Public opposition to turbo-charged levels of immigration, and a ‘Big Australia’, continues to gain momentum, with Herald-Sun columnist, Tom Elliott, penning a well-argued piece yesterday calling our governments “To stop immigration to end Melbourne’s crush”:
ONCE liveable Melbourne has become hideously overcrowded. Schools are full to bursting, the traffic a nightmare, family homes beyond the reach of average income earners and our hospitals overcrowded.
There are two ways to fix this chaos: either we spend tens of billions on new infrastructure in a futile attempt to meet rapidly rising demand or we reduce population growth. And the best way to do this is slash overseas immigration.
…there are both costs and limitations to growth. Take traffic, for example. Just 20 years ago it wasn’t difficult or time-consuming to attempt a cross-city journey… Fast forward to 2016 and travel times have risen exponentially…
And for people forced by housing costs to live in an outer suburb while working near the CBD, the news is worse. Peak-hour commutes to and from many jobs across Melbourne routinely take more than an hour…
First-home buyers are another casualty of our population surge…
Public services like education and health also struggle to meet demand…
So much for the illusory benefits of a rapidly growing economy… It’s time we questioned the assumption that more and more people equals greater prosperity…
The nation of Australia exists primarily to benefit its own citizens. Our politicians should cease gallivanting around the globe and focus on how best to raise domestic living standards. And judging by Melbourne’s choked roads, crowded schools and unreasonably high house prices, a pause in overseas immigration might be just the tonic our city needs.
Well said.
An Essential Research opinion poll released on Wednesday asked respondents whether they thought “the level of immigration into Australia over the last ten years has been too high, too low or about right?”. 50% of respondents stated that the level of immigration into Australia over the last ten years has been too high, 28% believed it has been about right and 12% believed it has been too low:
Interestingly, voters from the so-called party for the environment – The Greens – most support mass immigration – a view that directly contradicts the Australian Conservation Foundation’s calls for a stable population. Perhaps they have fatally conflated refugees with economic migrants.
In May, Essential Research also conducted an opinion poll that this time asked respondents whether they thought “the level of immigration into Australia over the last ten years has been too high”? On this occasion, the overwhelming majority of Australians (59%) agreed that immigration has been too high, more than double the 28% of Australians that disagreed with that statement:
There is a clear backlash growing against Australia’s high immigration intake and a ‘Big Australia’. Our mainstream politicians would be wise to get ahead of this issue, engage the community’s views, and develop a national population strategy that has the community’s support.
