Why is it white people are 'expats' and everyone else is 'an immigrant'?

Imagine if it was white people. Imagine if one of our politicians got up in front of cameras and microphones and started complaining about white immigrants in Australia, about how English and Irish people all seem to congregate in certain suburbs, about how they're all living in "ghettos" in North Bondi, refusing to mix with proper Australians, refusing to assimilate into our society.

They'd complain that these immigrants just go to Irish pubs and drink beer and watch Premier League. They refuse to lose their accents. They hang out with their own.

You can't imagine that, because it wouldn't happen. We don't demonise white people in Australia. There are no points to be scored. No hysteria to whip up.

Instead we concentrate on those who look a little different. Once it was Italians and Greeks we were worried about. Then it was the Lebanese. Then we were being "swamped by Asians". Then anyone of Muslim faith became a problem. And now we have African gangs and, apparently, "Bantustan-style" ghettos.

A few weeks ago, footage emerged of Alexander Downer, our former foreign minister, wheeling out that old racist dog-whistle to a Hungarian audience at a migration summit. Migrants to Australia are living "Bantustan-style" lives in "separate ghettos", he said.

"If you do take people as migrants, you want to make sure they integrate," Downer added. "Migrants who come to our country should try to integrate into our community, not set up separate ghettos."

I searched for the obvious caveat. For the admission that it's human nature to gather together with your own, for safety, for familiarity, for comfort. That it's natural to hold onto your own culture and your own traditions, to hold onto a slice of home. And that Australian travellers are guilty of this behaviour too, that we've always grouped together in "ghettos" in London, in New York, in Dubai, in Singapore.

But I didn't find it. I looked in the comments, too, and found a few people making that point, talking about Earls Court in the 70s, Putney in the 90s. But they'd been rebutted by other readers saying things like, "Nah, that's different. We were just in London for a good time. Save some money and drink some beer."

Ah, so there's the difference. There are immigrants, and then there are "expats". White people get to be expats. They get to live in other countries just to work and have a good time. Everyone else has to be an immigrant, with all of the job-stealing, dole-bludging stigma that that label carries. They're different.