Ted Brill stands outside the Ebenezer Church and surveys the paddocks before him.
asserted
Brill → stand → him
It was here, two centuries ago, that Australia’s first migrant town was established.
asserted
town → establish → ?
On a ship built in Bangladesh, eight free families from different denominations arrived from Britain in 1802: Davison, Hall, Howe, Johnston, Johnstone, Mein, Stubbs and Turnbull.
asserted
families → build → 1802
“They wanted more freedom in their worship,” says Brill.
asserted
Brill → want → worship
They were merchants, teachers and religious ministers who survived floods and famine.
asserted
who → survive → floods
Before they built Australia’s oldest standing church and school, the Ebenezer families prayed under a red gum tree.
asserted
families → build → tree
Half of it still stands, a living monument to the generations of migrants who used the Hawkesbury River in NSW as their highway, transporting their food and their dead for burial, on land occupied for 50,000 years by the Indigenous Darug people.
asserted
who → stand → people
Australia’s oldest migrant town is now almost 90 per cent Australian-born.
asserted
town → bear → ?
“We bought the paddock across the road to keep the development away,” says Brill, former school principal-turned-local historian, and secretary of the church.
asserted
Brill → buy → church
Ebenezer’s southern edge sits right on the development fringe reshaping Australia’s cities, from The Ponds in Sydney’s north-west to Tarneit in south-west Melbourne, driven partly by populations more likely to come from Kolkata or Manila than Edinburgh or London.
asserted
edge → sit → Edinburgh
These outer suburban districts share three factors: high migration levels, strong house price growth, and infrastructure strain.
asserted
districts → share → factors
They are also areas One Nation must challenge, if it is to be a credible opposition or government, as it tries to frame the next federal poll as an immigration election.
asserted
it → challenge → election
“We are very much in the mind for the western suburbs of Sydney,” One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce declared after the party won the Farrer byelection in May.
uncertain
party → declare → May
One Nation has so far announced 36 candidates for the upcoming Victorian state election, including 31 running for the lower house, mostly in outer suburban and regional seats.
asserted
Nation → announce → seats
In Tarneit, on Melbourne’s western fringe, the neatly planned streets hum with the sound of construction.
asserted
streets → plan → construction
Builders hammer at the timber frame of a new detached house.
asserted
Builders → hammer → house
A rumbling bobcat clears a dusty paddock, preparing for another subdivision.
asserted
bobcat → rumble → subdivision
Today it has more than 60,000 residents.
asserted
it → have → residents
Mandy Gupta moved to Australia from India nine years ago on a permanent skilled migration visa.
asserted
Gupta → move → visa
The IT expert says his life in Tarneit is better than he ever expected.
asserted
he → say → Tarneit
He is raising his three Australian-born children here.
asserted
He → raise → children
“I would never even imagine going back,” he says.
asserted
he → imagine → ?
But rapid population growth is putting immense pressure on Tarneit’s essential infrastructure.
asserted
growth → put → infrastructure
Roads are increasingly congested, and country V/Line trains overflow as they pass through the suburb.
asserted
they → congest → suburb
The local Wyndham Council says it is already woefully short of swimming pools and sports facilities.
asserted
it → say → pools
It forecasts Tarneit and nearby Truganina will grow from 111,000 residents to 180,000 over the next 20 years.
asserted
Tarneit → forecast → years
In Tarneit, average traffic speed has fallen by 9 per cent in the past five years, according to data obtained by HERE traffic analytics.
uncertain
speed → fall → analytics
Even after accounting for COVID-19 lockdowns, drivers are taking longer to go where they want to go.
asserted
they → account → lockdowns
Nearby Point Cook has seen its population jump by 8 per cent since 2021, while its average speed has dropped by almost 18 per cent.
asserted
speed → see → cent
The same phenomenon is playing out in Sydney.
asserted
phenomenon → play → Sydney
Blacktown in Sydney’s west has had average speeds drop from 61km/h in 2024 to 55km/h this year.
asserted
speeds → have → km/h
In Penrith, the average congestion has grown from 12.5 per cent in 2023 to 15.4 per cent this year.
asserted
congestion → grow → cent
Gupta says the pressures are real.
asserted
pressures → say → ?
“There’s no balance between the number of people who are migrating and the investment,” he says.
asserted
he → ’ → people
“[But] you can’t put everything on immigration.”
asserted
you → put → immigration
Instead of public debate being focused on solutions to infrastructure funding and housing supply, the Indian community is bearing the brunt of an anti-immigrant backlash.
asserted
community → focus → backlash
Gupta says Indian friends are reluctant to go into the city because of far-right anti-migration rallies, and fear being abused or assaulted on public transport, or at pubs and nightclubs.
asserted
friends → say → pubs
“Migrants are blamed for a whole lot of issues.
asserted
Migrants → blame → issues
Why are they not focusing on the significant contribution that migrants make?
asserted
migrants → focus → that
Migrants are starting new businesses and filling labour shortages in critical sectors.
asserted
Migrants → start → sectors
…and 87 more, not listed.
The Aporia
