If you want a prime example of what passes for immigration ‘debate’ in this country, watch the below segment from this week’s ABC Q&A program:
Peter asks if the federal government should cut the immigration intake to ease the housing crisis #QandA pic.twitter.com/VbXs9Xypg3
— QandA (@QandA) July 31, 2023
An audience member asked:
“There are polls that state the majority of Australians want immigration to be at a much lower increase than the 700,000 over the next two years. In light of that, why should the government proceed down that path”?
Liberal Senator for WA, Dean Smith, kicked off with well argued points that immigration levels are too high, and that the current high levels risks the “immigration consensus”.
“People are looking for explanations: why is it that for the next two years there will be 715,000 migrants coming to our country when people are experiencing rental stress and issues”.
“So, in order to maintain high levels of public confidence in immigration, we need to have a capacity in our country to be able to talk about it, talk about it openly, have the evidence demonstrated demonstrated to us why is it, how is it that we get to 715,000 over the next two years?”.
“In the Howard era, the average was about 110,000 people coming to our country. In the year preceding the pandemic, it was about 240,000”.
Then host Particia Karvelas butted in saying “this is a post-covid catch up and clearly businesses are desperate for workers, right”.
To which Dean Smith responded “what is the excess capacity in the Australian economy already to be able to fill some of those jobs?”
“It seems to me at this particular point in time that we risk breaking that consensus. Because 715,000 over two years is an astronomically large figure”.
“If Katy [Gallagher] and the government can demonstrate to us that there is a plan, that in getting to 715,000 was modelled and these are the various inputs, then I think we can have a much higher level of confidence than we currently do”.
“The way that governments come at decisions about what that immigration number is is opaque. And Australians are looking for a greater level of confidence and understanding”.
After that strong start from Dean Smith, it was all downhill unfortunately.
The next speaker Jahin Tanvir virtue signalled about the wonders of diversity, scapegoating migrants, “migrants built this nation”, immigration is wonderful, and so on. And was met with rapturous applause from the woke audience.
Minister for Finance Katy Gallagher claimed that immigration policy is transparent because the figures are published in the Budget (buried deep in the appendices).
Moreover, this immigration surge is just ‘catch-up’ according to Gallagher, even though the Budget forecasts high immigration into perpetuity:
Nor has Australia ‘caught up’ on the accumulated housing and infrastructure deficits from the prior period of extreme immigration (i.e. 2005 to 2020).
Gallagher then claimed it was “lazy” to scapegoat migrants, even though it is “lazy” for the federal government to use immigration to juice growth instead of policy to boost productivity and participation.
Next, actor and Comedian Luke McGregor ran the “scapegoating migrants” line, arguing that Australia is a huge country and can take as many migrants as it wants. Moreover, shortages in housing and infrastructure (caused by too much migration) is not migrants’ fault.
So basically, this Q&A segment ran interference for the federal government’s mass immigration program, dismissing Dean Smith’s well-reasoned arguments outright.
Hilariously, even the woke audience of ABC Q&A that watched the propaganda stream still concluded Australia’s immigration intake is too high, with two-thirds voting for lower immigration:
This follows last month’s polling from Resolve Political Monitoring showing that 59% of Australians believe that immigration numbers are “too high”, while only 25% believe immigration numbers are “about right” and only 3% think they are “too low”:
February’s polling from the Australian Population Research Institute (TAPRI) also showed that 70% of Australians wanted lower levels of immigration (of which 42% wanted significantly lower or zero immigration):
Source: The Australian Population Research Institute (TAPRI)
Rejection of ‘Big Australia’ immigration is nothing new of course. Countless polls leading up to the pandemic also overwhelming rejected high levels of immigration. For example:
- Newspoll (2018): 56% want lower immigration;
- Essential (2018): 54% believe Australia’s population is growing too fast and 64% believe immigration is too high;
- Lowy (2018): 54% of people think the total number of migrants coming to Australia each year is too high; and
- Newspoll (2018): 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.
The fact remains that Australian voters have always hated high levels of immigration because they know that it means that their quality of life, their ability to afford a decent home, and the natural environment will be degraded.
Strong voter opposition is why the Albanese Government did not tell the Australian people during last year’s federal election campaign that Labor would lift immigration to record levels if elected.
Because Labor understood that if they told voters they intended to ramp-up immigration, they would have lost the election.
Albanese also lied to the Australian people in December 2021 when he suggested he would runner a lower immigration policy:
Instead, he lifted immigration to record levels.
The above shenanigans are why we should settle the debate once and for all via a plebiscite on Australia’s future population.
Sadly, we all know that a population plebiscite will never occur because politicians and their lobbyists know it would stop the Big Australia immigration policy in its tracks.
Instead, extreme levels of immigration will continue into perpetuity. Living standards will continue to be crushed. And we will forever hear ‘bait-and-switch’ phony debates around housing affordability, ‘net zero’ and other wokester issues.
