NSW Labor leader says ‘no offence’ meant after video surfaces of him saying ‘our kids are moving out and foreigners are moving in’

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The New South Wales opposition leader, Michael Daley is under sustained pressure over his comments in a 2018 video in which he said young Sydneysiders were leaving and being replaced by workers from Asia.

Despite repeatedly apologising “if anyone took offence” Daley insisted his comments were not racist or dogwhistling and were about housing affordability in Sydney.

The footage shows comments made in September during a Politics in the Pub session in Wentworth Falls, in the Blue Mountains.

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“Our young children will flee and who are they being replaced with? They are being replaced by young people from typically Asia with PhDs,” Daley says in the video.

News Breakfast (@BreakfastNews) On the eve of #NSWvotes, Labor Leader Michael Daley has apologised for comments captured on video last year in which he claims young people are leaving Sydney and being replaced by foreigners who are "moving in and taking their jobs". pic.twitter.com/Bq0Cxjty5T

“So there’s a transformation happening in Sydney now where our kids are moving out and foreigners are moving in and taking their jobs”.

Daley said it was a statement of fact that young people were moving out of Sydney because they could afford to live there and were being replaced by international workers, mainly from Asia.

“It’s not a bad thing because Asian kids are coming to work here, it’s a bad thing because I’d like my daughter to be living in Maroubra rather than St Kilda,” he said.

But just five days out from the election Daley was pummelled with questions about why he had referred to “foreigners” when many of those people moving to Sydney may well be Australian-Asians and why he had referred to “our kids” who were being displaced by Asian kids.

“What I was referring to when I made those remarks was housing affordability in Sydney. I could have expressed myself better. I could have chosen better words. No offence was meant and I hope none has been taken. But whilst all of that is clear and the intentions of my comments were clear, I just want to say that housing affordability in Sydney is a massive issue,” he said.

Daley insisted that his comments were about “people from a geographical region”, not about race.

“We are in the Asian region. What we have is a highly skilled mobile workforce and they are highly educated, I didn’t say it was a a bad thing that Asian people are coming here. I said it was bad that my daughter has left. So the issue is housing affordability,” he said.

Daley refused to say whether he was advocating a cut to migration, but strongly denied he was advocating selective migration based on race.

“We don’t want to make it a political issue, don’t want to turn it into a political football. What I have said is that the lion’s share of people who are coming into Australia, settle in Sydney and in Melbourne, and that entitles, I think, the states – particularly New South Wales and Victoria – to be able to sit down with the commonwealth and argue, for example, for more infrastructure money,” he said.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian accused Daley of saying one thing to one group of people, and another thing to another group of people.

“If that’s not the height of dishonesty and lack of trustworthiness, I don’t know what is. New South Wales deserves better,” she said.

Daley’s comments could play badly in marginal seats like East Hills, which has a large Asian population, a must-win seat for Labor.

He held his press conference in front of the Allianz stadium, hoping to return to the government’s demolition of the 30-year-old building and their plans to spend $730m rebuilding it, which Daley argues comes at the expense of hospital and school spending.

The subject has proved electorally popular for him, but he struggled to get traction today. Instead his press conference was repeatedly interrupted by loud crashes as parts of the stadium concourses were demolished by heavy machinery.

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The man Daley replaced as Labor leader, Luke Foley, was criticised last year when he used the term “white flight” when referring to struggling western Sydney suburbs.

The NSW treasurer, Dominic Perrottet, said the Labor leader’s comments were “inflammatory, offensive and wrong”.

“He’s trying to be Pauline Hanson in the Blue Mountains and Sarah Hanson-Young in the city,” the Liberal minister told reporters on Tuesday.

“What we saw in that video was a two-faced hypocrite.

“It is completely wrong and irresponsible to single out a race and say that people are fleeing Sydney as a result.”