In mid-2023, just as Australia’s net overseas migration was ramping up toward record levels, the mouthpiece of big business, The AFR Chanticleer, proclaimed that Australian businesses were “licking their lips” at the prospect of higher migration, “with few doubting that a bigger Australia is better”.
“It is boosting retailers’ sales, increasing landlords’ ability to collect rent, helping miners and contractors find staff, bolstering the big four banks’ customer numbers, lifting pathology providers’ testing volumes, filling up Macquarie’s IT department”, the AFR Chanticleer wrote.
“You name it, chief executives are talking about it. For a lot of them, migration is the new growth”.
