MELBOURNE – On 31 August 2025, large crowds in cities such as Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide took part in “March for Australia” protests. Organizers described these events as a response to “mass migration”, arguing that rising immigration levels had worsened housing shortages, pushed up living costs, and made jobs harder to find.
Many participants also said they felt national identity was under threat. In the aftermath, both the Australian government and major news outlets acted quickly. Officials and reporters described the protests as harmful and aligned them with far-right extremism, often minimizing or dismissing the breadth of public concern.
Some have raised concerns about apparent efforts by the government and media to direct the public narrative or quiet anti-immigration sentiment.
The Labour government, under Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, quickly condemned the rallies. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke and Multicultural Affairs Minister Anne Aly labelled the protests as “un-Australian”, accusing participants of sowing hate and threatening social unity.
Burke said, “There is no place in our country for people who seek to divide and undermine our social cohesion”. Aly stated that multiculturalism is central to Australia and that the protests were rooted in racism.
Other federal ministers, including Amanda Rishworth and Murray Watt, supported these statements, with Watt describing the rallies as both divisive and hateful.
National news outlets such as ABC, SBS, The Guardian Australia, and The Age strongly backed the government’s view. Reports often focused on the attendance of neo-Nazis and far-right personalities, like Thomas Sewell from the National Socialist Network, even as protest organizers tried to distance themselves from such groups.
ABC News ran a detailed report linking organizers to white supremacist and pro-Nazi social media posts, suggesting the protests stemmed from extremist ideas. The Guardian described the rallies as being “promoted by neo-Nazis” and mostly shared the government’s negative assessment, centring coverage on far-right involvement over everyday concerns.
SBS and other news organizations fact-checked protest claims, such as suggestions of a record surge in immigration. They quoted data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), which set net overseas migration at 341,000 for 2024, 37 percent lower than the 2022-23 high of 538,000, to show that migration had actually dropped.
Reports also corrected the claim that 1,500 migrants arrived in Australia daily, stressing that this number included tourists as well as returning residents, not new permanent settlers. Fact-checking and the effort to correct misinformation frequently took precedence, drawing attention away from issues like housing costs and job competition, and painting the rallies largely as a reaction to misleading or extremist ideas.
Media commentaries featured expert voices, such as Abul Rizvi and Alan Gamlen, who said that concern over migration numbers was misplaced, and pointed blame elsewhere for Australia’s housing crisis.
Gamlen pointed out that property prices rose sharply during the pandemic and low-immigration years, making a case that tax rules helping investors were the real problem. Outlets repeated these arguments, creating a united stance that mostly dismissed the protesters’ worries as being without merit or driven by racial bias.
Public Attitudes Towards Immigration
Despite the official line, surveys and the turnout at these rallies show many Australians remain uneasy about immigration levels. SBS News, citing a Lowy Institute poll, reported that 53 percent of Australians feel the number of migrants is too high, with only 38 percent saying it is too low and 7 percent saying numbers are about right. These figures suggest that more than half the country shares broad concerns raised by the protests, even if they do not agree with every slogan or speaker.
Attendance at the rallies was strong, with up to 8,000 people in Sydney, 15,000 in Adelaide, and tens of thousands nationwide. Organizers highlighted concrete worries, such as rising house prices, stagnant wages, growing strain on services, and more intense competition for jobs, especially in lower-skilled fields. Social media buzz captured real public frustration. One Reddit post on r/Sydney described the local rental market as “utterly f**ked”, echoing the experiences of many younger Australians locked out of housing.
Housing shortages stood out as the main reason people rallied. Australian property prices have soared, driven by a mix of low supply, high demand, and rules like a 50 percent capital gains tax discount and negative gearing, which let wealthy investors buy multiple homes.
This activity keeps first-time home buyers and renters on the sidelines. Although extra migration does add to rental demand, many experts point to investors and labour shortages in building as the bigger drivers.
Claims that migrants are taking jobs face scrutiny. Liz Allen from the Australian National University dismissed these fears, highlighting that new arrivals often fill shortages in vital sectors like care, health, and engineering. At the same time, immigration has led to more competition for entry-level or labour roles, making it harder for some locals to secure work and keep wages steady.
SBS flagged a study showing that 620,000 skilled migrants in Australia are working in lower-level jobs, due to factors such as discrimination and not enough support for skills recognition. The ABS reported 339,400 job vacancies in May 2025, reflecting both skill shortages and an ageing population. Altogether, this paints a picture of a job market with plenty of push and pull factors, not one simple story.
Critical Review
The approach from leaders and media appears designed to sideline anti-immigration rallies, highlighting links to extremists while saying little about economic worries many share. With so much focus placed on far-right groups and disputed data, issues like affordable housing and job opportunities receive less attention, even though they touch the lives of a significant segment of the population.
While the government’s defence of multiculturalism is important, it often avoids deeper policy problems, such as tax settings and a lack of public investment in construction and skills.
News coverage, often in step with government statements, sometimes left the impression that anyone critical of immigration is prejudiced or misinformed. Given the size of the crowds and the survey results, it seems clear that concern about migration is widespread and linked to cost-of-living pressures.
Official numbers show that migration has fallen, but the feeling of “mass migration” remains, in part because of ongoing struggles related to housing and services.
Australian officials and major news outlets have worked closely to present the “March for Australia” protests as hateful and linked to the far right, using the presence of extremist figures as proof. While not all claims from protesters stack up, the deeper worries about rising costs and tough competition for housing and jobs are real for many, with over half the population saying immigration levels are too high.
By putting energy into condemning the rallies rather than addressing the structural economic issues at their core, both government and media risk further alienating the public and stoking more unrest. Finding a balance between supporting multiculturalism and getting to the bottom of housing and labour market problems may be needed to ease the concerns of many Australians.
