MEDIA SHAME FILE
Outlet: Nine News
Headline: Record number of working holidaymakers
Summary: When is it okay for the corporate media to do a negative story on immigrants, accusing them of driving up housing prices, leaving litter everywhere and refusing to leave? When they are British backpackers, of course.
This is corporate media gaslighting at its finest, as Nine News cherry-picks data and quotes to blame British and other Europeans on working holiday visas for all of the economic and social problems caused by immigration.
Let’s have a look at how they do this:
- “Tons of tourists causing trouble on our beaches” the narrator says over footage of pale bodies not causing trouble in the water, and then switching to footage of rubbish being cleaned off Bronte Beach after the annual British backpacker-dominated Christmas party there. Meanwhile the whole of western Sydney is absolutely covered in garbage dumped in parks and on the streets by third world immigrants.
- A contextless soundbite from Labor minister Bill Shorten: “Australia has this problem that a lot of people want to come here” followed by data showing that a record 213,000 people are currently in Australia on working holiday visas, up 40,000 this year, 20% from the UK along with large proportions from France, Ireland and Japan. No mention of course of the 1.4 million immigrants who have arrived since May 2022, or the 1 million plus international students in the country.
- “What’s happened is the people who are here on visas are staying longer than expected”. Shorten again, loyally parroting the government’s excuse for why their migration forecasts blew out two years in a row. No mention of course of that fact that the “people refusing to leave” are mainly international students, visa hoppers and fake asylum seekers.
- “It almost seems like every time the Prime Minister travels to another country, they’re itching to announce a new working holidaymaker visa”. That’s Abul Rizvi, the media’s go-to brown guy who will mildly criticise immigration. No mention of course that the only new countries working holiday visa program this year were India, China, and Vietnam. We covered the story in October while the corporate media ignored it. Rizvi acknowledged this only for Nine to leave it out, but regardless their contextless use of his quote here implies that he’s talking about backpackers from White countries.
- “When young Australians can’t get a start on home ownership, can’t even get a rental, that’s not the way to run migration policy”. That’s Sussan Ley, the deputy Liberal Party leader who supports the replacement of Australian workers in her electorate by immigrant labour brought in by multinational corporations. Again, the implication here is that British backpackers are to blame for the housing and rental crises.
- They then talk about the need to train Australians rather than bringing in immigrants, which is true, but it just adds to the overall impression given by the story that the problems are driven by European working holidaymakers. “You have to skill Australians first,” says Sussan Ley (unless it’s in Corowa).
Clearly the corporate media thinks it’s okay to talk honestly about the problems caused by immigration, as long as you can blame White people for it.
Key quote: “It almost seems like every time the Prime Minister travels to another country, they’re itching to announce a new working holidaymaker visa”
Subtext: “Okay, fine, we can’t deny it any longer, immigration is a problem, but it’s nothing to do with the millions of Indians, Chinese, other Asians, Arabs and Africans who are suddenly everywhere.”
