By Ajith Rajapaksa –

Separating Fact from Slogan

Travelling around Darwin, Australia, I tuned into local radio expecting to hear the familiar anti-immigration arguments from the southern capitals. Instead, business owners and farmers were pleading for more overseas workers. Same country, same debate, opposite fears. Australia is not alone in this. From Washington to London, Berlin to Rome, parties promising to curb immigration are surging, while farms, hospitals and factories quietly depend on migrant labour. That gap tells us something: the immigration argument is less about migrants than about who gets blamed when life gets harder.

In Australia, immigration has become one of the most heated issues in politics. One Nation party has gained momentum in recent months, mainly through its anti-immigration and anti-establishment message. Its by-election gains reflect severe cost-of-living pressure, housing shortages and deep disillusionment with the major parties. Analysts see a broader distrust of mainstream governance.

The party’s stronger support in regional Australia has several causes. In areas that depend on farming, mining and other traditional industries, climate, energy and water policies are viewed through the lens of local jobs and economic security. One Nation’s opposition to net-zero policies resonates with voters who feel regional industries carry a disproportionate share of the cost. Many regional electorates also have older populations and fewer university graduates.

The anger is real, driven by housing shortages, job insecurity, rising interest rates, fuel prices and thin regional services. But it is being steered toward immigrants. It is easier to blame newcomers than to offer realistic policies, and One Nation has not outlined detailed responses to these broader issues, or engaged deeply with the global economic forces it critiques. As the debate intensifies, it is useful to consider the historical context.

Colonialism: Where the Story Begins

Modern Australia was built by people from many countries, starting with British colonisers. But Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are the original owners and custodians of this land, and that must never be overlooked.

Australia’s story belongs to the wider British colonial project. Captain Cook’s voyage was part of an expansion that also reached India, Sri Lanka and much of Africa. In each place, the empire’s logic was the same: take land, labour and resources, and send the wealth back to Britain.

In India, British rule dismantled local industries, imposed heavy taxation and redirected the subcontinent’s wealth to London, leaving deep poverty and recurring famines. In Sri Lanka, colonial planters converted the highlands into coffee and tea estates, then brought Tamil workers from southern India to labour on them in harsh conditions. Across Africa, millions were enslaved, and later whole regions were carved up by European powers and stripped of minerals, crops and labour.

Australia’s own colonial economy followed a similar pattern. Mining, agriculture and other industries grew under British control, and workers were brought in to sustain them. Even convict transportation, which began partly to relieve overcrowded British prisons, ended up supplying labour to the young colony.

This matters because today’s migration flows did not appear from nowhere. Many people who move to Australia come from countries whose economies were reshaped, and often hollowed out, by the same empire that settled this continent. The same is true elsewhere: many who migrate to Britain, France and the Netherlands come from former colonies, drawn by language and historic ties. Those who arrive as skilled workers and students are inheriting a world the colonial powers made.

Is Immigration Necessary?

Even strong critics of immigration cannot oppose it entirely. Hospitals, aged care, construction, transport networks, agriculture and countless other essential services rely heavily on migrant workers. Around 16% of Australia’s national workforce consists of temporary migrants. So, opposition narrows into hostility toward particular groups, currently Muslims and Indians in particular in Australia. This is not new. Chinese, Irish, Italian, Greek and Vietnamese communities have each faced the same suspicion in turn.

Australia’s migration program exists because the economy needs it. Skilled workers fill shortages, expand industries and meet the demands of an ageing population. Australia could, in theory, cut immigration sharply, but in a fiercely competitive global economy the cost would be high. Growth would slow, productivity would fall, and Australians would feel it in their wages, services and lifestyle. That is the irony opponents should consider: the communities they blame for threatening their way of life are helping to sustain it. The alternative is withdrawing from the global economy and accepting a simpler, more isolated and more austere existence.

An Anger Without Borders

The pattern Australia is seeing is playing out across the Western world.

In the United States, the Trump administration has made mass deportation a centrepiece of policy, even as farms, meatpackers, construction firms and care providers warn they cannot function without immigrant workers. In Britain, Reform UK has surged in the polls on promises to cut immigration. Yet Brexit, sold as “taking back control”, was followed by record migration, largely because the NHS, social care and universities needed overseas staff and students.

Across Europe, the story repeats. Germany’s AfD has become a major political force, France’s National Rally is a fixture of national politics, and the Netherlands, Sweden and Italy have all seen hard-right parties enter or lead government in recent years. Yet Germany faces a shrinking workforce and openly seeks skilled migrants, and Italy’s government, despite tough rhetoric, has expanded work visas for the sectors that need them.

The underlying pressures are strikingly similar in every one of these countries: housing costs, stagnant wages, strained services and distrust of mainstream parties. Voters also raise concerns that deserve to be taken seriously, about the pace of change and how well newcomers are integrated. But in every case the anger is steered toward newcomers rather than toward the structural causes described below.

Who Decides How Many?

In Australia migration targets are set using labour-market data, industry input, infrastructure planning and economic forecasts. Specialists and policymakers determine which skills are needed and in what numbers.

That doesn’t leave voters without a say. Governments are accountable for these decisions, and the public is right to demand that migration levels be matched by planning. But the most legitimate concerns, such as housing, access to services and the cost of living, deserve to be traced to their real causes. The evidence points to a combination of population growth, insufficient housing construction, planning restrictions, infrastructure funding gaps, labour shortages and declining construction productivity.

None of this means worries about the pace of migration are illegitimate. When population grows faster than homes, roads, hospitals and schools, people feel it, and renters feel it first. Those concerns deserve serious answers. But the answer lies in building more housing and funding infrastructure to match migration, not in blaming the people who arrive.

The Crisis in Global Capitalism

The economy our parents and grandparents knew is gone, and nostalgia cannot bring it back. Even Britain and the United States, once dominant powers, now carry heavy debt while capital flows increasingly to other regions. Their difficulties owe far more to how global capitalism works than to immigrants. Capital chases cheap labour and concentrates in fewer hands. The same system that once extracted wealth from colonies now extracts it from workers everywhere, including in Australia, America and Europe.

Opponents of immigration rarely mention the larger forces reshaping working lives:

* Industries have moved offshore in search of cheaper labour.

* Services have been outsourced to maximise profits.

* Corporate profits have risen while local wages have stagnated.

* Automation and artificial intelligence are reducing the number of jobs.

* Global conflicts and trade wars between powerful countries are pushing up prices.

* A few wealthy companies control key technology, creating a kind of technological feudalism.

* The race for resources and technological supremacy is creating unprecedented instability.

* The wealth gap keeps growing.

* The climate crisis and extreme weather are disrupting supply chains, damaging infrastructure, and forcing costly economic transitions.

These trends have shrunk the domestic job market and strained services. Blaming migrant workers and international students for all of it is easier, but it doesn’t withstand scrutiny. Wealthy and powerful interests benefit when public anger is aimed at newcomers instead of at these structural causes.

The numbers make the point. The Guardian recently reported Oxfam Australia’s analysis of the 2026 Australian Financial Review Rich List. Australia now has a record 178 billionaires, up 17 from last year, and they are collectively $25.7 billion richer, while 3.7 million Australians live in poverty, including 757,000 children under 15. The 20 richest Australians hold more wealth than the bottom 3 million households, and one in three households experienced food insecurity last year.

Oxfam Australia chief executive Jennifer Tierney said there is “something fundamentally wrong” with a system in which extreme wealth keeps soaring while many people cannot afford the basics, and governments claim there is no money for housing, healthcare, climate action and essential services. Similar inequality figures could be cited for the United States and Britain.

Multiculturalism

Despite its flaws, Australian multiculturalism has been a remarkable success. Government support for cultural expression has produced extraordinary diversity in religions, languages, cuisines and traditions.

Some now argue that multiculturalism holds the country back and that Anglo-Celtic culture and religion should take priority. Similar arguments are heard in Europe and America, where politicians call for migrants to assimilate into a single national culture. Behind this view often lies a sense of insecurity about change. But people raised elsewhere cannot simply shed their cultures on arrival, and demanding that they do is unreasonable. Cultural change happens gradually and voluntarily, sometimes over a generation or two, never by force.

Leaders across the Australian political divide understood this. In the 1970s, Labor’s Gough Whitlam and the Liberals’ Malcolm Fraser both championed multiculturalism, moving Australia away from assimilation. Al Grassby, Whitlam’s Minister for Immigration, was a leading figure in that shift. Calls for migrants to assimilate into a single mainstream culture contradict the principles of Australia’s own multicultural policy. Mixed marriages are common; cultures blend and traditions evolve. Culture has never been static, and every society’s is remade in every generation.

International Students

Australian universities have come to depend heavily on international students. The sector is worth roughly $50 billion a year to the economy, and around 30% of university revenue comes from international enrolments. Beyond tuition, students spend on rent, transport, food and services, boosting demand in both capital cities and regional towns. Many also fill jobs others are reluctant to take. British and American universities rely on international students in much the same way.

Student intakes are already governed by a cap system and can be adjusted further if required. But any changes must consider the economic consequences for universities and local economies. Housing pressure is a legitimate concern in Australia, but the solution lies in increasing supply rather than restricting student numbers.

The Territory: A Different Side of the Debate

In Melbourne and Sydney, anti-immigration sentiment is high on the agenda. In Darwin and regional NT, the concern is a shortage of migrant workers and backpackers. Business owners, farmers and local business organisations openly say they need overseas workers. Just walking around Darwin, you can see how much the local economy relies on people who came from overseas, in hospitality, tourism, retail, agriculture and construction.

Darwin’s story is not unique. Californian farms, British care homes and German factories tell the same tale. For the Northern Territory, migrants and temporary workers are not simply a political issue. They keep the economy and the community functioning. Without them, places like Darwin could struggle to sustain current activity and risk becoming ghost cities.

Conclusion

Good policy requires looking past slogans. The anger behind the immigration debate in Australia and around the world is genuine, but its causes lie in a global economic system that concentrates wealth and shifts risk onto ordinary people, a system with deep colonial roots. Politicians and citizens alike share the responsibility to debate immigration on evidence, and to aim their frustration at the right target.

From Darwin to London, the lesson is clear: look past the slogans and focus on the real causes.