Half the world’s population votes in 2024 and many elections hinge on migration issues — but disinformation is rife. It’s become so bad it threatens democracy and global stability. Australia needs a trustworthy custodian of the facts on the most divisive issue of our time.
Without a National Migration Institute, we risk a descent into 1930s-style xenophobic chaos. Here are five myths that dominate media and political discourse today. If we had a politically neutral institution doing basic research, we wouldn’t be wasting airtime on any of them.
The reason certain key Canberra mandarins gave for abolishing Australia’s immigration department in 2017 is that migration didn’t matter anymore. Unlike in the populate-or-perish period after World War Two, immigration didn’t need its own department, they thought. It’s part of everything and can be dispersed across the government.
This is a bizarre myth, one which underpins Australia’s main government structures for migration. Ask Donald Trump if migration matters. When the sniper’s bullet clipped his ear he was explaining a graph of illegal immigration, which is the central issue of his election campaign.
Or ask Human Rights Watch, which says the top issue facing Australia last year was asylum seekers and refugees. Or ask the Lowy Institute, which says immigration and border protection policy "continue to be among the most contested issues in Australia’s political debate." Or ask the Ipsos Issues Monitor, whose l.