Time to turn in the dog whistles

It's time to follow the advice of Ex-Senator, Immigration Minister and Ambassador, Amanda Vanstone who correctly says that given immigration is so important to us -- it's one of our essential characteristics that we are an immigration nation -- any debate should be frank, bold and truthful, one not used for cheap issues of security and generation of divisive political campaigns.

Around the world, the mass migration movement is driving fear and feeding the ultra-right reaction that lead to the sentencing this week of an anti-immigration sympathiser to life imprisonment for the political murder of Jo Cox MP.

Here was a self-styled white supremacist killing a Labor MP whilst the grand children of the 90% of Lebanese immigrants accepted by the earlier Malcolm as PM are labelled as a potential pool of third generation terrorists from Vietnam and the Lebanon.

Not a word from our shock jocks who focus exclusively on "extremist islamists" and call on the Prime Minister to make this the centrepiece of his rhetoric.

A handful of Moslem grandkids are presented as an increasing risk of terrorism but not even a mention of the swastica blazening, white terrorist who brutally shot and stabbed the Labor MP as she met with her constituents. Nor the slaughter of hundreds of Norwegian youngsters in the defence of European supremacist Breivik, laying out a worldview encompassing opposition to Islam and blaming feminism for creating a European "cultural suicide".

Texts at the homes of both of these overt racists reflect the One Nation clamour for a Royal Commission into Islam, the Trump play on bans on Muslim immigration and call to bring in only Christian asylum seekers to preserve national heritage.

Today we have a range of conservative forces playing to the 70% of the population that have told the pollsters that they want more to be done about illegal immigrants. We find a range of conservative forces playing to the 70% of the population that have told the pollsters that they want more to be done to, and about, illegal immigrants under a banner that "Discussing immigration and extremism is not easy but vital".

When the danger of a Shorten government raised its head, a Fairfax Media online poll attracted more than 24,000 respondents suggesting that 80 per cent disagreed with Mr Dutton's concerns that refugees and asylum seekers were a drain on the economy and damaging future job prospects. To the expressed concern of the Sky news conservative commentariat, Malcolm Turnbull did not attempt to run a Crosby/Textor campaign.

These polls, however are no more accurate than focus groups expressing fear of being over run by foreign workers on 457 visas. What is clear, as in Brexit and Trump, there is a vast level of fear of economic migrants and boat arrivals taking a declining number of semi-skilled and entry level positions for young workers.

The 70% fear of "illegal immigrants" is a fruitful source of alienation as eight out of ten Blue Team supporters do not believe that "Terrorists deserve the same rights as other criminals" along with two thirds of Red Team and only four out of ten opting for the Greens.

The UK and US elections are over and we are revisiting "dog whistle" prejudicial type casting as political advisors respond to polls showing an increasing gap between the Blue and the Red team. The real battle is for the minds of those who reject both teams. On three continents, political analyst, Sir Lynton Crosby is known for one thing, it is winning elections for right-wing political leaders by ruthlessly playing the immigration card..

Crosby, known as the ‘attack dingo’, has become synonymous with ‘dog whistle politics’ – the repeated use of coded language which plays to the worst fears of certain voters. He deployed messages such as ‘It’s not racist to impose limits on immigration’

Before the DD election, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton sought to reduce the gap between the Blue and Red teams, stating that illiterate refugees were seeking both to join the dole queue and usurp Australian workers as a red rag to social media's bulls.

This week, again in the thrall of a widening gap, Minister Dutton responds “I’m not going to allow [people] who are hard working, who have done the right thing by this country, who have contributed, who have worked hard, who have educated their children, I’m not going to allow those people to be defined by those people who are doing the wrong thing and have been charged with terrorist offences or have been involved in crime otherwise.”

In May last year, before the DD election, this post stated "Conservative commentators are enjoying a re-run of allusions to drowning of immigrants, politics of envy and class warfare and doubts about the science of climate change amongst older electors.  Different approaches within indigenous, immigration and climate change campaigns are presented as divisions to be harnessed into previous electoral “Them and Us” follies under the “Team Blue Vs Team Red” old collectivist polarities."

We should agree with Amanda Vanstone by speaking out against those who seek to offend, insult, intimidate or worse on the basis of race and promote a debate that is frank, bold and truthful, one not used for cheap issues of security and justification of the divisive political assassinations we have witnessed in Europe.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Declaration of conflicting interests: The author is a second generation kid of parents who came by boat ( well a ship- TS Jervis Bay) as stateless refugees who is concerned at the mobilisation of divisions and the destruction of cultural diversity. It's time to turn in the dog whistles and reinvigorate family reunion.