CAMERON MILNER: By competing with One Nation on migration, Labor is losing its soul

Anthony Albanese's Labor is about to cut off its nose to spite its face over immigration. A party that once prided itself on championing migration is about to meekly surrender to right wing extremists and pretend to be Hanson–lite. The Albanese Government was elected by being small target and promising to be Morrison-lite. Now it's about to do the same on migration by pandering to predominantly to Anglo, male Australians who are planning to vote One Nation. Sign up to The Nightly's newsletters. Get the first look at the digital newspaper, curated daily stories and breaking headlines delivered to your inbox. Your email address: Email Us Get the Newsletter By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy In doing so, Labor will trash its reputation built under Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke as being a party that welcomes new arrivals and embraces the economic benefit and cultural enrichment that it brings. Lets not forget Kevin Rudd's more recent embrace of the 'Big Australia'. Labor's electoral base has been bolstered first by Italian and Greek migrants and now their sons, daughters and grandchildren. We gave fiercely anti-Communist Vietnamese refugees a new home and that community has done so much for our nation. Just as more recent migrants from India are also now calling Australia home. Albanese is the son of an Italian father. SA Premier Peter Malinauskas is a grandson of Hungarian and Lithuanian immigrants. Compared to First Nations people we are all just recent arrivals in this great southern land. Australia is a nation built on migration and multiculturalism, so why is it so hard for Labor to defend that rather than run scared? The fault generally lays with the policy weakness and insipid leadership that is the hallmark of the entire Albanese administration. Policy ambition, Labor values and leading on ideas are all treated with suspicion and a challenge to the Potemkin administration that is the Albanese Government. At a practical level Labor simply hasn't built enough houses for everyone who has come to Australia. It's a manifest failure of public policy and is contributing to a housing crisis on top of an existing cost-of-living crisis. Labor administrations in the past built massive amounts of public housing. No more. Labor's tax and planning policies are a choke hold on new supply and even their beloved industry super funds invest elsewhere for a return. At the public policy level, the more specific failure has been that Labor has seen defending Islamic extremism as a higher priority than migration or multiculturalism. Islamic extremism has no place in our pluralistic and tolerant society. Hate preachers have been allowed to recruit jihadis in Western Sydney, anti-Semites chant hate on our Opera House steps. To top it off, we even needed a quick and dirty royal commission to tell this Prime Minister he has a problem of his own making after the Bondi massacre. Our nation's great legacy of welcoming those from across the seas to share our bountiful plains is being sorely tested by the weak Albanese administration that simply won't call out Islamic extremism and is instead allowing hatred to migrants fester more generally. Islamic extremism and vile anti-Semitism bloom when woke left ideologues such as Penny Wong would rather hang out with a corrupt leader of the Palestinian Administration than go to pay respects at the site of the October 7 massacre by Hamas where women were raped, children burnt and innocents taken hostage. Similarly, Tony Burke thinks slowing down the flow of construction workers from the Philippines is smart politics when he spends the rest of his time plotting with political supporters for the return of ISIS brides. It's not racist for Australians to want to see their Government prioritise workers to build homes rather than those who chose to turn their back on our country. Yet this is the sanctimonious view in the PM's inner circle of Albanistas. Albanese has done more than anyone else to divide this nation along cultural fault lines. His initial exploitation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart that became the Albanese Voice to Parliament was an act of obscene vanity. It failed, so Albanese in a fit of pique also dumped Truth and Treaty. His promise to be at every Garma was just another lie to First Australians as he holidayed in luxury in Tasmania instead. The inability to call out Islamic extremism or to say anyone deeply concerned about the Bondi massacre is somehow a redneck belittles Australians' genuine concern. Albanese, rather than calling the hate out, has instead engaged in a crass race to the bottom on migrants. You have Hanson in her element calling the political shots as Liberal leader Angus Taylor chases lower and Albanese — rather than standing up for migration — will join in the punch-down on people and communities that making our nation better for their contribution and presence. One Nation has always held the vote of those who are genuinely anti-migrant. Their rise in the past year has been built on so much more, including the failure of leadership by the PM on Bondi. The Bondi accused are regrettably Australian citizens, not visa over-stayers. Burke and Albanese need to realise that allowing Islamic extremism to not only fester, but flourish on their watch is actually the root cause of their current political problem. One Nation are always going to conflate the two issues. Labor should actually be the adult in the room and defend migrants while condemning extremism. Instead, we have Albanese wanting to be Hanson-lite in 2026 on migrants, just as he was Morrison-lite in 2022 on the economy. It's a race to the bottom Albanese and Burke seem so determined to win, despite Hanson having already won this ground. Labor should instead stand up to extremism, especially Islamic, and defend the role and contribution of migrants to Australia. Cameron Milner is a former Queensland Labor State secretary