March for Australia demonstrations took place in capital cities and regional centres on Sunday, with media reporting known neo-Nazis speaking at events in Sydney and Melbourne as well as large counter-protests in many locations.
In Noosa about 40 people gathered in a circle at Lions Park Noosaville and voiced their opinions on immigration.
Protest organiser Russell Butler, 87, of Cooroy believes current immigration rates are “totally” to blame for shortages of housing and other services.
“Immigration has gone absolutely mad, forcing up the cost of housing, making our services dearer and less available. That even comes down to schools and preschools, hospitals and roads,” he said.
“The world is built on supply and demand.”
When asked about the need for immigrants to fill workforce shortages Mr Butler said there were plenty of workers in Australia to fill job vacancies.
“The system’s got to be changed whereby people in Australia on the dole have to be enticed to work by giving them less dole,” he said.
“There’s plenty of workers here. These migrants will come out here and work for less money. They’ll fill the job. Australians are too lazy, some of them are too lazy to do it while they’re getting large payments on the dole. It’s probably bringing the migrants in, that is giving people more and more chance to go on the dole.”
Mr Butler was pleased with the numbers who turned out for Sunday’s protest which was organised with only a post on social media and didn’t regard the event to be “far right wing at all”. “It’s standing up for Australia and our values and what we really feel is going wrong with the Labor government,” he said.
Other people spoke about the need to retain Australian values, about migrant integration and there were some anti-islamic comments.
“Islam is a religion or it’s an ideology and it does not dictate to Australians,” one man said.
“I was born in England. I’ve grown up in Australia.
“What I see happening in England is it’s being overrun by Muslims in immigration there, this is what’s going to happen here.
“We’ve got to band together as one and be Christian. If we’re going to love the Christian side we’re going to destroy the Islam faith in Australia.
“There’s not enough banding together as one.”
One woman said: “The thing with Australians – we’re happy to have people join us but with the same common goals and same values”.
“We’re over people trying to convert us to where they come from, where they’re trying to escape from and ruin our set of values,” she said.
One resident from a multi-generation local family whose heritage includes Greek, English and Lebanese, said the big difference between current and past immigration was integration.
“My family integrated,” he said. “There was integration. They became part of the community, they worked and they weren’t a drain on the community.”
“We’ve all come from somewhere else unless we’re Indigenous,” someone added.
According to the most recent Migration Program figures from the Department of Home Affairs, in 2023-24 there were 190,000 immigrants who arrived in Australia under the skill stream (137,100) to fill skill shortages, family stream (52,720) to unite with family members and special eligibility stream (180).
The top five countries of citizenship origin were India (49,814) China (21,804), Phillipines (11,922), Nepal (11,501) and UK (9908).
