Australia has a new immigration shill working in the mainstream media: The AFR’s new economics correspondent Ronald Mizen.
Mizen has today penned an article calling for Australia to lift Australia’s immigration intake to 327,000 people per year because it would supposedly be good for the economy and federal budget:
Replacing migrants lost during the coronavirus pandemic would add $260 billion to the economy and lift growth from 2.3 per cent to 2.6 per cent a year in the long term…
The IGR sensitivity analysis considers the long-term change in the economy of increasing the annual net overseas migration from 235,000 a year to 327,000 by 2060-61.
The increase would lift the total population by 1.7 million, or 4.3 per cent, above current forecasts to 40.5 million, which would effectively replace losses sustained and compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The result would be an increase in real GDP of 4.7 per cent by 2060-61 and a lift in labour-force participation from 63.6 per cent to 64.3 per cent.
Treasury’s Intergenerational Report (IGR) already projected that Australia’s population would swell by 13.1 million people (+50%) over the next 40 years to 38.8 million people, with this growth coming from a net overseas migration (NOM) intake of 235,000 people annually from 2025-26 onwards.
If achieved, this would mean that Australia’s population would grow by the equivalent of adding a Sydney, Melbourne plus Brisbane to Australia’s current population.
If Ronald Mizen’s higher immigration targets were achieved, then Australia’s current population would grow by the equivalent of adding a Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Hobart in only 40 years!
It would also means that Australia’s population would grow at a faster rate over the next 40 years (and by more than double the size) than was experienced in the 20 years leading up to COVID – a period that was characterised by chronic infrastructure bottlenecks and a huge erosion in quality of life.
In writing this fool’s gold, Mizen has also neglected to mention that the IGR only looks at the federal budget and ignores the costs imposed on state budgets from providing the many goods and services required to sustain bigger populations (e.g. infrastructure, education and social services):
The OLGA [OverLapping Generations model of the Australian economy] and FIONA [Fiscal Impact of New Australians] results presented in this report do not capture the broader economic, social or environmental effects of migration such as technology spillovers or congestion. The FIONA results presented here do not capture the fiscal impacts of migration on state or local governments.
The IGR also warns that Australia’s immigration intake needs to be at a level that is “at or below the capacity” of destination cities to absorb them, and requires “careful planning by all levels of government”:
The economic and social pressures and capacity constraints that result from an inward flow of migrants also need to be managed carefully. Migration should be kept at or below the capacity of the destination city or region to absorb new migrants, taking into account impacts on incumbent populations…
Governments at all levels need to ensure that planning and infrastructure provision keep pace with current and future migration rates and ensure that migrants have access to essential services – such as public transport, support services and housing – and can meaningfully integrate into society.
This requires transparency, consistent decision making and careful planning by all levels of government.
Given that Australian policy makers failed so dismally to manage the prior 20 years of mass immigration, what makes Ronald Mizen confident that they will properly manage the next 40 years of even stronger immigration?
In the 20 years before COVID hit, Australia’s population increased by 6.5 million people – exactly half the level projected by the IGR, with Sydney and Melbourne each adding around 1.6 million and 1.8 million people respectively over that time.
Does anybody honestly believe that having Sydney and Melbourne add another 3.2 million and 3.6 million people over just 40 years would be “at or below the capacity” of these cities “to absorb new migrants”? Or that such strong population growth would be “managed carefully” with “planning and infrastructure provision keep[ing] pace with current and future migration rates” and “consistent decision making and careful planning by all levels of government”?
The mass immigration program of 2000 to 2020 was managed appallingly and crush loaded everything in sight, resulting in widespread infrastructure bottlenecks across Australia’s major cities and reduced liveability.
Repeating the experience twice over again, as projected by the IGR, let alone adding even more migrants under Mizen’s prescription is delusional and the very definition of insanity.
Australia’s living standards would be destroyed and climate change would ensure that Australia runs into chronic water supply problems long before the population hits Mizen’s projected 40.5 million population target.
Ronald Mizen is the living, breathing example of the phrase: “economists know the price of everything but the value of nothing”.
