Talking about the far-right immigration narrative that’s moving ever further into Australia’s political mainstream is about as much fun as having a colonoscopy but is similarly necessary and urgent.

With One Nation leading federal polls and the Liberal Party’s announcement that it wants to bring migration down to its lowest level since 2009, now is probably the wisest time to peek into the future that they aspire to for Australia, before we wake up in late 2028 to discover there’s a shortage of nurses and we’re all eating government-mandated traditional British food like spotted dick, which is a dessert made with mutton fat that sounds like it’s contracted a venereal disease.

The story that the far-right is telling is a compelling one: the West, and particularly the left, needs to wake up to the threat of invasion by brown and black people, before it leads to the erasure of Anglo-Celtic culture and the extinction of the white race. (I believe I might be part of the invasion vanguard. Still awaiting orders, if so.)

Their story has three distinct acts. There is the problem, which is the threat of immigrant invasion; the cause, widely believed to be an organised conspiracy named the great replacement theory and the solution, known as remigration. While the concept of invasion is familiar, the great replacement theory and the term remigration have only relatively recently entered the political mainstream.

The central claim of the great replacement theory is that changing demographics in the West are evidence of a conspiracy by leftist and Jewish elites to commit “white genocide”, through immigration policies that would allow new non-white, and particularly Muslim voters, to ultimately control political and cultural power. Tony Abbott, who is back in charge of the Liberal Party as federal president and, who has a long history of buying into this narrative, recently dog-whistled to this theory, writing: “To green-left, cultural Marxist governments, mass migration from the ‘global south’ is not a problem; it’s the plan.”

Conservatives who are genuinely afraid of co-ordinated political interference by religious groups could start by answering the call that’s coming from inside their house, given the secretive campaigning efforts of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church on behalf of the Liberal Party at the last federal election.

They’re not wrong, however, to claim that the great replacement theory is terrifying, only they completely misidentify who has the most reason to be fearful of it. The theory has become one of the primary drivers of racially motivated mass violence events globally, with Muslims and Jewish people comprising the overwhelming majority of victims. Since 2017, believers in the theory have been responsible for over a dozen mass murders, including the Australian Christchurch killer, who murdered 51 Muslims in 2019 and titled his manifesto “The Great Replacement”.

The theory leads to its proposed solution: remigration. This refers to the forced, mass removal of non-white immigrants and their descendants from Western countries, even if they’re citizens or legal residents.

In 2025, One Nation senator, Malcolm Roberts told an anti-immigration conference in Brisbane: “Remigration is the second part of my speech. Take the people who are not fitting in or that we don’t need and send them home.” When Pauline Hanson was asked in July if she agreed with a UK far-right party’s policy of mass deportations, she replied “I love it.”

Should One Nation end up governing Australia, they may follow the example of their MAGA friends in the US. In 2025, the Trump administration quietly set up an Office of Remigration in the State Department, with WIRED reporting: “There’s no mention (of the Office of Remigration) on the department’s social media feeds or even on the official website. There aren’t many details about when it was established, who is running the office, or what work it is carrying out.”

How remigration will Make America Great Again is also unclear, with Forbes reporting: “The Trump administration’s policies on immigration may reduce the projected number of workers in the United States by 6.8 million by 2028, lower the annual rate of economic growth by almost one-third, harming US living standards … and substantially increase the federal debt.”

Back in Australia, the math ain’t mathing for Hanson either. During a July podcast, Hanson stated that Australia is taking in 739,000 migrants a year (the correct number was 737,000). She didn’t mention it, but this was from the 2022-23 financial year when there was an anomaly of post-COVID returnees. Nor did she mention the 219,000 people who left Australia during that period, meaning the net migration figure was really 518,000. It’s telling that Hanson misused a statistic that she must have known was outdated.

The problem for Abbott and One Nation’s narrative is that since 2023, Australia’s migrant intake numbers have been on a downwards trajectory. In 2024-2025, Australia’s net migration number was 306,000. Over half of that was international students on temporary visas, who do not have voting rights, which means another 157,000 people can be discounted from the scary migrant-takeover-from-within story being told to anxious voters.

So if you know someone who is angry or frightened by immigration conspiracies, invite them over for afternoon tea. Gently remind them that they’re worrying about less than 150,000 annual migrants – about 0.5 per cent of Australia’s population – many of whom are the skilled workers that Australia desperately needs. This includes the 40 per cent of migrants who make up our healthcare workforce, with this figure climbing even higher in regional areas.

Then offer them a slice of spotted dick. If facts don’t change their mind, maybe that will.

Melanie La’Brooy is a novelist who writes on politics and social justice issues.

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