Conservatives and the far-right are pushing this idea that Australia’s housing crisis is the result of too many immigrants moving to Australia. According to them, the simple solution is to reduce the number of people we let in.
But this line of argument totally deflects from the real culprits of the housing crisis: the landlords, the banks and state and federal governments. It scapegoats immigrants while ignoring the structural causes baked into the system, such as why housing (a human right) is treated as a commodity in the first place.
This session will bust some of these myths, while also explaining how these racist arguments are useful for the broader capitalist system. It will explain what this says about the role of racism for capitalism.