Now the Australians are protesting

[MiddleAgedMusings]

Their main target is Indians.
Indians. Who have come legally - not on boats - but on aeroplanes, with the correct visas, who are students seeking further education in order to train as doctors, nurses, or whatever so that they can give back to Australia - Or they are already trained in a profession that the government has outlined has a shortage.

Australia is absolutely solid to get into with specific qualifications or experience being a mandatory requirement and the financial means to support one self. The whole western world constantly puts Australia on a pedestal for not being a soft touch for immigration. How are these protesters questioning the value of this diaspora's contribution to the Australian economy, and how can anybody deny that it's pure racism?

Australia doesn't have a problem luring white British nurses and doctors to their shores with generous repatriation packages, but an Indian nurse or doctor aren't good enough. Australians don't have a problem with their white teenagers or graduates emigrating to western countries for 10 years before fucking off back to Australia when it's time to settle down, but god forbid anybody does it the other way

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/sep/05/melbourne-immigration-migrated-indians-targeted-racist-messaging-asking-why-ntwnfbArticle
Link will work without paywall, press downwards arrow.

Australia is not well known as a racist country at all. We are one of the most successfully multi-ethnic populations on the planet, as you would expect from a country that has long had a very heavy reliance on migrant intake from many quarters.

Yes, there's a long and ongoing problem with incorporating the indigenous population in ways that recognises adequate autonomy, land and resources rights and self-determination, while adequately compensating for the horrors of the British colonial past and its consequences.

Those problems should not be underplayed, but they're part of a much bigger global legacy of misery and misfortune caused by the racist invasions and exploitations of the British Empire.

There does seem to be a bit of a nternational movement against Indians at the moment actually - US, Canada, Australia. Could be different localised issues or something more driven. I don't recall it before the Indian Pakistan skirmishes but no idea if it's related.

As a point of interest, up until about about 25-30 years ago Australians thought of themselves as British. A good number of older people would talk about ‘The Home Country’, although they’d never been there. The accents of news announcers on TV and radio were distinctly more British than Australian.

I’ve never heard it used here. Why laugh?

As an Australian who was horrified by the marches I find the generalisations towards all Australians in this thread distressing and upsetting.

Edit: Sorry, did not mean to do this as a reply to you.

Calling racism - It's just to shut people down. If you don't like my posts, move on.

Exactly. There’s no protests in Ireland about the Indian population. It is the insane level of legal/illegal immigration that is being protested, and the governments failure to curtail and manage the applications effectively. At one point in 2023, approx 30% of Irelands hotel rooms were being used as IPAS centres and the antisocial behaviour in the centres and surrounding areas soared. The money being spent on housing asylum seekers is absolutely eye watering and when we have over 16,000 Irish people homeless at present, our children unable to buy or rent homes, costs of absolutely everything rising and no tangible support for working people due in the next budget, I can completely understand why there is a growing discontentment in Ireland. The whole situation and division is caused by the governments complete and utter failure to manage immigration and asylum applications effectively, and their absolute ignorance to the overwhelming feeling in Irish society.

The recent attacks on members of the Indian population are just the result of thugs. Every city has thugs, and there’s far more attacks by thugs on Irish/white non nationals than there is on members of the Indian community. It is because there has been 3 or so in quick succession, and that it is deemed a hate crime, that these attacks are receiving so much media attention. And I hope no one will misinterpret what I’m saying… attacks on anyone are abhorrent, but they happen in every city the world over and there is not a targeted campaign of hate against the Indian population in Ireland

Thank you for such an interesting post, it's nice to actually hear from the perspective of someone personally affected, rather than just reading what the media want you to read.

This is grotesque behaviour and I can’t emphasise how much these people do not speak for me.
Australia has been steadily going to shit since we lost all our own industry and began to rely so heavily on foreign trade. We have sold our farms, built on what’s left of our farmland, our supermarket chains are basically two monopolies that also own most of our petrol stations.
There are amazing tax incentives for those who own rental properties, and if these were removed, then housing wouldn’t be so expensive.
Australians have become lazy and entitled and they are looking outside of themselves rather than taking responsibility.

Or reading what saviours, with a complex, would like to believe.

I totally agree. I think Air BnB has contributed to it and then the fact that no politician is willing to do what needs to be done to reduce the power of the supermarket chains etc. Lets be real, the politicians probably also own rental properties to profit from as well.

Was going to same the same!

You can’t come on here and call all Australians racist when Britain has its own dirty history. Do you not see the irony!
Britain has also had anti immigration marches recently.

It’s also really inappropriate to call someone a racist if you don’t know them or if they haven’t actually said anything racist.

A lot of British commentators keep talking about Indigenous Australians. Can anyone actually tell me about their current struggles and what is being done to help?
As someone who works closely with that mob I’d love to hear it.

Presumably the point that poster is making is that racism was deeply entrenched 30 years ago and remains so now

There is as much racism in Australia as there is in the UK. I had not even stepped off the plane on my last visit and a delightful gentleman, some bloke, clearly fuelled by the ‘free’ booze during the flight, was making loud comments about bloody Poms.

He was hoping for a reaction, but you don’t play that person’s game. I gave a wry internal smile at the irony that it was perhaps the criminality of his great grandfather that was the random life-card dealt which made him an Aussie.

Australia is no more a utopia than is Britain: there is poverty, lack of affordable housing and a lack of affordable rentals. Social problems find people looking for somebody/something to blame. Many First Nations Australians are definitely second class citizens and still suffer from the White Fellas’ invasion of their lands - ‘compensating’ life controlling habits are significantly higher.

Their ancestry goes back to when they were in British prison cells. The English emptied their prisons and dumped them in Australia. All that hate has trickled down the generations until today's protests.

I'm an English migrant (British citizen, Aussie resident) who's lived in various parts of Australia and I too have never heard an Australian use the P**i term.

Even racist Australians don't use that term, it's a British thing.

That only applies to Australians of English descent (and only partially) surely.

No Greek, Italian, Lebanese, Vietnamese etc. Australian was calling themselves “British”.

But I guess my point is when my friend’s son’s school is teaching him that the Stolen Generation was a British policy conducted by Brits it seems WILDLY disingenuous! It’s an odd tactic employed by Aussies to distance themselves from the darker aides of their history.

‘Famine like consequences for the Irish population’? Let’s please call it what it was… a famine caused by the genocide perpetrated on the Irish people. While there are large numbers of people emigrating from Ireland now, back then they were seeking asylum to escape the oppression by the English and certain death in many cases.

I definitely heard the term a few times in Oz but not as a racist slur.

Take ownership of your country’s racism in the modern era

Not all Brits call Aussies racists. Some of us are bored with those who love to try and display their moral superiority. Best just to laugh at them. I personally love the cricket sledging between English and Australian cricketers and fans. Banter is fantastic, when miseries don't get to touch it.

Not at all. By recognising a continual history of racism and oppression against the indigenous population, we necessarily have to recognise that it began with the British invasion and the displacement and disempowerment of the native population, and continued because the same colonial attitudes and policies prevailed well into the modern era.

It's you who want to magically absolve Britain of any responsibility after firmly institutionalising the whole oppressive system.

You really need to take responsibility for now. Take the good and the bad and be accountable.