Alcorn slams Jericho as population light breaks on Fake Left

Over the past few weeks we have watched the collapse of Guardian economic blogger, Greg Jericho, into anti-intellectual wowserism as he focused intently upon the phenomenon of weak wages growth while also delcaring that:

Immigration – because there are many desperate to hate – must be treated with extreme care by politicians and journalists, and certainly with more care than Abbott seems capable. The inherently racist parties will seek to use any discussion and any seeming evidence of the negative impact of migrants as fuel to burn their fires of hate.

Even as the more unsentimental take of investment bank UBS gave us the plain truth:

Implications: labour market spare capacity still too high for a large lift in wages

The labour market is strangely mixed. Jobs – especially full-time – are around as strong as possibly could be expected at this stage of the cycle. This is supporting housing activity. However, booming population (especially migration) & a spike in participation is a massive ‘positive labour supply shock’, seeing unemployment ~steady for 2 years now. There is still likely more spare capacity in Australia’s labour market compared with other major economies which are at or below NAIRU – and hence we still don’t see a large lift in wages in the near-term.

Now, Jericho’s stablemate, Gay Alcorn, has broken ranks with the Fake Left at The Guardian:

I’m a citizen of Melbourne. That’s all. Not an economist, nor a politician, a property developer, a demographer. Just a resident with an affection for the city, with all its flaws and idiosyncrasies.

As a citizen, nobody has been able to explain to me clearly why Melbourne, and Australia for that matter, should be absorbing so many new people every year, at a rate far higher than the OECD average, faster than other developed nations, with no feasible plan to cope with it.

…The impact of this growth is the single most important issue in this town (and no doubt in Sydney, too, and to a lesser extent in Brisbane and Perth). As a lowly if curious citizen, the refusal of any major political party, let alone business groups, for whom the more people the better, to question the pace of growth, even to explain it, is astonishing.

I read report after report which assume with scant elaboration that “there is no alternative” to record population growth. The result is a rumbling backlash, and a justifiable one.

At least this debate is now being held, when for too long it was stuck in our debilitating culture wars, with many progressives wary that questioning immigration rates would give succour to racists.

We can ignore the Pauline Hansons who want to stop Muslims coming here. We can ignore, too, those elements of Tony Abbott’s argument that one reason for easing immigration is because in Melbourne, “ethnic gangs (are) testing the resolve of police.” That’s a dog-whistle.

But we can no longer ignore the tougher questions: the majority of our population growth is due to immigration, particularly in the past decade. Around three quarters of immigrants settle in big cities, where the jobs are.

Those cities, particularly Melbourne and Sydney, are not coping and this circular argument that all we need is better infrastructure and planning and all will be well is arguing backwards. Can we answer first why we want record population growth, and then discuss infrastructure?

The truth is that successive governments, state and federal, have not improved public transport and housing affordability and facilities for the booming outer suburbs anywhere near the rate that is needed for the current population, let alone for the hapless people who arrive each week.

…The case for easing immigration is compelling. Even if it’s just for a few years, from an annual permanent immigration intake of around 200,000 to 100,000, to catch up. Even if it’s just so we can take a breath and think about how big this country should be without having it decided for us by default.

…Fairfax’s economics correspondent Peter Martin wrote that “the rest of the world has granted us a licence to use this continent on the implicit understanding that we populate it.”

Really? Says who? Fellow Fairfax columnist Jessica Irvine wrote that we need to weigh up the “needs of Australians versus foreigners” in the immigration debate and she had “never placed the hopes and dreams of Australians so far above those of foreigners that their needs become unimportant”.

That’s bewildering. Apart from our humanitarian intake – which is a duty for an affluent country like ours – the primary purpose of immigration is to benefit people who already live here, or at least not to worsen their quality of life.

Bravo, Gay. Spot on.