Last month, Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton, launched another attack on ‘boat people’ while conveniently ignoring the hundreds of thousands of immigrants let into Australia each year by plane.
Now, following the Australian Population Research Institute’s latest survey showing three-quarters of Australians do not believe that the country needs more people, Dutton offered the following. From SBS News:
Immigration minister Peter Dutton reacted cautiously to the survey results on Thursday, telling 2GB’s Ray Hadley that the government was “always looking at the migration numbers” to get the balance right.
“In the Labor years the number peaked at about 305,900 in one year which was an enormous number, we’ve got that number down now below 190,000 and as I say, we’re happy to reassess.”
He said new migrants were drawn to the big population centres where pressure on housing and infrastructure was most often felt, however, “In some regional towns they’re crying out for people because they can’t get workers in the meatworks or areas of primary production, tourism, restaurants and so on. So we need to get that balance right.”
Mr Dutton linked the issue to his efforts to reform citizenship laws, which have been struck down in the Senate.
“We want to make sure that people who want to become Australian citizens … have integrated into Australian society, that are abiding by our laws and ahering to our values.”
Dutton is lying.
First, while it is true that net overseas migration (NOM) – which includes both permanent and temporary long-term residents – peaked under Labor (albeit at 315,700), it was running 231,900 as at the year to March – a far cry from the 190,000 claimed by Dutton:
Second, and more importantly, Dutton has deliberately failed to mention that Australia’s permanent migrant intake has never been higher than under this Coalition Government, set at roughly 205,000 a year currently:
It is this permanent migrant intake that sets Australia’s future population trajectory (as well as population pressures in the major cities), since long-term temporary migrants (included in NOM) are by definition temporary and must ultimately leave Australia. The permanent migrant intake is also unaffected by Dutton’s proposed citizenship laws.
The reality is that the Turnbull Government’s own turbo-charged immigration settings have Australia on a trajectory towards at least 40 million people mid-century, with Melbourne and Sydney headed to at least 8 million people.
Australia 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 Dutton, which deliberately conflates the immigration intake with refugees, obfuscates the immigration data, privatises the gains from mass immigration for the Coalition’s big business backers, and socialises the costs on everyone else (including the state governments).
