By Stephen Saunders:
Big Australia 1.0 vaulted the GFC and was only stopped by COVID-19. Big Australia 2.0 looks unstoppable. Xmas delight, for political donors and stakeholders. Nobody asks voters.
During the pandemic, voter polls indicated locals rather liked the immigration breather. Over four quickfire Budgets, Treasury responded, tell someone who cares.
Think back to October 2020. We’d already copped fire, floods, and the pandemic. Borders were closed and the customary immigration deluge was reversed.
Automatically, the Frydenberg Budget ordered up a big revival. Appendix A of Budget Paper No. 3 pencilled in plus 201,000 in net migration for 2023-24.
Works for Treasury. But 200,000 was unknown, before 2007. It’s two and a half times, the long-term average.
Over that 2020-21 year, net migration plummeted to negative 89,000, the lowest figure for a century. Unfazed, Budget 2021 pencilled in plus 235,000, for 2024-25.
March 2022 Budget pumped the target for 2022-23 by more than 80,000, to plus 180,000. All that time, Prime Minister in waiting said nothing. His migration platform gaslit voters.
Post-election, he hiked the Coalition permanent migration target by 22%, to 195,000. 140 hand-picked “stakeholders” signed off, at a self-congratulatory Jobs and Skills Summit.
The October 2022 Budget boosted the 2022-23 net migration target by 31%. By bringing forward the Coalition’s 235,000. There was an extra $42 million to fix so-called “visa backlogs”.
Even this 235,000 will easily be overtopped. Meanwhile, the media looks over there at the “backlog”.
Here are reasons why this unprecedented and undemocratic immigration drive will be devilishly hard to stop.
The Big Australia silo is stronger than ever
The silo of self-interested stakeholders for Big Australia is much larger than corporate industry and developers – aka the donors.
It’s also Treasury and the Reserve Bank, major political parties, state and city governments, academics, ABC-SBS and other mainstream media, the immigration lobby, think-tanks, employer-union groups, and organised religion.
Centred around the graduate classes, this silo feels eminently qualified to determine population policy. Potential defectors are quickly neutralised. Gladys Berejiklian and Kristina Keneally were easily shut down. And are out of politics.
Among 227 federal members and senators, few would dare challenge mass migration publicly. “New” Teals are every bit as hypocritical as Labor, Liberal and Green.
Outside of the silo, only a handful of interest groups and media outlets take issue with Big Australia. Their views are downplayed or ignored.
Seventeen million voters aren’t in the loop
Rapid population growth is a done deal between Liberal and Labor. Their Treasurers barely discuss it. They hide it at the back end of their Budgets. They attribute it to their Centre for Population glove-puppet.
This endless growth has never been put to voters. They’ve been shut out by increasingly patronising ploys.
Prayerful Peter Costello, who cranked mass migration in 2005-06, also exhorted locals to go forth and multiply. His tacky Baby Bonus ran for a decade. All six prime ministers since 2007, Labor or Liberal, have worshipped mass migration.
Kevin Rudd was, still is, obsessed with Big Australia. Julia Gillard tweaked his language but not his policy in her Sustainable Population Strategy.
Said Scott Morrison, “everyone has a view” on population. His was the only one that mattered. Fallaciously, he’d “bust” the infrastructure overload that comes with mass migration.
After multi-ministries Morrison, it’s easy for Albanese to cosplay consensus guy. But the consent for his hyper-migration is manufactured via stakeholders, not voters.
Won’t there be a backlash, as in certain European nations? Doubtful. We lack potent political parties to harness the stable-population preference.
Quite to the contrary, the Immigration Minister has fast-tracked three million migrant visas in the second half of 2022. Because “cruelty…neglect…choking the economy…small business…family connections”.
As regards cruelty or neglect towards job aspirants and families, our first thoughts should go to citizens short-changed by Robodebt and Jobseeker Allowance.
The Minister is dead keen. Apart from outliers like Crispin Hull, it’s not a story, in mainstream media. Voter concerns don’t compute, as compared with stakeholder demands.
The population-environment gulf has never been wider
Australian writers here and here have analysed how corporates greenwashed the 1960s-1970s objections to endless growth.
As the ultimate greenwash, to avoid confronting over-population and ecological overload, UN net zero emissions looks hard to beat. No wonder the silo laps it up. Any major corporate not yet boasting a net zero plan ought to get out more often.
On behalf of the climate emergency, youthful enthusiasts deface museum art. Whereas Greta Thunberg herself realised UN COP-27 was having a lend of her.
Focused 1990s considerations of this continent’s limited carrying capacity have been elbowed aside. By scientists and influencers, sprinting for the net zero bandwagon.
Observe our former Chief Scientist, spruiking an “electric planet”. A growth economist reimagining Australia as a “post carbon superpower”. An industry titan saving the planet.
After the environmental whammies over 2020-22, how can Labor justify a radical immigration push?
In effect, the Treasury bunker and not their Climate Department is our environmental “cop”.
State of the Environment introduction counsels reducing “human pressures” leading to “land clearing” and associated ills. But the Treasurer dials up those pressures.
His Budget overview is decorated with “climate action” and “protecting the environment” tinsel. This cannot offset his population drive. He offers nothing direct to tackle aggressive logging and land clearing. He’s “light touch” on fossil fuel extraction.
Labor’s sparkly new environment watchdog and climate statement, I would say, are only playing catch-up football.
It seems paradoxical. Since net zero was unveiled over 2015-18, the gulf between Australia’s population policy and environmental evidence has only widened.
As usual, mass migration trumps wages and welfare
With population neutered as a political issue, huge and exploitative immigration intakes go unchecked.
Nominally, we remain among the world’s richest folks. This honeypot is another reason why huge intakes are even doable. The Budget can afford to shift resources to “visa backlogs”.
Nevertheless, the gap between citizens’ welfare and the population drive is growing.
The unexpected 100-year immigration low was decisive in the 50-year unemployment low. It suits Albanese to let Morrison take credit. The Liberal Opposition still fibs about it.
Now, Albanese will crank immigration to all-time levels. While purportedly keeping unemployment low, boosting real wages, and solving the housing crisis. His airy promise of a million extra in new homes before 2030 is nixed by the near certainty of 1.5 million extra in net migration. Probably more.
Youth unemployment, which also fell during COVID, will rise again. Labor will continue to prefer cash-cow international students ahead of domestic students and skills.
On first glance, the post-election economic indicators look jolly. While Treasury has unveiled Measuring What Matters via their “wellbeing” framework.
But real wages aren’t keeping pace with productivity growth. They’ve gone backwards. Per capita recession beckons.
For wellbeing, locals might prefer some of profit’s ever growing share of the pie. Or a real-world reversal of congestion. Or even stopping the slide in the State of the Environment.
The immigration hogwash keeps on escalating
The population porkies of politicians and their enablers include those above. Like, man all desks, to erase “visa backlogs”. Plus, mass migration is for skill shortages. Congestion-busting will fix mass migration. Greenhouse emissions can decouple from growth.
In slogans reminiscent of a revival meeting, the Immigration and Home Affairs Ministers emote Big Australia 2.0 as “a turning point in our history…nation-building …populate or perish…a reconciled nation that harnesses its diversity”.
As the migration system hasn’t been “reformed” since 1994, the COVID disruption is the latter’s big “review “opportunity.
Except, her Terms of Reference 100% confirm that too much immigration is never enough. Whilst excluding the accompanying corruption and crime.
Isn’t front-page immigration wrongdoing bad press? No, Treasurer gets the “headline” GDP growth via unending population growth. With high levels of student visa fraud and migrant wage theft assured, Home Affairs Minister gets to crusade for visa integrity.
To ice the cake, a new parliamentary inquiry examines “how permanent migration contributes to nation building, cultural diversity and social cohesion, and acts as a strategic enabler of vibrant economies and socially sustainable communities”.
Again, UN policy cancels Australian voters. Labor hogwash is another portent, and Big Australia 2.0 could motor on for years. It’s beyond my wit to imagine a circuit-breaker.
Stephen Saunders is a former APS public servant and consultant.
