CheckMate is a weekly newsletter from RMIT FactLab recapping the latest in the world of fact checking and misinformation. It draws on the work of FactLab's researchers and journalists, including its CrossCheck unit, and of its sister organisation, RMIT ABC Fact Check.
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CheckMate March 31, 2023
Good morning,
This week, we investigate Pauline Hanson's claim that an increase in the number of migrants means Labor has broken an election promise.
We also check out claims that a "let women speak" campaigner was held at knifepoint, and get to the bottom of a statement supposedly made by former Labor leader Kim Beazley which has been shared widely by campaigners for the "no" vote in the upcoming Voice referendum.
Pauline Hanson says Labor broke an 'election promise' on migration. Did it even exist?
A suggestion by One Nation leader Pauline Hanson that an increase in the number of migrants coming to Australia amounts to a broken election promise from Labor doesn't stack up, CheckMate has found.
Over recent weeks, Senator Hanson has drawn attention to the discrepancy between official forecasts that Australia was on track to record an increase of 235,000 in net overseas migration in 2022-23 and the actual number, which is likely to top 300,000.
"[Prime Minister] Anthony Albanese's broken immigration election promise means Australia is facing an influx of 300,000+ foreign arrivals this year alone!" Senator Hanson tweeted in one instance.
A graph shared by Senator Hanson in another tweet (with no timeline provided) suggested that while Labor "promised" 235,000 immigrants, more than 300,000 had arrived.
"Another day, another broken promise from Labor!" the accompanying caption read.
On Facebook, the senator wrote that Mr Albanese "lied about immigration".
"Labor promised to keep it steady but instead we are looking at 400,000 new foreign arrivals by the end of this year."
However, CheckMate could find no evidence that Labor ever promised to cap or set a target on migration levels prior to the election.
For one thing, Labor's official 2022 election policy platform, archived by the Analysis and Policy Observatory (APO), did not contain a migration target or cap.
Nor did the ALP National Platform adopted in 2021, which set out a plan to "build a stronger nation through migration" while ensuring a migration program that "favours permanent over temporary migration".
"The size and composition of Australia's migration intake will take into account net overseas migration, its effects on employment and training opportunities for Australian residents, demographic trends and other factors, while responding to current and longer-term economic needs," it states.
Indeed, public statements made by Labor politicians about migration in the lead-up to the 2022 election were vague at best, with a search of Labor policy documents and media transcripts also failing to uncover any mention of a migration target or cap, let alone a specific figure.
Three days before the poll, then-shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers told journalists Labor was trying to "work out" what the "best version" of Australia's migration program would look like.
"What's the best mix when it comes to skilled and unskilled [migrants]?" he pondered.
"[As well as] all the other considerations; temporary, permanent.
"How do we get the best kind of migration program, which recognises that migration is good for our society and good for our economy, but it needs to be a robust program where people aren't getting exploited, and where we're filling our skills needs, not as a substitute for training or for other policies that boost participation."
Mr Chalmers made similar remarks during a pre-election debate, stating: "We are up for a sensible conversation about the optimal migration mix as we emerge from the pandemic."
Senator Hanson's office did not reply to a request from CheckMate for the source on which she based her claims.
… and what about the numbers?
As for her numbers, the figure of 235,000 migrants comes from a forecast made by the Australian government's Centre for Population, which provides net overseas migration (NOM) projections for the Treasury, including for use in the federal budget.
NOM refers to the net gain or loss of population as a result of immigration/emigration — that is, the number of people who moved to Australia minus the number of people who left.
In last October's budget, the centre forecast NOM to rise from 150,000 in 2021-22 to 235,000 in 2022-23, returning to pre-pandemic levels.
As Senator Hanson noted, however, data released recently by the Australian Bureau of Statistics suggests that forecast fell well short of reality.
Although reflecting a different time period to the centre's forecast (which was for the 2022-23 financial year), the bureau's latest quarterly population data, published on March 16, took the net increase in migrants in the year to September 2022 to 303,700.
This discrepancy has been acknowledged by Mr Chalmers, now treasurer, who said in a news conference in January that "it is a reasonable assumption" that a NOM of 235,000 predicted for 2022-23 "may be higher" and that projections would be updated in the lead-up to the May budget.
No, a women's rights activist was not held at knifepoint during an Auckland rally
A week after British activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull (aka Posie Parker) made headlines when she attended a Melbourne rally at which neo-Nazis openly gave the Nazi salute, the "let women speak" campaigner — widely seen as being opposed to trans rights — was back in the news.
Ms Keen-Minshull was forced to abandon an event in Auckland on Sunday after being booed, heckled and doused with tomato juice, and was escorted under police protection to her car through an angry crowd of counter protesters.
Since then, a still frame taken from footage of the event has been viewed millions of times online showing a thin dark object being pressed against what appears to be the campaigner's neck and a hand apparently gripping the other side.
The image has been widely shared, including by Harry Potter author JK Rowling, who has 14 million followers on Twitter. But others sharing the image went so far as to claim that "trans thugs" had held a knife to Ms Keen-Minshull's throat.
However, as RMIT FactLab's CrossCheck team has found, these claims are false.
The original YouTube video shows that the object was, in fact, a mobile phone attached to a selfie stick held by a supporter standing next to Ms Keen-Minshull.
And, it would appear that the hand seen holding her neck belonged to a member of her security detail.
No evidence that Labor luminary foreshadowed a 'totalitarian republic' via Voice referendum
The former Labor leader and governor of Western Australia Kim Beazley has been dragged into the Voice to Parliament debate, as social media users against the proposal repackage a years-old fabrication that draws on the language of the so-called sovereign citizen movement.
Numerous Facebook posts have argued that the "real reason" for the Voice referendum is to create a "contract" between the government and Indigenous Australians, which would then allow the United Nations to "take control over ownership of housing, farms, property and business" and help realise its "secretive push for a totalitarian republic".
So what's this got to do with Mr Beazley?
According to the posts: "In 1990, Federal Politician Kim Beasley [sic] made a statement in response to [Labor] Senator [John] Button's question in the Australian Federal Parliament about whether there should be a republic."
Mr Beazley was said to have responded: "The United Nations has given the federal government a mandate of ownership for housing, farms, property and business to government control once the REPUBLIC has been proclaimed."
The problem is, it never happened.
In an email to CheckMate, Mr Beazley said the quote was "complete rubbish", particularly as it would make no sense for him to be fielding questions from a "senate cabinet colleague" on the same side of politics and in the wrong chamber of parliament.
"It is meaningless," he said, adding that the UN "doesn't give us a mandate on anything".
"Can't recall saying anything like that or a context in which l would say it."
Indeed, a search of the federal parliamentary Hansard reveals just four instances of Mr Beazley uttering the phrase "United Nations" in parliament between July 1987 and March 1993 (the 35th and 36th parliaments, which straddle 1990).
Of these, three were about the 1990 Gulf War, while the third was in relation to the tabling of documents in parliament.
During this period, the only time Mr Beazley uttered the words "united", "nations" and "mandate" in the same speech was during the second reading of a telecommunications bill in 1991.
CheckMate also searched for statements by the late Senator Button, but found just one that mentioned the word "republic" in 1990 — again, regarding the Gulf War.
The fabricated quote has been circulating since at least 2014, when it appeared in a petition urging Australians not to forget the nation's constitution.
The latest social media posts incorporate references to conspiracy theories about the World Economic Forum that have flourished during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Edited by Ellen McCutchan and David Campbell, with thanks to Esther Chan
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