NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet has appeared on 2GB Radio, where he directly attacked the federal government’s “all care and no responsibility” approach to immigration that has left the states bearing the economic and social infrastructure costs while the feds collect the benefits from income taxes. Perrottet called for state governments to be given a direct say on Australia’s immigration intake. Below is the extract from the interview:
As the NSW Premier moves to establish an ‘expert panel’ into Sydney’s ballooning population, the state’s Treasurer is also calling for Australia’s immigration rate to be reined in.
Dominic Perrottet has joined the growing chorus of commentators urging the Federal Government to curtail our immigration intake, with Sydney now drowning in the stagnating wage growth, sky-high property prices and congestion inextricable with a booming population.
He tells Michael McLaren he wants the states to be afforded more say-so when it comes to determining Australia’s population size. Ultimately, it is the states that have to deal with the fallout, so they should be part of the equation when it comes to getting the rate right.
“We don’t have a seat at the table when it comes to the rate of immigration into the country and there’s no doubt a lot of that immigration comes to Sydney,” he tells Michael McLaren.
“Whilst the federal government gets the benefit of the income tax, it is the state government that has to foot the bill for the infrastructure associated with that intake.”
“We’re doing record amounts of infrastructure, $87 billion in four years. I just think it’s fair that we have a seat at the table, because it is the states that have to plan for the future and without being involved in that decision-making, it makes it incredibly difficult…
Simply because the Treasury bureaucrats might tell you that putting more people, economic growth continues to drive, that is lazy economics. What is more substantive is actually getting productivity reforms across a whole range of areas. But at the same time, what we are asking for here is a breather on immigration, to have a seat at the table and make sure that NSW as we grow, we grow well”.
As explicitly projected in Infrastructure Australia’s recent report, liveability in Sydney will be crushed as the city’s population balloons via worsening traffic congestion and reduced access to jobs, schools, hospitals and green space:
Such rabid population growth necessarily also means that many existing suburbs will be bulldozed to make way for apartments and townhouses, as projected by the Urban Taskforce:
Undoubtedly, the mass immigration ‘Big Australia’ policy has become toxic in NSW. The federal government must now cut the intake.
