to criticise China's "huge emissions". Because their "renewables manufacturing" is saving-the-planet.
Ever since Election 2025, the Coalition has been lectured ad nauseam by the "left", you must go with the "climate science".
But net-zero isn't science. Even if China were to play ball, it's vastly arrogant, to believe human emissions can be reduced steeply, carbon captures increased dramatically, to the extent that Earth routinely "nets" our emissions to zero.
On the left however, protecting the environment is obsessively about "stopping new coal and gas". They don't care, that the likelihood of generous planetary carbon-captures is shown repeatedly to be guesswork.
Net-zero canes the West over climate "loss and damage", whilst looking away from Africa's over-population, whilst allowing China/India to ramp up the consumption/emissions of their nearly three-billions.
Ross Garnaut, always Australia's No. 1 net-zero China-dove, says it openly in a peer-reviewed UK "economics" journal. The West must deliver cargo to top-dog China, in the form of "zero emissions semi-processed goods". Which don't exist.
With Albanese's successful Washington trip removing "barnacles" and cementing his position, it hardly matters, whether the rare earth deal ever amounts to much. The Marches are merely entering the vacuum that Ley leaves. Coalescing, as a visible, democratic oppositional force to mega-migration.
The next one "celebrates" Australia Day. Maybe it should take on net-zero – Ley won't.
It ends well, for Albanese/Chalmers
In disapproving terms, media reports the Coalition "splintering". But to be "competitive", they'll largely align with Labor on mass-migration and net-zero. Thus, voters will continue to be shut out.
In Labor's Guardian world of mirrors, Australia's shift to massive migration simply never happened. A quarter-million is the "long term average".
Recall the corrupt 2023 immigration review of Martin Parkinson for Clare O'Neil. Worst productivity performance in 60 years? That would be down to "complex and interrelated" factors - never mass-migration or the net-zero derangement.
For Treasury guy Parkinson, as for Minister Burke, actual migration levels are none-of-your-business. What matters is the "transition to net zero", "global competition" for migrants, "trust and confidence" in our "multicultural society".
How have Clare and Martin maintained trust, not? As it happens, by delivering the hugest, least skilled, most temporary, immigration program since Federation.
By now O'Neil's shunted sideways, to lie with impunity about Housing and Homelessness. By now, Chat GPT can list "causes" of our low productivity growth. Like Parkinson, these print out in circular terms - low investment, shift to services, slow tech diffusion, weak R&D, red tape, skill shortages, and market concentration.
In paraphrase, everything's to blame, except the government. Australians even call for a migration freeze, in the latest IPA poll. Ley Liberals aren't interested.
Albanese and Chalmers can punish voters, with open-borders net-zero policy, for a good while yet. Unnecessarily so, leaving our resources-rich island-nation poorer, with less affordable energy and housing, in a less equal and more divided society.
Like Julia Gillard, the enriched twosome can exit to rewarding after-careers, couched as reformers in Wikipedia-history. Wouldn't we all love to have these fail-proof jobs?