![\"Counter](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/counter-protesters-are-kept-at-bay-by-a-heavy-police-presenc-BUBWAOMN6NEMPOSEC7VUXL7HTU.jpg\")
<\/p>\nPolice say they were pelted with rocks, glass bottles and fruit after opposing sides of migration protests clashed in “unacceptable” scenes.<\/p>\n
Victoria Police officers used flashbangs, pepper spray and rubber bullets to try and control crowds after a protest against what organisers call mass migration brought strong numbers to Melbourne’s CBD.<\/p>\n
Superintendent Wayne Cheeseman said people from a counter protest, dubbed ‘United Against Racism: Migrants and Refugees Are Welcome’, were “desperately” trying to reach the other demonstration and confront those assembled.<\/p>\n
Two police officers were hospitalised. One female sergeant was suspected to have suffered a broken hand, while a male senior constable sustained a laceration to his leg.<\/p>\n
Other officers had their protective shields cracked due to projectiles being thrown, police said.<\/p>\n
“The truth is, there’s probably 40 to 50 hardcore protesters who were trying to harm the police,” Cheeseman said.<\/p>\n
“What concerns me though, is they are standing with the larger group, and the other group are not intervening, they’re not telling them to stop, so in a way they’re offering their support which is unacceptable.”<\/p>\n
One man was arrested and police intend to make further arrests, Cheeseman said.<\/p>\n
He defended the police’s use of force and said all measures were taken to try and disperse the crowd.<\/p>\n
“When we start getting the rocks and when we start getting other items thrown at us, we are very justified to use these type of mechanisms,” he said.<\/p>\n
The ‘March for Australia’ has called for an end to “mass migration”, arguing it has “torn at the bonds that held our communities together”.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Counter protesters are kept at bay by a heavy police presence on October 19, 2025 in Melbourne, Australia. (Source: Getty)<\/p>\n
Earlier on Sunday, Immigration Minister Tony Burke conceded migrant levels needed to come down, but said a multi-year target would not be helpful.<\/p>\n
He said the migration intake was continuing to fall and was 40 per cent below its peak in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic.<\/p>\n
While the Department of Home Affairs has announced plans to commit to a four-year immigration target, Burke said that would not be the right approach.<\/p>\n
“What I am concerned about is if you overcommit where you will be at in future years, you miss some of the changed needs of the nation that we have,” Mr Burke told ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday.<\/p>\n
In September, the federal government announced 185,000 permanent visas would be made available in 2025\/26, leaving the rates unchanged from the previous financial year.<\/p>\n
Opposition home affairs spokesman Jonathon Duniam said the government should carry out a methodical process for determining what future migration levels looked like.<\/p>\n
“It’s time for (the government) to be transparent about how they’re factoring all of these things in, like housing, health, education, public services, as to how they get the numbers,” he told Sky News.<\/p>\n
The minister stressed the need to keep the debate surrounding migration respectful.<\/p>\n
“People used to talk about being able to engage in dog whistle politics, and you give a message, and only certain people would really hear what you were saying. It’s not a dog whistle any more. It’s a set of bag pipes coming over the hill,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We are a multicultural nation, and when people sledge multicultural Australia, there are a whole lot of Australian citizens who hear it, feel it deeply.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police say they were pelted with rocks, glass bottles and fruit after opposing sides of migration protests clashed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[85,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-87936","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}