AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): As anti-immigration and racist rhetoric intensifies across Australia’s political landscape, experts warn that social cohesion and democratic stability in the country’s multicultural society are quietly eroding.
Victoria Fielding, a social researcher, said in an analysis that despite Australia’s long-standing multicultural record, the country has historically failed to effectively confront challenges such as racism, white supremacy, discrimination, and hatred against racial minorities and migrants.
According to her, developments such as the rise of the anti-immigration “March for Australia” movement, a terrorist attack in Bondi targeting Jews that coincided with a surge in Islamophobia, a failed bombing attempt against members of the Indigenous community at a Perth gathering, and the growing popularity of the One Nation Party in opinion polls all signal that Australia is edging toward a dangerous social fracture.
The Scanlon Institute’s 2025 Social Cohesion Report shows that Australia has reached a critical point. While 85 percent of citizens support multiculturalism, 51 percent believe immigration levels are too high, and 48 percent think migrants take Australians’ jobs, the highest figures recorded to date.
More detailed findings indicate that even supporters of migration show a stronger preference for accepting white migrants from countries such as Britain and the United States, while displaying greater resistance toward non-white migrants, particularly from Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Growing prejudice has also been reported against Muslims, and even against followers of the Hindu and Sikh faiths.
In the political arena, the alignment of some figures with anti-immigration currents, including the drift of independent and conservative politicians toward the One Nation Party, has contributed to normalizing this discourse. Internal disputes within the Liberal Party over the intensity of anti-immigration positions have also deepened political divisions.
The role of media and social networks has likewise come under scrutiny. Analysts say online spaces are saturated with anti-immigration activists, while some mainstream outlets amplify divisive narratives that fuel hostility toward minorities.
Referring to the United States during Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies and to Britain’s post-Brexit trajectory, the author of the analysis warns that the normalization of hatred can undermine social cohesion and weaken countries’ international standing.
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