Australia’s main opposition party vowed yesterday to cut the number of immigrants allowed into the country if it wins next month’s elections.
The nation’s rapid population growth and an increase in asylum seekers, mainly from Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, have become major issues ahead of the Aug. 21 elections.
Critics argue that the major parties are developing immigration policies that pander to racism within Australia’s predominantly Christian society — claims the parties deny.
Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey, a member of the Liberal Party and the son of Lebanese immigrants, said Australia’s current intake of nearly 300,000 immigrants a year was not sustainable. His party said it would cut that number to 170,000.
“The Australian people are concerned about the lack of integrity in the immigration program at the moment,” Hockey told Nine Network television. “We are responding accordingly; our number will take us back to a reasonable level.”
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong, a member of the ruling Labor Party whose father is Malaysian, said her party’s immigration plan would be based on existing population trends that would most likely see the number of immigrants decrease to 175,000 in the current fiscal year and to 145,000 next year and in 2012.
“It’s not really a policy, it’s a projection,” she told Network Ten television.
Meanwhile, in a bid to quiet critics who say the party is pandering to racism in the country, the Liberal Party announced it was dropping a candidate in Sydney who had attacked his opponent over his religion in Facebook postings.
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