Peter Dutton deploys Howard’s immigration ‘bait-and-switch’

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By Leith van Onselen

Over the weekend, Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton, launched a crackdown on 7,500 so-called “fake” refugees living in Australia, vowing to deport those that do not lodge an application for protection by October. From ABC News:

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has given 7,500 asylum seekers living in Australia until October to lodge an application for protection, or face deportation, declaring the “game is up” for “fake refugees”.

Mr Dutton said the asylum seekers had all arrived by boat under the previous Labor government, most without identity documents, and had so far either failed or refused to present their case for asylum with the Immigration Department.

“They need to provide the information, they need to answer the questions and then they can be determined to be a refugee or not.”

The asylum seekers have now been given until October 1 to lodge an application for processing or they will be cut off from Government payments, subject to removal from Australia, and banned from re-entering the country.

According to Mr Dutton, the group is costing taxpayers about $250 million each year in income support alone and the deadline would ensure the Government is “not providing financial support to people who have no right to be in Australia”.

This crackdown follows the announcement by Dutton earlier this month stating the Coalition would maintain Australia’s permanent migrant intake at record levels (circa 205,000 people a year) in 2017-18:

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It also follows the Coalition’s decision last year to allow foreign students aged 6 and up as well as their guardians to apply for student visas, thus adding even greater pressures on Australia’s primary schools, as well as placing more strain on the housing market and infrastructure.

And it follows the Turnbull Government’s announcement that from 1 July 2017, a new parental visa will be introduced that will allow migrants to bring into Australia their elderly parents, thus further ageing the population and placing even more strain on Australia’s healthcare system and infrastructure.

Dutton’s approach to immigration policy resembles that of former Prime Minister John Howard, who performed a ‘bait-and-switch’ on the Australian people whereby he scapegoated and slammed the door shut on the relatively small number of refugees arriving into Australia by boat all the while stealthily shoving open the door to economic migrants arriving here by plane.

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The ultimate result was a massive lift in Australia’s net migration intake, which surged from the early-2000s and pushed population growth to roughly twice long-run norms. In Howard’s first three years in office, Australia’s annual net overseas migration (NOM) averaged just 86,000 people a year. In his last three years in office, NOM averaged 188,000 people a year, and has remained high ever since (and is projected to remain high indefinitely).

John Howard never articulated to the Australian people that the Government was going to dramatically expand the nation’s immigration intake. Why? Because he knew the electorate would be dead against it. And Dutton is repeating the same trick again – giving the impression that the Government is stemming the inflow by cracking on the tiny amount of refugees, all the while allowing in huge numbers of economic migrants in a bid to inflate aggregate GDP growth, support the housing bubble, and please the Coalition’s large corporate backers, who benefit the most from a growing customer base.

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For the rest of us, massive immigration-fuelled population growth is a net negative. It is the key reason why those of us living in the major cities are stuck in traffic, cannot get a seat on the train, are experiencing crowded hospitals and schools, and/or cannot afford a home.

The net result of this “Big Australia” policy – supported by the three major parties – is that living standards are being eroded as the capacity of the economy and infrastructure to absorb all of the extra people is overwhelmed, workers face increased competition for jobs (and record low wages growth), and the country’s natural resources base is diluted among more people.

Australia desperately needs a frank and honest national conversation about population policy, which focuses on whether or not large-scale immigration is benefiting the living standards of the incumbent population. Not the dishonest ‘smoke and mirrors’ approach employed by the Coalition, which deliberately conflates the immigration intake with refugees, privatises the gains from mass immigration for its big business backers, and socialises the costs on everyone else.

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About the author
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.