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Written by Paul Brzeski on 2024-11-30 at 06:27

Immigrants are being scapegoated in the media again, and I think it's time to share a different perspective. As someone born and raised in Australia with immigrant parents, I find it frustrating hearing the same tired scapegoating narrative being wheeled out.

Let’s not pretend immigrants are some external force causing issues like rising house prices. We invited them here. Business lobbyists pushed for cheap visa workers, and the government delivered. These are people who are easily exploited because they’re too afraid to speak up about unreasonable demands. It’s not just the big companies - plenty of small and medium-sized businesses have gotten in on sponsoring worker visas too, particularly in industries like hospitality, agriculture, mining, and IT.

Then there's the gig economy, which has become another layer of exploitation. Jobs that pay less than minimum wage and offer no rights are filled by people who are either unqualified or desperate enough to take them. It’s a perfect system for the wealthy: keep people struggling just enough to accept worse pay and worse conditions.

Yes, immigrants have played a role in the housing market surge, but let’s not forget: these are decisions we made. We brought them here to fill labor gaps and boost the economy, and now we’re blaming them for the mess we created.

While these narratives may be a convenient, easy football for the media to amass support and viewers, they cause real harm - especially to immigrant children who have to go to school while society blames them for problems they didn’t create. This scapegoating doesn’t just affect the adults; it ripples out to the next generation, leaving them to carry the weight of unjust blame.

We need to stop pointing fingers at cliché scapegoats like immigrants and start calling out the real problem: the systems we built to exploit them - and everyone else.

[#]HousingCrisis #Immigration #Australia #Politics #Opinion #CostOfLiving #RealEstate #Business #Workers #Unions

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Toot

Written by Paul Brzeski on 2024-11-30 at 06:27

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