‘Mass Immigration’ and Racism
One Nation is running on removing people from the country, and campaigning on it with imagery of Black and Muslim men as killers. The people it would remove can’t vote on 28 November, which is why it costs the party nothing to promise. The Liberals would preference them anyway.
A refugee protest in Melbourne, with demonstrators holding hand-lettered signs.
The platform
One Nation’s plan is net-negative migration for three years, then a ceiling below 130,000. Student visas fall to just over 100,000 a year, against about 290,000 granted last financial year. Skilled-migrant family visas go to zero, and Australia withdraws from the UN Refugee Convention ABC . Labor, the Coalition and One Nation would all cut migration. One Nation’s difference is the net-negative opening: migration goes backwards for three years before the ceiling applies ABC .
Hanson frames her migration cut as a share of a shrinking pie ABC . The party’s record on race is the context for that framing. She has attacked multiculturalism at the National Press Club, campaigned for the No side in the Voice referendum and compared the Voice to apartheid. In 2025 the Senate censured and suspended her for wearing a burqa on the floor Wikipedia .
The racism
The Victorian launch made the pitch visual. The party showed a racist AI-generated clip of a young man of African appearance with a machete and a Middle Eastern suicide bomber ABC . Two dozen protesters outside called the party racist and named mass immigration as the scapegoating ABC .
The Liberals answered the question of what the party is with their own preference decision. They planned to preference One Nation ahead of Labor by default, and Bracks turned that into the campaign’s sharpest sentence about race The Age .
Why it is cheap to run
The pitch targets people who can’t vote in the election it’s aimed at. Moffitt’s reading is that campaigning against migration therefore costs nothing at the ballot box. Rizvi’s is that the cuts would end an industry worth about $55bn in export income SBS . Among One Nation’s own supporters, immigration outranks living costs SMH .
The electoral evidence is concentrated rather than general. No Victorian poll here puts immigration in the electorate’s top three, and the launch led on law and order ABC . One Nation sits near 23% statewide, with its gains in outer-suburban and regional seats, while Labor holds the diaspora corridors POLITICO The Age .
Answering it
The research points one way. Narratives about migration lose support when the question shifts to inequality Commons Library , and repeating a claim to rebut it carries the claim Passing the Message Stick . The Australian experiment found the same asymmetry. Attacks on competence failed, and Hanson’s Trump alignment was the one counter that worked ANU . A $600,000 campaign in Farrer moved its own polling and lost the seat by more than ten points The Saturday Paper .
Summary
- The people the plan removes can’t vote on 28 November, so the promise costs One Nation nothing at the ballot box. That is why it is cheap to run and hard to answer SBS .
- The launch ran a racist AI clip: a young man of African appearance with a machete and a Middle Eastern suicide bomber ABC .
- The Liberals would preference One Nation by default. Bracks’s question — why, if you aren’t racist — is the one their own deal forces them to answer The Age .
- Answering the migration number with a better number doesn’t work. Narratives about migration lose support when the question moves to rent, wages and services Commons Library Passing the Message Stick . Hanson’s Trump alignment was the one counter that tested ANU .
- The plan itself: net-negative migration for three years, then a ceiling below 130,000, student visas at just over 100,000 a year and skilled-migrant family visas at zero. Labor, the Coalition and One Nation all cut migration ABC ABC .
ABC News on the migration plan, and how Labor, the Coalition and One Nation compare
The plan: 750,000 visa holders cut over three years, then net migration capped below 130,000, student visas to just over 100,000 a year, skilled-migrant family visas to zero, and withdrawal from the UN Refugee Convention. Labor would get to 225,000 by 2028 and the Coalition to 100,000 for two years.
“a larger economic pie doesn't mean anything if individual Australians' slice of it is getting smaller”
Her answer to critics who said the cuts would drive a recession.
- All three parties would cut migration. One Nation’s difference is the net-negative opening: migration goes backwards before the ceiling applies.
- Neither report models the macroeconomic effect of the plans.
SMH survey of One Nation supporters
A survey of 1,000 One Nation supporters. Of those supporters, 91% think the country is heading in the wrong direction, against 62% of all voters, and immigration outranks living costs as their top concern.
- The sample is One Nation supporters, so it cannot say where immigration ranks for the electorate as a whole.
SBS News on the strategy behind the policy
The academic reading. Moffitt argues the target is people who can’t vote, so the pitch carries no electoral cost. Rizvi argues the cuts would end an international education industry worth about $55bn in export income.
- Reports academic argument rather than new data. The 50,000 jobs figure is an estimate.
ABC News on the launch video
The racist AI-generated clip shown at the launch: a young man of African appearance with a machete, and a suicide bomber of Middle Eastern appearance.
“I don't accept the premise that it is racist”
- Harkin is also education director at the Institute of Public Affairs, which bears on how the defence is framed.
The Age on the preference deal
The Liberals’ plan to preference One Nation by default, and the former premier’s framing of the question it raises.
“They're saying to people it is OK to vote for One Nation, we are supporting them too. That is a problem and that will tell on the Liberal Party.”
- An inclination reported by two sources. No decision had been made when it was published.
ABC News, POLITICO and The Age on where the vote sits
One Nation on 32% in Eastern Victoria, ahead of both majors, and near 23% statewide. Modelling puts its gains in outer-suburban and regional seats, with Labor holding the diaspora corridors.
- The 32% comes from one poll of a single upper-house region, so it isn’t a statewide average.
- Trades Hall’s 30-seat estimate is advocacy, so treat it as a claim rather than a projection.
Common Cause Australia and Passing the Message Stick
The counter-messaging research for this campaign: far-right narratives lose support when the question shifts from migration to inequality, and negation reinforces the claim it rebuts.
Commons LibraryPassing the Message Stick
“their narratives resonate more strongly when the main question being discussed is 'What do we do about migration?', but they lose support when the topic shifts to 'What do we do about economic and social inequality?'”
“Whenever we try to myth bust... we're helping them by repeating (and reinforcing) their message.”
- An interim guide based on early research with persuadable audiences. It isn’t a published study.
Implications for campaigning
- The frame is the fight. Narratives about migration lose support when the question moves to inequality, so answer with rent, wages and services instead of rebutting the migration cut Commons Library .
- The scale of the plan is the opening on policy. Industry and farm bodies said cuts that size would drive a recession, and the party’s answer is an assertion about shares, without a model ABC ABC .
- The concentration cuts both ways. One Nation’s vote sits in outer-suburban and regional seats, not the diaspora corridors Labor holds, so the argument has one audience in each POLITICO The Age .
Linked notes
- Statewide TreatyThe treaty Victoria signed with First Peoples in November 2025, the repeal the Liberals and One Nation have both promised, and what the record says about stopping it.
- Cost of Living and Energy PricesThe $2.5bn package takes $84 off a $1,591 power bill for households on the default offer, and its discounts rise with what a household spends. The top fifth of households draw $207m from the car registration discount and the bottom fifth $100m.
- Crime and Community SafetyWhat the parties are promising on crime, what the recorded figures show, who is being policed and punished, and why the falling rate never answers the fear.
- Attention to the far rightStudies on whether attention to immigration, or to the party, raises far-right support, and on which counter-messages have moved it.
- HousingRent in Melbourne is $600 a week at the median, and 37.8% of the notices telling renters to leave are over unpaid rent. Housing still polls fifth at 8%. Labor’s scheme caps rent only inside its own five-year leases, and only the Greens would cap a private rent.
- Integrity and Anti CorruptionGeoffrey Watson SC’s report for Mark Irving KC, the CFMEU administrator, called the union’s Victorian branch a crime syndicate. It costed the branch’s conduct at up to $15bn, roughly 15% of the $100bn Big Build, and Irving removed the chapters behind that figure before publication. The royal commission that could test it reports after the election, and IBAC has warned every party about donations, lobbying and privileged access in the campaign.
- Education and Teacher PayThe deal gives teachers 28.3–32.4% over four years and a $2,000 bonus, taking an experienced salary from $118,063 to $151,419 by 2029. It ended the dispute, and the revolt inside the union outlasted it. The record carries nothing on what the year did to schools.
- Emergency Services LevyA levy on land value since 1 July 2025, funding the CFA, VICSES and Fire Rescue Victoria, the farm bills behind the Bendigo rally, and an uncosted repeal.
- Health and Ambulance Response TimesA woman died after waiting about two hours for an ambulance in Hoppers Crossing, and a Bendigo child was treated by a crew from 80km away. The rosters behind both, what Labor and the Nationals have promised, and what the poll can’t tell you.
- SEC and ElectricityYallourn supplied 14.8% of Victoria’s electricity and closes in 2028. The line meant to carry its replacement is two years late and costed at up to $11.4bn, and the Coalition and One Nation would both cancel it. Labor would build it and expand the SEC. What a household pays is in Cost of Living and Energy Prices.