Last night’s Q&A featured the below question by MB reader Karl Nixon to Deloitte-Access Economics’ chief economist Chris Richardson:
Chris, you commented a few years ago, that our younger generation should be rioting in the streets due to growing inter-generational inequality. Since then conditions have worsened, with unaffordable housing, high under-employment, a crush loaded population, ponzi immigration policy, eye watering HECS debts, poor wage growth, poor graduate employment opportunities, a mountain of private and government debt and a looming climate change disaster. What do you think needs to be done to improve the opportunities and outcomes for our youth, or should we just let them eat cake and wait for a Piketty moment?
As expected, Chris Richardson avoided any discussion of Australia’s ponzi immigration program. This is not surprising given Richardson is a pro-immigration economist who has previously called for Australia to lift its already turbo-charged immigration intake. Here’s Richardson in April 2013:
SIMON FRAZER: At 1.7 per cent, Australia has a world-beating population growth rate. But some observers still want more people, more quickly.
Chris Richardson, the director of Deloitte Access Economics, is one of them.
CHRIS RICHARDSON: We have actually wound back our population forecasts a little, and it is a shame. Australia really does need that people power at the moment…
Chris Richardson says the shift in public opinion sparked by that debate [Big Australia] should not be repeated.
CHRIS RICHARDSON: We were all so worried about “Big Australia” which in many ways was a failed infrastructure debate rather than anything else. We became as a nation less enthused about migrants. And you can still see that in the numbers and that is a mistake. The commodity prices that we see today are the world’s way of saying they are desperate for Australia to grow faster.
Richardson also appeared on Lateline last year where he tried to argue that Australia can “substantially offset” an ageing population by “getting migrants” – failing to mention that the Productivity Commission has comprehensively debunked this argument over and over again because migrants also grow old.
Anyway, thanks for trying Karl. Hopefully one day Q&A will address the population ponzi issue in a rational manner.
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