A Conversation Starter, by Tim

This conversation starter comes from Tim M reflecting on immigration, populist politics, and the tension between personal experience and national policy. Rather than offering a final position, he shares what feels contradictory, unsettling, and unresolved for him and the questions that continue to surface. It is also important to note that this piece was written and shared before the Bondi Attack.

"I agree that populist politics often works by creating an enemy. That pattern is familiar and well documented. At the same time, I find myself feeling that immigration policy, in Australia and across much of the Western world, is being badly mishandled.

What troubles me isn’t immigration itself, but scale, pace, and criteria. It feels as though we’ve lost any sense of moderation: too many people, too quickly, without enough attention to infrastructure, housing, or long-term economic capacity. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask whether we should prioritise people who can assimilate, contribute, and live within our laws and social norms, especially when social systems are already under strain.

This isn’t abstract for me. I was recently in the car with my son, who mentioned almost casually that he and a friend had been robbed earlier this year by a group of young men on a train, an incident serious enough that the conductor had to intervene. What struck me most was not the event itself, but how normal it seemed to him. That unsettled me.

At the same time, my own lived experience complicates any simple narrative. Some of the best people I’ve worked with are immigrants. My strongest staff are Indian: hardworking, ambitious, modest, and deeply committed. Some of my best farm managers are white South African refugees. My dairy share-milkers are Filipino: incredibly driven, earning well, and now working towards owning their own farms. I work with Islander fruit pickers, many Fijian, who begin the day together with prayer and song. One of my CFOs is a Kenyan man who is simply outstanding at what he does.

If anything, these people are often favoured by me over Australians.

And yet, I can’t ignore another tension I struggle to name comfortably. I believe there is a small minority, particularly among extremist religious groups, who will never assimilate and actively reject the values of the society they enter. If even a small percentage of a population is committed to hostility or division, the consequences can be outsized. That feels like a real risk, and one we’re reluctant to talk about honestly.

Then there’s the economic reality. Australia’s net immigration has averaged close to half a million people a year over the last two years. That’s the equivalent of adding the population of Tasmania every year. Housing hasn’t kept up. Infrastructure hasn’t kept up. Government spending is already deeply stretched, with deficits growing and a rising share of expenditure going toward welfare and social services rather than productivity.

If immigration continues at this pace, it seems inevitable that we’ll need to prioritise people who can rapidly contribute to productivity, GDP, or investment, not out of exclusion, but out of financial necessity. Otherwise, the trajectory points toward unsustainable debt, currency pressure, and inflation, which ultimately hurts those with the least.

I don’t pretend to know what the right balance is. I just know that everything feels out of proportion right now.

I believe in moderation, including moderation itself. And at the moment, it looks, feels, and smells like we’ve lost it."