Infrastructure Partnerships Australia (IPA) chief executive, Adrian Dwyer, has hypocritically called for a restoration of pre-COVID levels of immigration to build the infrastructure needed to sustain a bigger population (caused by immigration), alongside a stronger commitment to ‘net zero’ carbon emissions (made worse by population growth):
“With a new term of parliament before it, now is the perfect time for the Albanese government to reassess and redefine its vision and objectives for Australian infrastructure,” said Infrastructure Partnerships Australia chief executive Adrian Dwyer…
The new government needed to be clear about its objectives for infrastructure projects and stop taxpayer dollars “leaking through to sub-economic projects,” Mr Dwyer said.
There are 1241 words left in this subscriber-only article.
IPA also wants a national plan to reach net zero carbon emissions, a strategy to boost domestic skills and a visa targeted at foreign infrastructure workers.
“An infrastructure subclass visa should be supplemented by a resumption in pre-COVID immigration levels to provide longer-term certainty to industry and state and territory governments,” Mr Dwyer said.
This is ‘tail wagging the dog’ economics. The primary reason why Australia has embarked upon such a large infrastructure build is to cater for its ballooning population caused by mass immigration:
The Intergenerational Report projects that Australia’s population will swell by a whopping 13.1 million people (~50%) over the next 40 years to 38.8 million people – equivalent to adding another Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to Australia’s existing population. And this will be driven by annual net overseas migration of 235,000.
The obvious question is: what’s the point of building all of this infrastructure if it will simply be ‘filled-up’ with migrants? How does this benefit existing Australian residents, especially given these projects will be funded via escalating user charges such as tolls?
Ultimately, existing residents will be charged more to use infrastructure that they previously used for free, with private companies like Transurban profiteering.
None of these truths are ever considered by the pushers of a ‘Big Australia’.
Infrastructure Australia’s 2019 Audit warned that even the current level of high investment in road and rail projects will not be enough to prevent the cities becoming paralysed by congestion by 2031. The cost of lost productivity due to gridlock is estimated to double from the current level to close to $40 billion per year.
The whole immigration-led economic system is a scam designed to enrichen owners of capital at the expense of ordinary residents:
Stuff in people so that new infrastructure is needed.
Build infrastructure with public/private partnerships and allow fat charges to the existing population to use them.
Standards of living fall given all you have done is privately tax folks to use infrastructure that they previously used for free.
Politicians get to pretend that they are good economic managers as GDP rises and they are doing something about congestion (caused by said people-stuffing).
Infrastructure owners like Transurban and their backers get ever richer driving jobs to the city while raising the exchange rate and hollowing out suburban factories.
Rinse and repeat until death by debt.
This entire immigration economy is predicated on firms like Transurban privatising the gains from mass immigration while socialising the costs on everyone else via giant private taxes and eroded living standards. The solution is less immigration, not more.
IPA’s immigration boosterism makes sense when you glance at its board:
Those that gain from immigration are certain to promote it.
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also Chief Economist and co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.
Latest posts by Unconventional Economist (see all)
