The University of Melbourne’s Labor Club has been mocked over a promotional video where most of the participants were non-Australian.
The video, filmed at Parliament House in Canberra, featured seven members of the club explaining the benefits of joining with sentences beginning with “We’re the Labor Club, of course…” – a format popular on TikTok.
“We’re the Labor Club, of course we’re going to take you to Canberra for the Federal Budget,” said the first speaker, an Indian woman who was followed by an Indian man, a White Australian, an Asian woman, a woman of Middle Eastern appearance, another Indian woman, and another Asian woman.
The six non-White Australians all had thick accents, and several struggled to deliver their lines.
Checking in on Young Labor pic.twitter.com/BLIF3TmChc
— Dr. J Walter Sparkey 💉💉💉💉 (@ockerincel77) June 11, 2024
The video has attracted criticism since it was posted on the club’s Instagram account on May 21, with one X user sharing it with a caption mocking the meme format: “We’re the Labor Club, of course there’s only one person in this video with an Australian accent.”
“We’re the Labor Club, of course we were born overseas,” read one comment on that post.
Another user shared the clip with the title “Checking in on Young Labor” and attracted dozens of similar comments.
“We’re the Labor club, of course we weren’t born in your country, saar,” said one.
“We’re Young Labor, of course we’re going to help facilitate White replacement,” said another.
“We’re the Labor club, of course we can’t pronounce basic English words,” a third wrote.
The video appears to have been filmed during the club’s trip to Canberra during the Federal Budget in May, where members met Labor Education Minister Jason Clare, MP Cassandra Fernando who calls herself a “proud migrant” on social media, and West Australian senator Varun Ghosh.
Photos from the trip show that most of the club members seem to be of a migrant background, reflecting Labor’s open borders policies which have seen a record number of immigrants arrive in Australia since 2022.
More than 737,000 immigrants arrived in 2022-2023 financial year, including 93,000 from India, 64,000 Chinese, and 41,000 from the Philippines.
Hundreds of thousands more have arrived since then, and according to Labor’s budget figures more than 1 million new immigrants are expected to be allowed into Australia by mid-2028.
Official figures released in April showed that Australia is now 30.7% foreign-born – the highest proportion since Federation – with an immigrant population of 8.2 million, due to ten years of mass immigration pushed by both major parties.
