Key Points
- Ministers from both major parties have criticised March for Australia rallies.
- Multicultural Affairs Minister Anne Aly said a small "nefarious" group can use such events to spread misinformation.
- More sensible debate is needed on immigration to build public trust, one senator said.
Multicultural Affairs Minister Anne Aly says anti-immigration protests on Sunday were "clearly racist" and infiltrated by neo-Nazis looking to "prey on some legitimate concerns".
Speaking on ABC radio on Monday, Aly highlighted that some protesters targeted anti-Indian immigration in their "calls to action".
"Now that, to me, is clearly racist when you target a specific ethnicity. That is clearly racism."
March for Australia rallies were held in all capital cities and some smaller cities, with speakers and protesters demanding a reduction in migration numbers.
Many who attended the rallies either flew or wore Australian flags, shouting anti-migration and nationalistic slogans such as "love it or leave it".
Groups of Neo-Nazis were present in some of the rallies — including addressing crowds in Melbourne, leading a march in Sydney and handing out flyers in Adelaide.
Emotion driven, not facts: minister
Aly said that while the majority of participants held "legitimate concerns" around housing and cost of living, a small "nefarious" group can use such events to spread misinformation.
"People are driven by emotion, not by facts. And so regardless of how many facts you put out there, there is a section of the community who will still propagate misinformation and disinformation, and who will still use people’s emotional response to things like housing … in order to propagate their agenda," she said.
Aly added that immigrants can often be unfairly blamed for infrastructure and housing shortages.
"It is those who are visibly different, who become the brunt of and wear the brunt of these anti-immigration sentiments, and who were the brunt of being blamed for and scapegoated for a whole range of concerns," she said.
"I think that when we conflate immigration with all of these other issues, then we feed into the very agenda of the far-right organisations that were part of these marches."
Nazis addressing crowds 'concerning'
Opposition immigration spokesperson Paul Scarr said right-wing groups at these events create "material concerns".
"We just need to be terribly careful when we're discussing issues such as immigration, that the fringes, the extremes don't get a foothold in the debate," he told the ABC on Monday morning.
"I think when we see neo-Nazis address a crowd of people in some of our major cities that raises material concerns with respect to social cohesion in our country."
Scarr said a "sustainable" level of immigration is needed in Australia.
Earlier this month, experts told SBS News that misinformation blaming migrants for deeper societal problems has been central to a rise in anti-immigration sentiment in Australia.
Liz Allen, a demographer at the Australian National University Centre for Social Policy Research, described myths that migrants suppressed wages, stole local jobs or inflated house prices as "nonsense".
Need for 'sensible' debate on immigration
Senator David Pocock said parliament needs to build public trust when it comes to immigration policies.
"One of my frustrations has been that there is a real lack of appetite from the parliament to actually have a debate about this in a sensible way, and then come up with a plan when it comes to migration and population that actually wards off some of the, I guess, feelings of 'well, there is no plan'," he told ABC News Breakfast on Monday.
Senator Jacqui Lambie told Sky News said there needs to be more discussion on immigration policy and that some immigrants lack "Australian values".
"When you have your full face covering, if it is not for artistic and safety purposes, we have to ask why you’re allowed to do that. You can’t go into a bank with a motorcycle helmet on. So it is the double standards that are really starting to grind the gears of normal Australians out there."
Senator Jacqui Lambie labelled some protesters as "embarrassing the country". Source: AAP / Mick Tsikas
"You have to ask what sort of people are standing up with those neo-Nazis and the thuggery that is going on? Because you’re embarrassing the country and you’re embarrassing yourselves.
"And quite frankly, I think most Australians have had a gut full of it."
