We truly are living in Bizarro World when the self-proclaimed defenders of the environment and social justice – The Greens – champion the very policy (mass immigration-driven population growth) that is most destructive to Australia’s natural environment, causes mass disenfranchisement among the working class, as well as robs developing nations of their talent. And all of this simply to favour a corporate clique of banks, the property lobby and retailers.
For 15 years, the Greens stood by silently or cheered while Australia’s immigration program was more than doubled and Australia’s population ballooned from 20 million to 25 million:
Worse, the Greens in 2016 announced a plan to massively increase Australia’s humanitarian migrant intake without providing offsets to Australia’s then permanent migrant intake of 200,000 – a move that would see Australia’s population increase to a massive 43 million by 2060.
Hence, rather than pushing back against the population ponzi and a Big Australia, the modern Greens have a platform for an even bigger enviro-sucking Australia!
Throughout the pandemic, we have witnessed Greens senator and immigration spokesperson, Nick McKim, continually lobby to ramp-up immigration.
Last year, McKim called for travel restrictions to be lifted for temporary migrants so that they could return to Australia on the same terms as citizens:
Greens Senator Nick McKim has written to Acting Immigration Minister Alan Tudge urging him to allow temporary visa holders to be permitted to return to Australia “under the same conditions required of a permanent resident or citizen”.
“Many of these people hold subclass 457,482, or 489 skilled visas, and have worked hard and payed taxes in Australia for many years,” Senator McKim wrote.
He said others were on bridging visas and were unable to renew them overseas, raising the prospect that they would never be allowed to ever return.
McKim also called for temporary visa holders to be paid income support and be given access to Medicare:
“The federal government has the resources to help and direct responsibility for Australia’s visa system.”
“People who hold temporary visas need proper income support and access to Medicare, both of which are federal responsibilities.”
Last week, McKim announced the Greens would introduce legislation to the Senate next month extending or restoring the visas of approved migrants stuck overseas. He also called for greater pathways to permanent residency to alleviate ‘skills shortages’ for business:
The party’s immigration spokesman, Nick McKim, told the Financial Review that the measure, which would also apply to other visa categories, would help ease the national skills shortage.
“Many people with skilled visas have got jobs waiting for them in Australia. They’ve applied successfully for jobs. They have employers who want them and desperately need them, yet they are stuck overseas unable to make it Australia to take up their jobs,” said Senator McKim…
“We know through direct contact in my office that many people who hold temporary visas, including skilled visas, are reconsidering coming to Australia and exploring options to go to other countries, including Canada and European countries,” he said.
“The risk is that we will ultimately miss out on people coming to Australia who can make a great positive contribution to our society and our economy because we have ignored them and marginalised them for 18 months.”
Let’s get real: there is nothing more destructive to Australia’s natural environment than population growth. Yet the Greens are the biggest supporters of mass immigration and a ‘Big Australia’.
The other irony is that mass immigration overwhelmingly favours corporations over ordinary Australians and recent migrants, as explained by former Treasury secretary and NAB chairman, Ken Henry:
Research NAB carried out earlier in the year showed that among our customers there’s not wholesale support for a larger Australia. For many, the prospect of a higher Australian population means more stress in the ability to buy a house, to live where you want to live, to get to work with a reasonable commute time. And many in the community are also concerned about our ability, as a nation, to maintain norms of Australian social and economic inclusion, and to continue to provide access to high quality services in areas such as healthcare and education…
But what is the business perspective? The same NAB research showed that most of our business customers would strongly prefer a larger population, which supports better business growth.
Former Greens leader, Bob Brown, made a similar point:
“It’s no good in complaining about the world’s environmental problems if you vote for the people that want to put their foot on the accelerator of a growth economy.”
Given most corporations and wealthy families are also headed by white males, the Greens’ support of mass immigration directly plays into their hands and perpetuates the racism and disadvantage that the Greens supposedly lament. As noted by Crispin Hull:
The top end which benefits from high immigration has a much larger portion of white males in it than the rest of Australia.
The big corporations and their shareholders are dominated by wealthy white males. So you might well argue that the high immigration that favours them and helps keep them in a position of privilege perpetuates racism while hitting hard everyone else – including almost all recent immigrants from non-English-speaking countries – as they struggle to find and pay for health, education, transport and energy.
In summary, the identity politics obsessed Greens are the useful idiots of blood-sucking capitalism via their extreme support for environmental and worker destroying mass immigration.
Someone should sue them to get the name back.
