There’s a quiet sleight of hand happening in parts of Australian media – and once you see it, it sticks.
The first screenshot shows the relatively neutral introduction to an article on realestate.com.au. It reports Australian Bureau of Statistics figures showing that a third of people living in Australia were born overseas – the highest proportion since records began in 1891. So far, so factual.
But the second screenshot shows how the same story was presented on the today’s front page of news.com.au:
Notice the loaded language. Migrants are no longer arriving, settling, or contributing – they are “flooding” into 35 suburbs.
“Flooding” is not a neutral word. Floods overwhelm. They threaten. They destroy. They demand an urgent response. By choosing this framing, a routine demographic statistic is transformed into something alarming and invasive.
Nothing in the actual data has changed. Only the emotional tone.
This is how public perception is shaped in modern media – not usually through outright lies, but through deliberate word choice, emphasis, and packaging. A complex reality is reduced to a simple, fear-tinged narrative. In the current heated climate around immigration, this kind of language doesn’t just drive clicks; it reinforces anxiety and entrenches division.
Outlets like realestate.com.au (part of the News Corp network) are experts at this. Strong, emotive headlines sell. But they also nudge public sentiment, one loaded term at a time. It doesn’t require a grand conspiracy – just the everyday incentives of attention-driven journalism colliding with a sensitive political issue.
The cumulative effect matters. When “change” is consistently framed as “threat,” it becomes much harder to have an honest, nuanced conversation about immigration, integration, and what kind of country we want to be.
The data hasn’t changed. Only the story we’re being told about it.
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Let’s face it, many if not most Aussies are easily duped.
In a country where the entire population are either migrants or the offspring of migrants, to be fighting amongst ourselves over migration is a nonsense.
Politicians will do or say anything to create division within the community, to take our minds off the poor state of governance we are all suffering.
Uhm ….. perhaps the Joliffe cartoon showing a scantily clad Aboriginal person replying to the question an obvious European colonist/settler/invader, “Lost your way getting back to your own country? My people have been here for 60,0000 years. We don’t get lost”.
Take heart Michael, the tories are getting worried ….. PHONey’s Puppet Pauline has joined the super-rich thanks to ”political donations” from the Hancock empire et al, so now she is clearly misrepresenting herself as ”the voice of the Little Aussie battlers”.
Beetrooter Joyce has done similarly throughout his 13 year political career in New England representing his personal interests to the disadvantage of the voters.
Now the 69 year old ”David does it for David” Farley (”the Farce”), former agricultural corporation executive, seeks to finance his retirement by inserting his snout in the public finance trough that is federal Parliament. Three self-serving peas in the PHONey pod, controlled by mining interests.
There are no benefits in voting for the PHONeys for Farrer voters wanting a new greenfields regional hospital, MDB water reform, affordable housing for essential service workers like nurses, firies, police and teachers, with financial inducements for those career positions to attract suitably experienced members to the Farrer electorate.
Well spotted, but similar has been happening for two decades, misrepresenting or misunderstanding data, to dog whistle ‘the other’.
Conflating undefined migrants with temporary visa holding international students.
To be fair the (often very diverse) RE sector must roll their eyes at their (skip) RW MSM partners dog whistling undefined ‘immigrants’, their customer base; ditto RW MPs vs Indians and Chinese.
Issues with the article as a form of ‘analysis’ and journalism are numerous including lack of definitions eg what is a ‘migrant’ and explanation, then data misrepresentation leading to inflation of headline data; Stats & Social Science 101 means nothing till you dive into the data……
The NOM Net OS Migration formula was expanded in 2006 from counting border movements of those staying minimum 12 months+ continuous, to 12/16 months+. The latter led to capturing far more international students & backpackers on temporary visas, plus Kiwis, with some of the modest capped permanent migration program (most are already onshore and counted in previous years but waiting to make the cut).
By the time of the Rudd government the NOM and population spiked due to the formula expansion, missed by all media, then Australia’s ‘best demographer’ described them as ‘immigrants’ driving ‘unsustainable population growth’ wrecking the ‘environment’; designed for a RW FIRE MSM dog whistle.
Fossil fueled greenwashing of carbon and bigotry imported from the US Tanton Network, born of Rockefeller Club of Rome and ZPG Zero Population Growth of late Paul ‘Population Bomb’ Ehrlich and peer white nationalist John ‘passive eugenics’ Tanton; same informs Fox News -> NewsCorp and UK -> RW MSM and online ecosystem,
Fact is we have an ageing population due to better health and increased longevity, which is a factor in population growth, hence the boomer ‘bomb’ holding property and their wealth longer; the NOM or net migration is literally a marginal border issue, inflated by the RW MSM, compared to the permanent population.
An excellent FT pod ‘The Economics Show with Soumaya Keynes podcast. How will falling fertility rates hurt the economy? With Melissa Kearney Strained public finances will only feel more pressure’
The above mislabelled immigrants, as temporary ‘churn’ like tourists are the solution to budget stress from ageing and low fertilty vs. eg. Truss disaster, flirting with ‘Kochonomics’? (Outcome? Crash budgets, government, tax revenue and services, then reengineer for the 21stC with 19thC ‘segregation economics’).
On Tanton Network & white nationalists, their publishing arm TSCP described by SPLC as ‘routinely publishes race-baiting articles penned by white nationalists. The press is a program of U.S. Inc, the foundation created by John Tanton, the racist founder and principal ideologue of the modern nativist movement.’
TSCP puts an academic veneer of legitimacy over what are essentially racist arguments about the inferiority of today’s immigrants.’