An anti-immigration TikToker was featured in the Daily Telegraph as a spokesperson for his self-founded “Migration Watch” but the News Corp tabloid failed to reveal his role as political adviser to a former One Nation MP.
Last week, the Daily Telegraph quoted “Jordan Knight of Migrant [sic] Watch Australia” in an article which blamed the shortage of social housing in New South Wales on the number of “families from overseas”.
Knight is the founder of Migration Watch Australia which advocates for a “pause” on immigration. But the article did not reveal Knight is also a political adviser to Rod Roberts, a New South Wales independent who recently left One Nation.
In the article, the Telegraph reported that “a shocking number of migrant families have taken up social housing across NSW, with new figures revealing more than 22% of all tenancies being lived in by families from overseas”.
The housing figures were based on data provided in an answer to a question on notice to the NSW housing minister, Rose Jackson, posed by the same politician, Roberts, the deputy president of the upper house.
According to Australian Bureau of Statistics, the share of Australians born overseas has surpassed 30% for the first time since 1893, but those figures include people who are not new arrivals and may have lived in the country for decades.
The article includes Knight’s quotes that “the ‘safety net’ of social housing for struggling families across NSW was being eroded” by migrants.
Migrant families are taking up more than 35,000 social housing tenancies across NSW. Here's how many are on the waitlist: https://t.co/DnqUrO2qxE pic.twitter.com/dbDkMVBMFt
— The Daily Telegraph (@dailytelegraph) April 28, 2024
“The best way to ease demand for social housing is to pull the lever on immigration,” he said.
Roberts told Guardian Australia that Knight is his adviser but he “does other things in his private time” which are “not relevant to his work for me”. He said his questions on notice were available to anyone to access and he didn’t give the data to the Telegraph.
Migration Watch Australia said on X it is a “a non-partisan grassroots group of like-minded Australians”, and appears to be a one-man shop which pumps out anti-immigration TikToks for Knight’s 7,698 followers and his 92 followers on Facebook.
In March, the Daily Telegraph published an opinion piece by Knight, who is also a regular contributor to the rightwing magazine Spectator Australia. The article argued Labor’s immigration policy was “putting us on a path toward ruin”.
“In the same way that images of bread lines came to signify the fall of the Soviet Empire, so too could these housing lines define the beginning of Sydney’s decline, unless something is done,” Knight wrote. The paper did not indicate he was a political staffer.
Knight took to TikTok with a photo of the article, telling his followers: “I just wanted to brag I was in the paper. We’re going to keep getting in the paper hopefully. I’m not going to go away. Keep pushing.”
Nine Entertainment’s Fordham has used Knight’s views more than once on his program. “It’s getting harder and harder to get a fair go,” Fordham said on air in response to Sunday’s housing article. “And the consequences for Aussies on the social housing waitlist has been catastrophic.”
Fordham declined to comment. Knight and the Daily Telegraph editor, Ben English, were contacted for comment.
In an interview with the Daily Mail in March, which does include references to his campaigning and political role, Knight said he couldn’t talk about immigration without being called racist.
“I’m predominately, 99% focused on the economics but, nevertheless, I’ve found even if you talk about that, you’re still going to get called a racist unfortunately but that’s just the name of the game,” Knight said.
Knight has grown his presence on social media since 2023. His website, Migration Watch Australia, urges the government to “pause immigration”, making claims such as “sometimes migrant communities vote in contrary to the local populace” and “immigration can bring crime, unemployment and negative social behaviours”.
Dr Kurt Sengul, who researches media populism at Macquarie University, said the Migration Watch Australia website contained “stock standard rightwing populist immigration talking points centred around culture, safety and jobs for local workers”.
“The arguments put forth by Migration Watch in their ‘reasons we need to hit pause now’ are consistent with Australia’s long history of anti-immigration politics.”
Knight did not respond to a request for comment.
