In a striking turn in Brazil, Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of Jair Bolsonaro, the former President now serving his 27-year prison sentence under house arrest for plotting a coup after his 2022 election defeat, has narrowly pulled ahead of incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – known universally as Lula. As is common in the largest country in Latin America, chaos surrounds the election: Flávio is under investigation over alleged corruption and money laundering, while the Supreme Court has postponed a decision on whether a Justice should himself be investigated. The fate of the country swings in the balance. I cannot help but think of Australia.
Years ago, Brazil’s major cities underwent a social, cultural and demographic shift not unlike what Australia is seeing today. Enormous numbers of migrants swept from the poorer northern states into the cities in search of jobs. As one writer put it, “Rio de Janeiro has always had slums, but the favelas popularized by movies like City of God and Elite Squad mushroomed in size in the mid–20th century”. What drove the mass migration was no mystery: “Local politicians and nabobs were in search of the famous $2-per-day wage favored by oligarchs worldwide, so they imported a population that would work twelve hours a day in the hot sun for next to no pay.” In one move, he wrote, “Rio’s oligarchs achieved both a decline in their labor costs and the political elimination of their traditional competitor, the middle class.” It also partly explains why Brazil is how it is today. It’s a story that should be taken as a warning for Australia.
There, the battle over immigration is just beginning. The national-populist One Nation party, headed by Pauline Hanson, has risen from 6.4 per cent to a high of 30 percent of the primary vote. In an attempt to win back votes, both Labor and the Liberal Party have committed to immigration cuts, but have yet to commit to anything drastic. A poll conducted by the Institute of Public Affairs shows that most Australians want immigration in the low tens of thousands, another in 2025 late shows the majority of Australians want a pause in immigration to let housing, infrastructure and social services catch up. And yet, all major parties have stuck to a net-overseas migration figure in the six figures.
