The Australian’s Judith Sloan has done a terrific job tearing apart the theme of the 2019 World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos: “Globalisation 4.0: Shaping a Global Architecture in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution”.
The annual WEF forum in Davos is attended by the ‘who’s who’ of global elites, ranging from corporate executives to wealthy celebrities and senior government figures. Not surprisingly then, the WEF’s latest dodgy pre-Davos survey of so-called ‘ordinary people’ has found that 57% of respondents supposedly believe that immigration is mostly good for the receiving country. As Sloan points out, this is in stark contrast to the latest global survey by the Pew Research Centre, which found that only 14% of respondents favour allowing more migrants into their country:
The WEF typically puts out some serious-sounding reports before Davos, including surveys of ordinary folk around the world (do they know any?) as well as of company executives. The results always accord with the presumptions that globalisation and high rates of immigration are good and that nationalism is simply a form of destructive populism that must be rejected.
This year’s survey of ordinary folk revealed that most respondents (57 per cent) believe immigration is mostly good for the receiving country. According to this dubious survey, North Americans (66 per cent) and people from South Asia (72 per cent) are particularly supportive.
But these results do not mesh with the more reliable Pew Research Centre.
Its worldwide survey undertaken in 27 countries last year found “a median of 45 per cent say fewer or no immigrants should be allowed to move to their country, while 36 per cent say they want about the same number of immigrants. Just 14 per cent say their countries should allow more immigrants.”
Moreover, support for immigration has fallen sharply during the past several years, including in Australia. But it’s not the Davos message…
It is the most compelling example of the conceit of the well-heeled elite lecturing to the masses about the value of globalisation and open borders while feathering their own nests by cooking up new forms of crony capitalism to rip off taxpayers and consumers. All in the name of doing good and saving the planet, you must understand.
I will add that the overwhelming majority of recent opinion polls in Australia show majority support for lowering immigration, including:
- Australian Population Research Institute: 54% want lower immigration;
- Newspoll: 56% want lower immigration;
- Essential: 54% believe Australia’s population is growing too fast and 64% believe immigration is too high;
- Lowy: 54% of people think the total number of migrants coming to Australia each year is too high;
- Newspoll: 74% of voters support the Turnbull government’s cut of more than 10% to the annual permanent migrant intake to 163,000 last financial year;
- CIS: 65% in the highest income decile and 77% in the lowest believe that immigration should be cut or paused until critical infrastructure has caught up;
- ANU: Only three out of 10 Australians believe the nation needs more people.
Sloan is 100% correct. The Davos elites must be ignored. They are all about lining their own pockets, not representing ordinary folk.
