This is 100% spot-on Julia. You have just GOT to refute the ridiculous idea that immigration is causing the overcrowding in cities/schools/trains.

I’ve seen fairly prominent articles in The Australian about all those “anxious” voters in Lindsay and those other outer-metro marginals. The comments from these “anxious” voters are worrying.

There are people out there who seem to be freaking out about immigration when they have absolutely no reason to be upset.

In the Weekend Aus from 10 July (p11) there was a quote from a Hywel Blake saying “we don’t have the infrastructure or the jobs or the transport to support a big population here at the moment”. And yeah, I reckon Hywie’s right. There probably is really bad infrastructure out there — I would confidently say that’s the result of the poor planning mentioned in the groupthink article I’ve linked to. But this was in an article about immigration and asylum seekers and border protection. Not an article about infrastructure.

Then then there was this other quote, from another “anxious” Lindsay voter that was in The Oz yesterday — the Monday after your Regional Cities / roads and drains speech — and the quote that they printed was (… and, Julia, gosh, did I read this correctly? I would be glad to be corrected here …) that she didn’t want “more Islamic schools built” in her neighbourhood.

Well … That’s what I think she said. I don’t have it in front of me … And I didn’t read it again so that I could remember it better because I was so upset that I had to walk away from the paper to avoid scrunching it up (it was the café’s paper so it would’ve been bad to scrunch it up).

So if that’s not the right quote or the right context then please correct me.

But if it was the right quote… Well. Damn. And, well… There really isn’t a right context for that kinda thing, either — is there?

As I said the other week: I think you’re totally right that we can’t call people names for being “anxious”.

But, reallytrulyhonestly, Julia: you need to correct their misunderstandings — not bow to their ignorance.

You need to. You HAVE TO.

The best way to attack TAbbott and his “4. stop the boats” business is to prove it wrong. Not try to go lower to beat it.

You mentioned your optimism for this country last night on The 7.30 Report: you need to be optimistic about the welcoming, understanding, warm and caring nature of Australians. Not give the benefit of the doubt to the mean-hearted and selfish ones.

Give the benefit of the doubt to the ones who misunderstand — look to their capacity to understand and accept by getting out there and pointing put the facts and explaining the real situation.

Obviously there’s a right and a wrong way of clearing up the misunderstanding, but I know you’ve got the tact to not be snobby or condescending about it. And I think people have the humility and wisdom to understand.

I honestly can’t believe that the majority of Aussies would be “anxious” if they knew the facts. Sure, there are always going to be horrible people who will put “FOWF” bumperstickers on their utes. But the mums and dads in Lindsay and elsewhere surely can’t all be like that.

And once they understand that refugees aren’t the reason why the peak hour traffic jams are getting longer (that’s because of the shitty public transport) and that’s it’s not international students who’re causing unemployment (they’re the ones cleaning our offices and attending our petrol stations because no one else wants to…), that it is PERFECTLY LEGAL to seek asylum in this country even if you came on a boat (and that then you can go and own a fruit shop and be a tops citizen) and that more migrants come from England and New Zealand (than other you know… Brown places)…

Surely once they understand these things they won’t be “anxious”, right?

Right?

Oh, Julia, I’m not sure I can handle being corrected on this point…