Bill Shorten says he will make it easier for more Chinese immigrants to come to Australia

For a former union boss, Bill sure is clueless about the workers.  The unions LOATHE Chinese immigrants.  Bill seems to think he is fogging them by saying he will only bring in parents of Chinese already here.  But it will take the unions no more than 5 minutes to work out that most of the parents will be competing for jobs within hours of stepping off the plane.  Not all parents are elderly and even elderly Chinese work

Bill Shorten has promised a Labor government led by him would make it easier for Chinese immigrants to bring their family to Australia. The Opposition Leader made the pledge as he delivered an address to 500 Chinese-speaking voters on a WeChat live online forum.

If enacted, his social media promise could mark the biggest change to Australia's immigration system since 1996, when former Liberal prime minister John Howard changed the balance from family reunion to skilled migrants.

In a Wednesday WeChat audio message, seen by The Australian, Mr Shorten vowed to make it easier for immigrants to obtain visas for their ageing parents. Under this new temporary sponsored visa, immigrants would be allowed to bring one set of parents to Australia.

'Labor wants to make sure you never have to pick which parents you want to bring to Australia,' Mr Shorten said on WeChat, in a forum where he gave one-minute audio answers to questions submitted and translated from Chinese.

A spokeswoman for Mr Shorten stressed a Labor government would not be returning to the immigration balance under former Labor prime minister Paul Keating, which favoured family reunion over skilled migration.

'A temporary sponsored parent visa is a temporary visa and does not impact the permanent migration program,' she told Daily Mail Australia on Thursday. 'Labor has no plans to change the balance of the permanent migration program.'

Mr Shorten's bid for the Chinese vote was made just days after Labor lost the New South Wales election, following revelations the party's former state leader Michael Daley had told a politics in the pub forum at the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, that Asians were taking the jobs of young Australians.

'Our young children will flee and who are they being replaced with? They are being replaced by young people from typically Asia with PhDs,' the then-deputy Labor leader said in September last year. 'So there's a transformation happening in Sydney now where our kids are moving out and foreigners are moving in and taking their jobs.'

Mr Shorten has this week condemned Mr Daley's comments, after reportedly putting pressure on NSW Labor to stand down their former leader so his controversy wouldn't overshadow the ALP's federal campaign.

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Crackdown on gang members sees 20 violent thugs deported with 19 more from Sudan, New Zealand and Samoa facing visa cancellation

Victoria has cancelled the visas of 20 gang members over the past three years in a crackdown on youth violence. Nineteen more visas are 'under active cancellation consideration', The Australian reported.

Those who have had their visas cancelled include people with convictions for drug trafficking, assaults or armed robberies.

Others had convictions for kidnapping, police assault, weapons offences and sexual assault.

Within the group of 39 visas were people of Sudanese, New Zealander or Samoan descent - others were deemed 'stateless'.

Last September it was revealed Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton had ordered monthly reports of 'non-­citizens linked to Victorian youth gangs'.

The reports came amid strong criticism of State Government and its youth gang crisis, and have since been spruiked as an effective way of protecting the community.

In total, 81 people have been referred to the Department of Home Affairs since April 2016.

According to the reports, the department is also 'reviewing cancellation processes in relation to minors, in discussion with legal division and child wellbeing branch.'

The report also notes that 42 people whose visas are no longer 'under active cancellation consideration' have been flagged on the internal systems.

'Should any of the individuals apply for another visa or citizenship, the processing area is ­advised to seek penal checks and contact the ‘character and cancellation branch’ prior to any grant/approval,' the department said.

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Climate change: the NSW election non-issue

It was utter bunkum; but typical self-delusion by those ideological crusaders determined to do whatever it takes ‘to save the planet’ – at whatever the cost. ‘Climate change is now a more pressing matter for NSW voters than hospitals, schools and public transport’ asserted the green-left Sydney Morning Herald in the run-up to NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s outstanding victory. And to reinforce the message against carbon emissions, it added that among the top environment concerns was coal. Other media within this inner-city bubble of group-think unreality included SBS which warned pre-election that ‘Climate change will be a vote changer’, while the ABC inevitably listed environment on top, claiming that ‘Voters in dozens of seats appear to be signalling to parties that without a clear plan to address climate change they will be punished at the polling booth’.

But climate change played no role in determining the outcome. The Greens, the Coalition and Labor all of which had climate policies that, to differing degrees, imposed heavy cost burdens on the economy and energy consumers involving job losses in industry, all lost some ground. The Coalition, especially the Nationals, should heed the lesson that the only big election winners were the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party that won three lower house seats despite the New Zealand gun massacre news. And, contrary to the warnings from the left media, the SFF election policy took strong objection to the major parties’ anti-emissions rhetoric. ‘Environment laws should not be aimed at appeasing minority city-based extreme green viewpoints… Affordable and reliable energy is the key to success… Government should not divert large sums of public money into intermittent energy sources; with the increasing saturation of renewable energy comes greater risks to energy reliability that is best provided by large coal-fired generators. We believe that it is logical to construct two new baseload High Efficiency Low Emission (HELE) coal-fired power stations in the Hunter Valley’.

If the Nationals were unhappy before the election with the Liberals’ ‘Labor-lite’ emissions limitation policies (the NSW Liberal target is zero net emissions by 2050 as against Labor’s 100 per cent by then and 50 per cent by 2030) it is unlikely they will wear them after losing seats to the SFF. And the federal Nationals have every reason to be worried about the threat to their regional seats of the SFF energy policy. The outcome of the coming federal election may depend on whether the Nats’ concerns and pressure for reliable affordable energy (including coal) will have a greater impact on Morrison than the fears of Josh Frydenberg that Kooyong could turn into another climate-dominated Wentworth unless due obeisance is made to the emissions gods. And, unlike the USA, that the government will stick with the Paris Agreement targets, despite their having inconsequential effects on the world’s greenhouse gasses.

But despite the clear evidence that the only impact of emissions policy in last weekend’s NSW election was a positive one for the SFF, Morrison is reluctant to embrace HELE coal-fired generation that, contrary to anti-coal propaganda, is booming overseas. According to the authoritative S&P Platts report, China is adding 1,171 coal-fired power stations to its existing 2,363, Japan is adding 45 to its 90, South Korea another 26 to its 58, the Philippines 60 to its 19, India 446 more to its 589, South Africa 24 to its 79, Turkey 93 to its 56 and even the EU (with some prominent anti-emissions members), is adding 27 to its 468. Most will be potential customers for Australian coal, which is already our major export.

But the sovereign risk of potentially antagonistic political decisions means that despite their economic viability overseas, there has been no investment in even one HELE generator here. So Australian energy gets increasingly expensive and unreliable to the benefit of our overseas competitors.

Berejiklian promised after last weekend’s impressive victory to help Morrison in May’s federal election. Her greatest contribution would be for her government to shut-up about climate change – and ensure that cabinet members like her factional friend Energy Minister Don Harwin, cease publicly undermining federal Liberal colleagues on emissions policy. Energy in NSW might be a more appropriate portfolio for a Nat.

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Left’s racism claims ‘silence border debate’

Former deputy PM John Anderson.

Senior Coalition figures are warning that legitimate debates over population levels, refugees and border protection are being hijacked­ by claims of racism and argue that left-wing policies — includin­g ending offshore processing — are more likely to stoke racist sentiment than any of the immigration policies implemented by Scott Morrison.

In the wake of the Christchurch massacre in which an Australian shot dead 50 Muslim worshippers, former deputy prime minister John Anderson told The Weekend Australian it was essential for honest debates to be held about complex issues such as the social integration of migrants and refugees. The Nationals leader from 1999 to 2005 expressed concern that, among the intelligentsia, there was a “loathing of Western culture and an idea that it is to blame for everything”.

“The Australian people are not mugs. I don’t believe they are particularly racist,” he said. “I don’t think Australians think all belief systems are the same or that we should not be discerning about what those belief systems might allow.”

Mr Anderson warned that open-border policies were far more likely to result in social issues arising from the settling of a “large number of new people from a number of cultural backgrounds” — a problem he suggested German Chancellor Angela Merkel was still grappling with but which he said the Coalition had avoided by properly managing the migrant and refugee intake.

Labor immigration spokesman Shayne Neumann warned yesterday that the Morrison government had engaged in dog whist­ling by saying rapists, murderers and paedophiles were being held in offshore detention and suggesting that refugees would take jobs and hospital beds from Australians. “Leaders have a responsibility to be truthful, not misrepresent the facts or stoke fears for political gain,” said Mr Neumann. “Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton often fall short of this standard.”

Howard government immig­ration ministers Philip Ruddock and Amanda Vanstone, while not commenting on the rhetoric used by the Prime Minister or Home Affairs Minister, strongly rejected suggestions that tough border protection­ policies were racist.

Mr Ruddock told The Weekend Australian: “Border integrity is not about discrimination. It’s about ensuring you have the capacity to help those who need it the most.” The NSW Liberal Party president also took aim at critics suggesting Australia should “only help those who are free enough to travel, with money to pay people-smugglers”.

“I think in relation to these matters there are some people who believe the only people we should help are asylum-seekers who say, ‘Look at me, look at me. I’m the most important person you should be helping’,’’ Mr Ruddock said.

“And having come to that view they go out of their way to essential­ly demonise those who are wanting to manage the process and manage it sensibly and approp­riately.’’

Ms Vanstone said former Labor immigration minister Mick Young had argued that, as a major ­migrant nation, it was important to keep the intake at a level with which Australians were happy.

“If you overstep that you will put one of the key elements of our national character at risk. And I think, to me, that is such an obvious point to make … That’s not a racist remark,” she said.

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 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here