Scott Morrison is the worst, at the AFR:
In a polite rejection of policies advocated by figures like senator Pauline Hanson – who has called for a ban on Muslim immigration – Mr Morrison will tell the Lowy Institute on Friday that “it would be foolish for anyone to deny that there is concern about immigration in Australia”.
“The way to address it is not to be dismissive, but to engage on those concerns and have policies that effectively address them, as the Coalition has done, under Howard, Abbott and Turnbull, ably assisted, I would like to think by their respective immigration ministers,” he will say.
“The same is true for our approach to foreign investment and trade, where our policies are delivering real economic benefits for Australians across the country.
“So we will continue to pursue immigration, trade and foreign investment policies that are focused on the national interest, by focusing on how Australians can participate and benefit from a growing economy, to boost wages, increase profits and raise our living standards.”
Mr Morrison will argue that Australia “cannot deny this same prosperity to future generations by disconnecting ourselves from the very sources of this prosperity, namely foreign investment, trade and immigration, in the future”…
Mr Morrison said the Productivity Commission “is projecting our gross dometic product to be about 58 per cent higher by 2060 than it would with only natural increases in population”.
“This is almost a trillion dollars in today’s terms,” he says.
False binary alert. Since when was rampant immigration a part of the benefits of “trade and foreign investment”? Answer: since the property lobby put it there. Since when was our only choice closed Hansonism or rampant population growth? Answer: since the property lobby said so.
These are straight lies by our real estate treasurer. Standards of living are falling thanks in part to overly-aggressive immigration. The best that could be argued is that they are falling more slowly than they would without immigration given the post mining boom adjustment, but that is equally questionable.
Morrison’s claim that GDP will be “58% higher by 2060” under existing immigration settings is utterly meaningless and a deliberate obscurification of the facts. He conveniently failed to mention that the Productivity Commission’s (PC’s) modelling showed that any per capita GDP increase would only be small, would be transitory, and would come at the expense of lower labour productivity and lower real wages. Morrison also deliberately failed to mention the PC’s explicit warnings about reduced housing affordability, worsening infrastructure bottlenecks, and environmental degradation from a significantly bigger population, all of which could not be modelled (read here for a detailed examination of the PC’s findings).
As for the Australian national interest, how is running historic levels of immigration into an explicitly recognised Chinese soft power insurgency designed to support ANZUS?
Of course no single ethnic group should be singled out for immigration reductions. That’s repulsive.
But it is more than fair that Australians see foreign investment, trade and immigration managed in their interests. If not they will have no choice but to swing to the fringes to protect themselves from a corrupt elite.
Graham Richardson can see it at The Australian:
It is no secret that millions of Australians feel unhappy with their lot. They are disgruntled and they have good reason to be restless or hostile towards their government and politicians in general.
Our political leadership simply won’t talk about what really worries them. While it is still the case that if you go to a flash, expensive restaurant such as Catalina on the waterfront in Sydney on any given day there seems to be plenty of people doing well enough to enjoy the good life to the full, contrast that with how millions of Australians who are battlers treat themselves — a trip to McDonald’s once a week.
Across the past couple of decades the gap between our richest and our poorest has widened. During that period, middle-income families continued to prosper. That period of prosperity has come to a shuddering halt.
For those citizens who can barely make the mortgage payments or the rent, hearing our Prime Minister and Treasurer bang on about “jobs and growth” with no plan of how to deliver either is just too much. Their anger, frustration and disappointment is displayed on a pretty regular basis. Malcolm Turnbull’s Newspoll rating suffered the biggest, fastest decline in that respected poll’s history. And his government barely scraped over the line at the election with a majority of just one.
It is not only the major parties that are in the sights of the disgruntled. Pauline Hanson outpolled the Greens in Queensland a few months ago and is setting her sights on the state election. She is sure to do well. Instead of running around proclaiming the wonders of our multicultural society, she just says what half the country thinks: ban Muslim immigration, ban foreign investment in our farms and provide more subsidies for those doing it tough.
…When was the last time you heard a government member, let alone a Turnbull or a Scott Morrison, address the fact, for most Australians, living standards are falling? Since the end of World War II, living standards have risen consistently. Wages just kept going up and up. In the past 12 months, though, incomes have actually fallen.
For most of the past five years wages growth was pretty static, but now it is going backwards. This phenomenon is not lost on the disgruntled. The refusal of our political leadership to talk about this infuriates them. The elites, they believe, don’t know about this or they don’t care about it. For a Hanson, or even a Nick Xenophon, this creates fertile ground for their messages.
Too right Richo. For God’s sake tell your Labor mates, also via The Australian:
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has warned that One Nation could be Australia’s Donald Trump, urging the nation’s political leaders to “call out” Pauline Hanson now or risk economic disaster.
Ms Palaszczuk used a major speech yesterday to attack the re-emergence of One Nation, criticising the party’s “conspiracy theory” policies for advocating high-powered guns, linking vaccinations and cancer, and attacking “globalism”.
“Having spoken to many senior diplomats and businesspeople from the US, it’s clear to me that many regret the fact that no one called out Donald Trump early enough to stop him,” Ms Palaszczuk told the Committee for Economic Development of Australia event.
“One Nation has $1.6 million in public funding alone, and now has a more sophisticated political operation than ever before.
“If we don’t act now and, as a community, say that the answer lies in hope and opportunity, not fear and loathing, who knows what the future might bring?”
…“If you’re a Queenslander whose job relies on exporting to overseas markets — like workers in Queensland mines or on Queensland farms — then you should be concerned,” Ms Palaszczuk said.
True. Hanson’s economic policies are terrible. But that’s just the baggage that comes with her real appeal, which is that she proposes to protect Australians in ways that are much more blunt than the major parties and their waffling globalism. The more elites bash Hanson over the head with the old global order stuff the stronger she will get.
