With Australia’s permanent migration program already an insane 180,000 in 2017-18 – more than double the level at the turn of the century:
And net overseas migration (NOM) running at more than triple the historical average, which is projected to continue for decades:
Labor has pledged to raise immigration even further by lifting the humanitarian intake by more than 10,000 places by 2025. From The New Daily:
Labor leader Bill Shorten is set to announce a future increase to Australia’s refugee intake beyond 27,000 a year at the ALP conference in December…
Existing ALP policy already supports increasing Australia’s humanitarian intake to 27,000 by 2025.
Labor’s immigration spokesman Shayne Neumann has held talks with an ALP working group about increasing that number. However, sources said the party had rejected a push to raise it to 50,000.
“It’s a question of cost for adequate support services and getting that through [Labor’s] expenditure review committee,” a Labor source said.
MB has previously supported Australia’s humanitarian intake being raised from its low current level of 16250 people in 2017-18. However, this must be done alongside large cuts to Australia’s non-humanitarian intake (currently capped at 190,000, but actually 162,500 in 2017-18). Such a policy would achieve dual goals: significantly reducing overall population growth, thereby relieving pressures on infrastructure, housing, the environment, and wages, while also being a good and caring global citizen.
There is also a strong moral argument against poaching skilled workers from developing nations, in turn stifling their economic development, just so they can work in lower skilled roles in Australia.
In short, simply lifting the humanitarian intake to beyond 27,000 people without offsets is a retrograde step and would be destructive to both Australia’s natural environment and living standards.
Clearly, all the recent angst over mass immigration and a ‘Big Australia’ has gone over Labor’s head.
