On Sunday, I walked among those who want me gone from Australia

September 1, 2025 — 11.23am

I know my mother is serious when she uses all caps. Her message to me yesterday morning read: “DO NOT GO TO CITY TODAY”. This clashed with my plans to visit Flora, a well-worn Indian restaurant I hadn’t been to in ages. But as an Indian-Australian, I had a second, unusual reason to visit Melbourne CBD: to observe the anti-immigration March for Australia rally. With Indians singled out in these protests, I wanted to understand what exactly we were dealing with.

The day began with several thousand marchers coming up Bourke Street. Men dressed in black – some masked – raced ahead to secure prime position at Parliament House. Soon, a prominent neo-Nazi would speak here. But among the masses, my eyes were drawn to an elderly man pushing a walker frame uphill, struggling with a slow, lopsided gait. As a doctor working in aged care, I couldn’t help but watch with professional concern.

March for Australia rally protesters is Melbourne CBD on Sunday.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

As the only person with melanin among a sea of protesters, I braced myself. But this elderly gentleman smiled, said “good day” and struck up a conversation.

“We have 230 nationalities in this country,” he opened warmly. “I don’t have a problem with 229 of them. Just one.”

When I asked which one, he hesitated. “You might not want to know.” I pressed: “Indians?” “Oh no, Muslims.” Rather than make abstract points about ethnicity versus religion, I reassured him that I’m not Muslim. He visibly relaxed, and spoke about being upset by Muslims burning Australian flags. But when I asked about his views on immigration numbers, he said he had no problem. “I’ve had two immigrant wives!”

When I asked if other rally-goers would agree that we don’t have too many immigrants and that 229 nationalities are fine, it was as if he didn’t hear me.

This man told me he had driven hours from Lakes Entrance to attend the rally where, he acknowledged, “a few bad apples” – neo-Nazis – were present. When I noted that perhaps flag-burners were also “a few bad apples,” again, silence. I realised this might not be a hearing problem but a listening issue.

A surreal moment crystallised when he asked what I did for work. After mentioning I was a GP, he launched into his medical history while I was trying to listen to the neo-Nazi speaker in the background. When I attempted to steer the conversation back to immigration, he seemed selectively unable to hear. Meanwhile, the extremist’s message blared on.

As the crowd travelled back down Bourke Street, tensions escalated. On the other side of the road, I heard shouting and a crowd collecting around a man carrying an Aboriginal flag. Concerned, I moved towards him, past a wall of jeering and invective. Lots of noise, no communication.

The moment I stood next to him, a woman pointed at me and started chanting: “Deport, deport, deport.” Another protester pointed to his mate: “See this guy? This is the kind we want.” His friend declared he’d been here 30 years and had “assimilated”. I’ve been here 30 years too, yet found myself literally and ideologically on the other side. But it didn’t seem like the right time to make that point.

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Soon, aggressive face-offs erupted between anti-migrant protesters, who I was among, and counter-protesters. Bodies pressed, lots of yelling. A woman selling The Big Issue collapsed her table as the crowd tightened. Among the noise, I listened hard. No coherent views on immigration composition. No discussion of targets.

An irony I still haven’t shaken off is the sight of the only two conspicuously non-white protesters I observed, Asian women, tightly gripping their white male partners’ hands, seemingly for protection more than romance.

This revealed the conditional nature of acceptance I experienced moving among the protesters for two hours. Was I safe? Only when I kept my mouth shut. You’re permitted to be an immigrant if you stay within their prescribed perimeter. They’ll tell you about their medication list and migrant wives.

Cross the boundaries by challenging their views and suddenly it’s: “Deport, deport, deport.” Their civil discourse requires you to speak when they want, how they want. The second you say something they don’t want to hear, your words seem to evaporate, and civility thereafter.

There is a need for rational conversation about immigration levels and composition. But conversation becomes impossible when one side is marching with Nazis. The tragedy isn’t that thousands gathered to express frustration. It’s not even that Nazis attended. It’s that nuance never showed up; violence did.

The worst of the skirmishes happened far from me. Yet, the perceived threat of violence was implicit and ever-present. A 7-Eleven on Bourke Street had closed due to “unforeseen circumstances” – hardly unforeseen given Indians were singled out in social media posts by organisers.

When I finally arrived at Flora Indian Restaurant, usually bustling but today near empty, the manager said there’d been “no trouble,” but said that it was unusually quiet.

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My mother’s protective instincts were justified. But the protest soon ended. The aggrieved rolled up their flags and bled into the streets, becoming indistinguishable from everyone else boarding trams and trains.

Was I now walking alongside a “bad apple”? I couldn’t tell someone’s character from their appearance. The noise had ended, but the conversation never began.

Dr Vyom Sharma is a medical commentator and general practitioner in Melbourne.

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