The extraordinary immigration lies of Malcolm Turnbull

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By Leith van Onselen

When it comes to Australia’s immigration program, you would be hard pressed to find a bigger liar than Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

On Monday night, Turnbull again spun a web of lies over Australia’s migrant program on The Project (video above). Below are some key excerpts.

Lisa Wilkinson: “We are about to hit 25 million a few decades early. It does beg the question: has the government lost control of migration?”

Malcolm Turnbull: “Well, we are having more babies than we thought we’d have in 2002… And we also have a lot more foreign students… And a lot more foreign tourists…”

Waleed Aly: “The prediction was 25 million. We’ve hit that really early. But the categories you’ve just mentioned include things like students, and tourists. That’s not part of population”…

Malcolm Turnbull: “No they are. They are…”

Waleed Aly: “So when we say 25 million, that includes all the tourists?”

Malcolm Turnbull: “Everyone. Everyone”.

Malcolm Turnbull is lying through his teeth here.

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First, net short-term visitor movements into Australia are negative. Thus it is false to apportion any of the population pressures being felt in our cities on tourists. Net tourism flows are actually relieving Australia’s overall population pressures:

Second, short-term tourists and students are not factored into Australia’s resident population, which is about to hit 25 million. As explained by the ABS:

“A person is regarded as a usual resident if they have been (or expect to be) residing in Australia for a period of 12 months or more. This 12-month period does not have to be continuous and is measured over a 16-month period”.

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Third, it is Australia’s turbo-charged permanent migrant intake that is the primary driver of Australia’s manic population growth:

The 2016 Census revealed that Australia’s population increased by a whopping 1.9 million people (+8.8%) in the five years to 2016, driven by a 1.3 million increase in new migrants:

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To add insult to injury, 86% of these migrants (1.11 million) settled in Australia’s cities, versus just 14% (187,000) that settled in Australia’s regional areas.

Sure, temporary migrants also boomed, and would be captured in the above Census figures. But they increased by a relatively modest 382,000 over the past five years:

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Therefore, the fundamental driver of Australia’s population increase is permanent migrants. Unlike temporary migrants who must ultimately leave, these migrants stay in the country and also have children (then captured as ‘natural increase’). Thus, permanent migrants continually add to Australia’s population base both directly and indirectly.

If the permanent migrant intake was hypothetically reduced to zero then, over time, NOM and by extension Australia’s population would barely increase:

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Stop lying Malcolm.

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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.