Open-borders Australia learns nothing from Carney visit

Arriving here early March, he surfed the kudos of his Davos address. Which argued, great powers were now weaponising "economic integration" or globalism. Middle powers should respond, not with isolation, but their own "variable geometries" of integration.

His speech to a joint session of Australian Parliament waxed similar. With the global order allegedly breaking down, we two middle-power "Commonwealth realms" should band together. To ice the cake, we'd have a bilateral, on critical minerals.

In conference with our house-trained press gallery, Carney was always going to get questions about bad old Trump (can we trust him), Five Eyes security alliance, and Iran war.

Fulminates ABC , what about the rules-based order? What use, if it's never enforced, responds The Australian.

Of course, Carney spoke diplomatically of Trump. Canada and the US have one of the largest bilateral trading relationships in the world, 70% of Canadian exports going south into the US.

From our embedded media, Carney was never going to get questions about immigration and housing, his glaring difference from Albanese. Like:

How could Canada turn immigration around so quickly, with little social unrest and not that much backbiting from powerful vested interests?

Hosting large numbers of international students and other non-permanent residents, how could you cut through the visa complexities, and effectively net immigration to zero?

Since 2024 , rentals are a much easier afford for average Canadians, is there anything in this for Australia?

Australia won't follow Canada

Same week Carney visited, ANU prof Jill Sheppard slipped and made it uncommonly plain, why our governing classes scorn the voter majority fed up with massive migration.

One need not worry about the "median" voter, she sniffed, or "whatever is happening in their [tiny] brain". That would be too "populist".

As it happens, it's more fun to diss voters, lie to them. Since Albanese's failure with The Voice, the sledging has reached unpleasant extremes. Bondi made it worse.