NSW Premier Condemns One Nation Candidate Stuart Bonds' 'Demographic Replacement' Claims as 'Outrageous and Racist'

On Sunday, in Sydney's CBD, several hundred people gathered for an anti-immigration rally under a sea of Australian flags. The man who spoke to them, Stuart Bonds, is the lead candidate on One Nation's New South Wales upper house ticket. What he said there has since drawn rebukes from the state premier, the Australian Human Rights Commission and a federal minister.

Bonds told the crowd that Australians were being "demographically replaced inside our own nation." He reached that claim after referring to abortion rates in Europe, the United States and Australia. If the country did not support Australian mothers having Australian children, he said, it would end up paying to bring up the children of other cultures. He warned that unless it was stopped, the change would be "impossible to reverse."

He also set out his idea of what a country is: a shared culture, border, flag and language, plus a dominant religion. He said that after 240 years Australians were told they were on stolen land and expected to apologise for being here, yet were also expected to accept that an immigrant arriving yesterday is as Australian as anyone else. Referring to the Bondi shooters, he said he did not accept that people like them were as Australian as his audience. He described a "socialist plan" to tear down the fabric of civilisation, pointed to European countries "on fire," and said Australia was heading toward becoming a special economic zone within Asia.

The crowd was not limited to ordinary attendees. At least one neo-Nazi, Joel Davis, was spotted there, as was Lyle Shelton, national director of the Family First party and a former head of the Australian Christian Lobby.

Premier Chris Minns called the remarks "frankly outrageous and racist." He said replacement theory was a conspiracy theory imported from the United States. Minns then turned to the election, asking voters to consider which portfolio Bonds might hold if One Nation won power. "Trade, education, Treasury?" he asked, wondering what job Bonds would have in a Coalition-One Nation government. He also asked whether the Coalition would distance itself from such views.

The race discrimination commissioner, Giridharan Sivaraman, spoke on Monday. Suggesting some Australians are superior to others, he said, sows division and hate. The idea that migrants can never truly be Australian, he said, ignores both history and a shared future. He noted that successive generations of people from around the world have shaped the nation, which he said has the longest continuous culture in the world. Periods of uncertainty, he added, have often seen minority communities cast as scapegoats, and migrants are too often portrayed as the cause of Australia's problems. Blaming them, he said, is inaccurate and risks fuelling division, exclusion and racism. Migrants, in his words, are central to the Australian story.

The reaction reached Canberra too. Anne Aly, the federal minister for multicultural affairs, said Australians with migrant backgrounds are not replacing anyone; they are simply Australians. Questioning someone's right to belong because of race or ancestry, she said, is not a debate about immigration but is divisive and dangerous.

The stakes are electoral. Bonds will top One Nation's upper house ticket, and on current polling he is likely to be elected at the state election in March. The Guardian sought comment from Mark Coure, the Coalition's spokesperson on multiculturalism, and from One Nation's NSW headquarters. Whether the Coalition answers Minns's question about distancing itself is the thing to watch.