By Sujatha Fernandes The recent disendorsement of West Australian MP Graeme Campbell from his seat of Kalgoorlie by the national executive of the ALP for his comments on immigration and his association with the League of Rights and the Australians Against Further Immigration Party (AAFI) has led to a lot of media coverage of his racist views. The establishment media has turned Campbell into an unofficial spokesperson for the anti-immigration lobby. The Bulletin hailed him as "a man inordinately proud of never beating a strategic retreat" and "rebellious to the end" while the Sydney Morning Herald affectionately called him "iconoclastic" and "quirky". Campbell intends to stand as an independent for the seat of Kalgoorlie and has said that he may organise a Senate ticket of like-minded candidates. Campbell was disendorsed after he addressed a dinner of the AAFI and expressed public support for their racist policies which include a lowering of Asian immigration intakes. But Campbell is not the only Labor parliamentarian to have links with the AAFI. Former Balmain Labor MLA Peter Crawford, who is reported by the Sydney Morning Herald to have been a close adviser to Carr on environmental matters, has now joined AAFI, with the justification that "our children" are losing a sense of history and culture through multiculturalism. The support for Campbell from deputy PM Kim Beazley and former Labor finance minister and Senator, Peter Walsh, shows there is still resonance for conservative attitudes on immigration and multiculturalism inside the ALP.
Anti-immigrant
The big business media has also given a large amount of media space to the AAFI and its policies. The AAFI is a small party but it has been trying to build up its electoral support. It received its best results so far in the March 1994 federal by-elections where its candidates polled 13.54% in Warringah and 8.16% in Mackellar. Both these electorates are in the predominantly middle-class northern suburbs of Sydney. The AAFI also stood 20 candidates in the last NSW elections, and 14 had their expenses refunded by the Australian Electoral Commission because they obtained more than 4% of the primary vote. In its manifesto, the AAFI appeals to the "average Australian" saying that through immigration policies the government is "lowering our standard of living", "giving away places to overseas students at the expense of our own youth" and "undermining a central commitment to Australia". In an election pamphlet the AAFI warns in bold text, "For every four jobs becoming available, one is taken by an immigrant". The AAFI is particularly opposed to non-Anglo and especially Asian immigration, arguing that it undermines Anglo-Celtic culture.
Green Left Weekly tried to contact AAFI about its policies on multiculturalism and Asian immigration, but its leaders refused to return our calls. However the AAFI manifesto quite explicitly targets Asian immigrants, bemoaning the loss of culture and national identity by the entry of non-Anglo immigrants. The AAFI uses any scare tactic available, even claiming that the government "has brought Asian migrants into Australia of whom approximately one in six is a carrier of a very severe and frequently fatal disease". AAFI also argues that Australia is a country with limited renewable resources, a small area of arable land and the environment cannot sustain increased levels of immigration. It says that the reason for the global environmental crisis is excess population, ignoring the fact that the world already produces enough to feed and clothe everyone.
Scapegoating
Other groups also scapegoat immigrants for Australia's environment crisis. For instance, Australians For an Ecologically Sustainable Population (AESP) and the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) call for a reduction in Australia's immigration quotas to reduce the strain on the environment. Groups like the ACF and the Australian Democrats even share the AAFI position that environmentally sustainable development can only be achieved through population control in the Third World and immigration restriction in the First World. But the root cause of the global environment crisis and worldwide poverty is not simply that there are too many people, but that there is an unequal distribution of resources. The former is a symptom of the latter. Therefore there can be no solution to the "population problem", let alone the environment crisis, without addressing the current inequitable distribution of resources between First and Third World countries. In an election leaflet, the AAFI argues simplistically that "less people means less pollution and less stress on the environment". It ignores the fact that most environmental destruction is the result of the activities of large corporations which put profits before environmental protection. It is cheaper for these corporations to dump billions of litres of waste into our rivers, or to release damaging chemicals into the air rather than using environmentally-safe technology. They are also the ones which make enormous profits from unrestricted logging without concern for the disastrous impact on the environment.
Unemployment
Similarly the major cause of unemployment, overcrowding in schools and tertiary education facilities, lack of decent public health services and poor public housing is not immigration but a society run in the interests of big business. The solution to the environmental crisis is not to seal Australia off from the rest of the world, but to challenge the unjust system that sacrifices people's needs in order to boost corporate profits, and concentrates wealth in the hands of a minority in the rich countries while the majority of people in the world starve. By arguing that immigration is the cause of the environment crisis and high unemployment, the real culprits in environmental destruction are let of the hook. The AAFI promotes xenophobia and racism by encouraging people to blame migrants for problems such as the environment crisis. This helps maintain the status quo by keeping people divided by racism. The AAFI is riding on people's concern about unemployment and environmental issues to push its racist agenda. In response to an Ethnic Communities Council questionnaire, David Hughes, the AAFI's 1993 candidate in the federal seat of Throsby replied: "My policy on refugees and illegals is to reopen the second Yallah Meatworks, creating up to 500 local jobs, and convert them into blood and bone". AAFI national spokesperson Denis McCormack said that Hughes was only joking but would not be running for the AAFI in the coming elections. However, there is no doubt that behind all the AAFI's rhetoric about caring for the environment and providing a future for our children, it is blatant, right-wing racism that it promotes.