Australians Against Further Immigration (AAFI) is a political party founded and led by Rodney Spencer and his wife Robyn Spencer. Prominently displayed on their site are links to U.S. organizations seeking to eliminate immigration to the US. So you can imagine how surprised I was to find out their own son was an immigrant to the U.S. Jesse Spencer, an actor who currently plays Dr. Robert Chase on the TV series House immigrated to the US. Despite this, he is quoted as saying he is still close to his parents and that they are very proud of him. ????? Even though he committed the very action they are most opposed to? How do they even begin to justify this?
Story Regarding Rodney Spencer
He goes on to speak of Asians being self-propagating to the point of becoming a “critical mass” and becoming “uncontrollable”. Ultimately, says Spencer, [they] “will have all the top positions, and you'll have a scenario for resentment”.
Journalist Andrew Silberberg found a “disturbing association between key leaders of AAFI and racist, anti-semitic groups and publications”.
“Two wongs don't make a white”, sneers a headline in the virulently racist NSW publication, the National Reporter.
“The latest edition of the Reporter states: `This newsletter exists solely due to the voluntary efforts, sacrifices and generous donations of many hardworking Australians, some of whom we would like to acknowledge here: ... R. & R.S. - Armadale'”, reports Silberberg. On their own admission, R&RS are the Spencers."I also found this story
The party has long-standing connections to far-right anti-immigration groups. Many of its members have regularly made remarks on the public record which could be construed as racist.
Party founders Dr Rodney and Robyn Spencer donated to and endorsed the National Reporter newspaper in the early 90's - a paper that ran a stream of white supremacist propaganda.
In 1996, in two separate findings, the Australian Press Council found that the Australian Jewish News was entitled to call AAFI "racist" and "extremist".
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5 comments:
"you'll have a scenario for resentment"
It's a classic restrictionist technique: immigrants make me resentful and cause divisions in our heretofore peacefully unified society, so they have to go.
The argument that "you are different from me in a way that I resent, so stop it--it's un-American," should not be an acceptable public policy argument, but somehow it gets a lot of play in the immigration debate. The "resentment" argument has been around awhile, previously used by racist segregationists, whose remnants now constitute much of the restrictionist movement in the U.S. Also, in my somewhat limited experience, Australia has some deep-seated issues with race.
It's got nothing to do with racism and everything to do with preserving the earth. It's finite. We cannot have eternal growth. There are already too many of us consuming limited resources and despoiling nature. Australia is the driest continent. All our population centres are labouring under water restrictions. The solution to that issue, and to traffic congestion, health care waiting lists, housing shortages and the catalogue of population-related issues is to stop bringing more people into the country. We can't solve the problems of other countries whose annual population growth exceeds the entire Australian population. Canadian visitors who were here for Xmas tell us the issues and community feeling is the same there. It's time for the silent majority to get militant and let the politicians know in plain terms that they should stop listening to the beneficiaries of growth economics and start listening to the electorate.
Greynomad, I hope you don't mean it when you use the term "Militant". Immigrants are people, in fact they could even be your relatives as demonstrated by the Spencers. Violence will not get you the outcome you desire.
I consider myself to be an environmentalist as well but I know engouh to udnerstnad it is a global problem not one isolated to a paticualr country. The environment does not stop at your nation's boundaries.Stopping immigration to Australia will not solve anything. hardy anyone lives on the North Pole yet that is one of the most affected areas in the world.
Almost every country in the world faces a water shortage. Australia is not alone. It is a global problem and one that Australia would face regardless of immigration policies.
greynomad for your sake and for others please do not go "militant".
I'm an environmentalist too (everyone cares about the environment and kittens, and no one is a racist), but Malthusian alarmism has no place in a reasoned environmentalism, especially when it tends towards nativism. John Tanton started out as a lefty environmentalist, then he founded the modern restrictionist movement in the U.S., largely motivated by dubious concerns about overpopulation. Malthus was wrong 200 years ago and he's still wrong today, as are his modern proponents. Developed countries--the ones most concerned about immigration--are the least susceptible to overpopulation since birth rates universally decline once a country gets rich. This has to do with more equitable distribution of resources in democracies (read Sen on the absence of famine in India since 1947), increased options for women, better health care (people are more certain their kids will survive), and general increased wealth.
Also, greynomad, if you're really concerned about Australia's lack of water, why don't you go back to Britain or wherever your ancestors came from where there's lots of the wet stuff (unless you are indigenous, in which case please ignore this paragraph). People on the continent did just fine until white people arrived and started overpopulating the place. If your arguments were consistent, you'd apply them to yourself as well.
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