NSW Labor turns Big Australia defender

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By Leith van Onselen

With mass immigration opponent, Luke Foley, resigning from the NSW Labor Party’s leadership earlier last month, I was hoping that new leader Michael Daley would maintain the rage against the mass immigration influx that is destroying liveability in Sydney:

Sadly, early indications are not good. Last month, Michael Daley appeared on Ray Hadley’s Radio 2GB program where he complained incessantly about overdevelopment without ever mentioning the cause – mass immigration – and the obvious solution of lowering immigration to sensible and sustainable levels:

“What they [voters] want to hear is politicians talking about what makes life better for them. How can we stop overdevelopment in Sydney, how can we address congestion. How do we reinvent the system of doing infrastructure so communities get a say and they don’t wake up one day, open the front door, and there’s light rail wrecking the suburb, or the next door neighbour’s house has been consumed for the WestConnex. People in the suburbs need help, and I am prepared to hit the reset button”…

“One of the developers [in my area] is building almost a new suburb next to a shopping centre in Pagewood, and there’s going to be something like 10,000 new residents. We don’t have a light rail. We don’t have a heavy rail. We’ve got an inadequate bus service. There’s been no plan there. And this is happening all over Sydney. This Government… have handed the reins of power over to developers. And they’re running rampant… We’ve gotta tidy this show up because people are getting crushed and they’re getting angry. Sydney’s supposed to be one of the best cities in the world. Not supposed to be an uncomfortable morass of being crushed under concrete”…

“The government has handed over the power to developers… No one’s pretending that Sydney won’t continue to grow and that we won’t need to accommodate more people due to natural growth and immigration. But, it’s gotta be done well. It’s gotta be density done well and there’s gotta be fairness… Some areas are getting clobbered with overdevelopment and others are getting away scott-free”…

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Yesterday, Michael Daley was even worse, giving an exclusive interview to The Guardian where he blamed Sydney’s population crush on “poor planning and infrastructure”, while labelling talk of lowering immigration as racist and xenophobic:

On another vexed issue in NSW politics – population – Daley has so far resisted the urge to use migration as a campaigning tactic. While Berejiklian has called for a cut in the state’s migration intake, Daley laid the blame on poor planning and infrastructure.

“What the Victorian election showed is that when some politicians want to talk about migration, it’s to distract from the fact that the infrastructure build is not taking place,” he said.

“That’s what people in the suburbs know. They know Sydney’s growing. They know they’ll be asked to take on more neighbours and they’re happy to do that.

“They’ll accept the growth, if they get the schools and the gardens, the community centres and the transport that goes along with it.

“Be careful of the xenophobia, the dog whistle, I don’t ever want to see that enter the political mainstream.”

This is pathetic by Michael Daley. The NSW Government is frantically trying (but failing) to keep pace with extreme population growth by spending record amounts on infrastructure – $87 billion in the last four years alone – and in the process has turned Sydney into a giant construction site. So to suggest that the NSW Government just needs to plan better and build more is ridiculous.

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Michael Daley’s incessant whining about over-development is also incredibly hypocritical, since it has been caused by flooding Sydney with 800,000 people over the past decade (80,000 people a year) via mass immigration. Worse, the ABS’ middle (Panel B) projection has Sydney’s population growing even faster by by 94,000 people a year for the next 48 years, with Sydney population to hit 9.7 million people by 2066:

Infrastructure Australia has already told us that under every build-out scenario for Sydney, traffic congestion will deteriorate further, as will access to jobs, schools, hospitals and green space, as the city’s population balloons to a projected 7.4 million people by 2046 (let alone 9.7 million people by 2066, as projected by the ABS):

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It will also see Sydney transformed into a high-rise ‘battery chook’ city:

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Put simply, overdevelopment is inevitable as long as almost 100,000 additional people are sardine packed into Sydney every year. So, if Michael Daley thinks overdevelopment is bad now, imagine how bad it will get as Sydney adds another 4.6 million people?

Rather than playing the deplorable race card in an attempt to shut down debate, Michael Daley needs to use some common sense, represent his constituents, and vigorously demand the federal government halve the immigration intake.

Otherwise, the quality of life that Sydneysiders have enjoyed for generations will be irreparably destroyed. And for what? To fatten the wallet of wealthy rent-seekers like Highrise Harry?

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In all our days tracking Australian economics and politics, MB has never seen a policy vision so destructive to our living standards. The mass immigration ‘Big Australia’ policy needs to be shredded and Michael Daley must join the fight.

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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.