Immigration

Tone Wheeler, president of the Australian Architecture Association, has penned an article in The SMH claiming that “to save suburbia, we’ll need to destroy much of it”.

In the decade leading up to the pandemic, the frequency of #SardineSydney stories across the mainstream media mushroomed as the city’s population swelled way above the capacity of the road, public transport, housing, hospital and school systems.

The Grattan Institute last week published an article in The Conversation, on “how to provide temporary migrants with clear pathways to permanent residency and citizenship”.

Following this month’s national accounts shocker, which saw the nation’s final demand growth plunge to zero over the December quarter (minus 0.5% in per capita terms): The AFR View asked “What is Labor’s growth plan from here?“: The answer should be obvious to The AFR: “quantitative peopling” via mass immigration.

The Albanese Government’s fake migration review will reportedly recommend scrapping labour market testing, which requires employers to advertise a position for at least four weeks before employing a migrant, in favour of a modest $70,000 minimum salary floor for temporary ‘skilled’ workers.

One of the main arguments in favour of running a Big Australia mass immigration policy is that it will alleviate chronic skills shortages across the economy.

A new survey from the The Australian Population Research Institute (TAPRI) has asked voters whether they want Australia to return to pre-COVID levels of 240,000 annual net overseas migration (NOM) or above, or whether they would prefer lower levels.

In Wednesday’s speech to The AFR’s workplace summit, Home Affairs Minister Claire O’Neil lamented the temporariness of Australia’s immigration system, claiming it was holding the nation back.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil has given the strongest indication yet that Labor will use its upcoming migration review to ramp immigration even higher.

By Ross Elliott, cross-posted from The Pulse: There is nothing inevitable about the rate of our population growth in Australia.

The latest immigration data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed that immigration levels have already exceeded the October federal budget’s forecast: The ABS’ breakdown on the contributors to Australia’s net overseas migration (NOM) in the 2021-22 financial year showed that international students drove the rebound.

The ANU’s Andrew Norton has warned that most international students would struggle to gain permanent residency is the skilled migration income threshold was lifted to the median full-time wage (currently $85,000), which includes unskilled workers.

A group of academics and migrant advocates have penned an article in The Canberra Times claiming that “everywhere we look, systematic wage theft and exploitation of migrant workers is rife”.

Master Builders Australia (MBA) CEO Denita Wawn says the nation’s construction industry is not building enough new homes to meet demand.

The number one recommendation of the Business Council of Australia’s (BCA) submission to the federal government’s immigration review is to set the permanent migration intake as a percentage of the total population: In practice this would mean that the actual permanent migrant intake would continually grow alongside Australia’s population.

Terry Rawnsley, Director at KPMG Planning & Infrastructure Economics, has published a post on LinkedIn estimating that Australia’s population grew by 440,000 people last year, taking the nation beyond 26 million people: Our estimates show that Australia’s #population grew by 440,000 people during 2022.

The biggest immigration intake in this nation’s history is not enough to satisfy Australia’s various business lobbies, who are demanding the federal government open the sluice gates even wider.

By Stephen Saunders: The October Budget offers us a sparkly new “wellbeing” framework.