Profit & loss at our border
Economics don’t add up on immigration rates ... and it’s all self-inflicted
TREASURER Scott Morrison has proved how easily you can fool the media about the insane number of immigrants we’re taking in.
Morrison this week released a deceptive Treasury report that – bingo! – generated headlines such as: “Migrants deliver positive benefits to the economy”.
Yet anyone with eyes to see can tell we’re actually taking in more immigrants than we can possibly cope with.
And no one – including Morrison – can sensibly explain why on earth we’re doing this to ourselves.
We’re now importing the equivalent of a Hobart (and more) of immigrants every year, but without building another Hobart to fit them in.
Just last financial year we let in 184,000 permanent immigrants, 55,000 temporary immigrants and at least 15,000 refugees, and everywhere you can see the stress from importing such vast numbers every year.
You can see it in the crowded roads and soaring house prices in cities.
You can see it in the endless building of new freeways and train lines that buy only temporary relief from the ever-growing congestion.
You can see it in the suburbs endlessly sprawling into farmland, and in the vast ethnic colonies in suburbs like Lakemba and Cabramatta in Sydney, and Box Hill in Melbourne.
You can see it in the state schools struggling to teach children with little English, and in the startling levels of crime from some refugee communities, which have produced jihadists, bikies and gangs invading homes.
Why do we do this to ourselves? Why put ourselves under such stress that the seams are bursting?
Many Australians now ask themselves the same question, with polls showing huge support for a cut in an immigration program that’s now double the average of just 15 years ago.
But Morrison and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull last year ruled out any cut to permanent immigration when Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton suggested it, and were embarrassed when The Australian outed them last week.
That’s why Morrison has now released this Treasury report purporting to prove that he was right to defend this mass immigration intake.
As I said, his spin worked. The Guardian, for instance, announced “Migrants add to Australia’s wealth, government report finds”, adding: “Joint research by Treasury and the Department of Home Affairs has quashed concerns about the need to cut immigration.”
Oh, really? Dig deeper and the report actually confirms exactly the concerns it claims to quash. Yes, the report is right to say that bringing in lots more immigrants makes Australia richer – as well as giving the grateful Morrison at least a $1 billion a year in extra taxes he desperately needs.
But wait. Of course, the country gets richer. More people make more stuff. As economist Leith van Onselen noted drily: “The claim that ‘migrants boost the Australian economy by up to 1 per cent per year’ is hardly surprising given immigration is responsible for 1 per cent of Australia’s annual population growth (of 1.6 per cent).” But then that extra stuff this bigger population produces must be divided between more people.
Do that, and you find mass immigration makes next to no difference to your individual wealth.
This Treasury report itself admits immigration makes Australians per head of population just 0.1 per cent richer each year.
But is even that pathetic amount an exaggeration?
The report claims this gain comes from all the skilled immigrants we now insist upon, yet research from the Australian Population Research Institute says most skilled immigrants actually end up working in nonprofessional jobs.
In fact, many skilled immigrants actually aren’t, and unemployment among immigrants is actually higher than among the ‘born-heres’.
Then there’s the other con. While Morrison gloats over his billions, it’s the states that must find the money for the roads, trains, schools, dams, hospitals, police and social workers that this great tidal wave of immigrants demand.
Morrison gets the tax, but the states get the bill, and the Grattan Institute in 2014 said trying to catch up with population growth was “largely responsible for a $106 billion decline in their finances since 2006”. Finally, there’s the sell-out. For the sake of those few billions of taxes they get to pocket, Morrison and the rest of this government are imposing on Australia a vast demographic experiment.
At this rate of population increase, Australia will double its size in 50 years – mostly thanks to new arrivals with no deep cultural ties to this country.
What kind of Australia are these politicians foisting on us? And why? Watch Andrew Bolt on LIVE 7pm week nights