Visas based on class and hypocrisy

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Bill F.

While poor and desperate refugees from war-torn and devastated countries are incarcerated and abused by the Australian government, quick and easy visas are being granted to millionaires from China.

An article by Eryk Bagshaw in the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age exposes the hypocrisy of both the Australian and Chinese governments and the class interests they serve. See (https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/millionaire-migrants-pouring-into-australia-20180706-p4zpzm.html )

Quoting Department of Home Affairs data, the article points out that “Visa applications in the Business Innovation and Investment Programme, which includes investors with more than $1 million in business assets, jumped by 74 per cent in 2016-17 up from 5781 to 9051. Of those 7260 were approved, compared to 6484 in 2014-15.”

The figures make a mockery of claims by the Business Council of Australia and its government lackeys that the corporate and top income tax rates need to be cut to attract foreign investment when Australia has brought in more millionaires than any other country, including low-tax Singapore (15%).

Fat-cat millionaires with dollars to invest can get their residency visa inside of two months, without completing the usual immigration and English language tests. A ‘significant investor stream’ further encourages those with $5 million in spare cash. These visas allow the family to move to Australia and their children to attend schools and universities, but only really require the visa holder to spend 40 days actually living in the country.

These special visas have been tailored to satisfy the demands of big business in Australia for more and more capital, much of which has previously benefitted the interests of US and European imperialisms as the dominant economic influences. Yet this influence is now coming increasingly under challenge from Chinese interests and those sections of the local ruling class that are shifting their loyalties.  
China (including Hong Kong) accounts for more than 90 per cent of the high-wealth visa applications, with much smaller numbers from Malaysia, South Africa, and more recently, Vietnam.

Yet China has passed laws nominally restricting individuals from exchanging any more than US$50,000 (in Chinese currency) in a year. Bank and government approval is also required for any single transaction exceeding US$5 million and for investment transfers of larger amounts. None of this seems to deter the new class of Chinese millionaires seeking Australian residency and investing in the corporations and multinational companies that dominate monopoly capitalism here. Presumably much of it just gets ticked off by the Chinese government.

State-supervised capitalism is not socialism

And how did all these Chinese millionaires arise? Why has such massive inequality developed in a ‘socialist’ country and how can you have socialism without collective ownership and control by the working class? 

Could it have something to do with the changes in China since 1983 – the dismantling of the communes and the privatisation of land forcing millions of peasants into the cities to become cheap labour for local and foreign capitalists and so-called ‘entrepreneurs’. Could it have something to do with the privatisation of many government industries and institutions, including healthcare and education? Could it have something to do with the influx of multinational corporations into China’s special economic zones? Have these developments embracing capitalism led to wide-spread corruption and nepotism and the decay of socialist morality?

Australian independence from imperialism

The interests of the Australian people are not served by foreign investors and tax-dodging corporations from either the US or China jostling for control of our industries and resources. The local national bourgeoisie is silent on this, crushed and intimidated by the greedy banks and collaborating politicians. The working class is the only force capable of asserting national independence and mobilising the people to take control of our country. 

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