Population debate hides an ugly racism

This article was published in The Age 30 July 2010

Julia Gillard's ''right kind of migrants'' are people in her own image.

Nearly all commentators see the current ''population'' debate as confusing or conflating a number of issues: environmental sustainability, overcrowding, failing infrastructure - and the arrival of asylum seekers, despite their admittedly small and unthreatening numbers. However, there is an underlying coherence to these issues, one that emerges in the numerous images of Julia Gillard cuddling carefully selected babies.

Although politicians and babies are a well-worn feature of elections, the images in the opening days of the 2010 campaign carry a particular ideological charge. The Prime Minister is not only the first woman to hold the position, but one who is unmarried, in a de facto (heterosexual) relationship and childless by choice - as well as being a self-declared ''atheist''.