Dick Smith has long been a Little Australia man, steady in his opposition to immigration. If anything, he’s become more so in recent years, making videos, running a website, announcing a political party that had as its central tenet that immigration was a “giant Ponzi scheme” based on “perpetual growth”. There’s never been anything racial, discriminatory or bigoted about Smith’s hostility to immigration — it’s based on his economic and ecological views. But when the cancer of One Nation has returned to the Australian body politic, and anti-immigration populism is surging across the West and here, you’d hope Smith — who remains an iconic and influential figure for most Australians over 40 — would choose his arguments and facts with care.
Alas, no. Joining Sky’s angry white men last night, Ross “Sydney Morning Homosexual” Cameron and Mark Latham — two former politicians masquerading as victimised outsiders — Smith blamed immigration (“200,000 a year”) for almost the entire housing affordability problem in Sydney, warned that continued immigration growth would lead to the impoverishment of “most people” and that the services sector didn’t provide real jobs, merely “selling coffee to each other or doing nails”.
Does high immigration add to pressure on house prices? Even though 200,000 a year — in fact, if you include student and 457 visa holders, the number is significantly greater — is less than 1% of Australia’s population, of course it does. But economists would be intrigued to learn that migration is entirely to blame for poor affordability, and that the billions we spend a year via the tax system incentivising investors to put their money into housing rather than more productive uses, or the lack of housing construction in NSW when Labor was in power, or record low interest rates, or the unwillingness of successive governments to invest in infrastructure and public services, have nothing to do with the balance between supply and demand. Blaming migrants is the “they take our jerbs” argument of housing affordability.
And the reason you can’t drive anywhere in Sydney, Dick, is because of decades of underinvestment in infrastructure and public transport, and rampant NIMBYism among Sydney residents, not because of overpopulation.
How about immigration and “perpetual growth” impoverishing us? Handily, there’s been some work done on whether immigration encourages economic growth. An OECD study found that immigration was linked to “a positive but fairly small impact” on economic growth, which echoed a 2006 Productivity Commission analysis which found that “the overall economic effect of migration appears to be positive but small”. A key factor found by the PC was that “the annual flow of migrants is small relative to the stock of workers and population” — that is, for all the conviction that Australia has had very high immigration, compared to our overall population, it doesn’t have much impact.
And immigrants are younger, and have a higher workforce participation rate, than the Australian population — which means they work a lot more than the rest of us, and that gap will grow in coming years as our population ages. Immigration can’t halt the ageing of the population, but it can slow the decline in participation, which — far from impoverishing us — will support economic growth.
Does Smith want to cut student visas as well? After all, the approximately 400,000 foreign students in Australia need housing too. Of course, that would seriously harm Australia’s $19 billion a year higher education earnings and the tens of thousands of jobs it provides, but presumably that won’t impoverish anyone. What about the nearly 100,000 457 visa holders who also need housing? Does Smith think we can do without them? Who’ll work in IT companies, or cook in our massive cafe and restaurant sector? Who’ll work in our hospitals and aged care facilities, looking after elderly and ill Australians?
Ah, but for Smith, who has long been an economic nationalist — remember his marketing ploy, Dick Smith Foods, with its blatant appeal to patriotism — services jobs don’t seem to count. They’re just “selling coffee to each other or doing nails”. Somehow, in Smith’s view, that economic activity doesn’t count. The barista or waitress’ wages — they might be a student trying to pay their way to an education, or a mum trying to supplement the family’s income by pulling a few shifts if she can afford the childcare — isn’t real money; the care provided to the infirm and the elderly isn’t real care, the revenue earned by IT firms isn’t real revenue, because it’s that tainted word “services”.
The million Australians who work in the services sector — 8.5% of the workforce, up from 6.5% at the turn of the century and 4% in the 1980s — might take a dim view of their careers being dismissed by Smith, but it’s of a piece with the economic nationalist narrative, that traditional blue collar male jobs — manufacturing, agriculture, construction — are real jobs, while services jobs are associated with women and therefore don’t count as much — doing nails isn’t as real a job as making plastic widgets.
Smith’s conviction that a constant and exclusive focus on economic growth is unsustainable and needs reconsideration is certainly worthy of debate. But he’s fused it with a Small Australia mentality and backwards-looking economic vision of the Australia he grew up in, when nearly one in five of the workforce were in manufacturing. And Australia has always been an immigrant society — the world’s most successful one, even though many of us have, for generations, blamed migrants for our woes. That’s the tradition that Smith, sadly, is carrying on.
But he’s the electronic Wizard!
Bernard, you concede that “a constant and exclusive focus on economic growth is unsustainable and needs reconsideration is certainly worthy of debate”, but choose only to discuss a narrow focus such as whether immigration “encourages economic growth”. For example, does immigration contribute to environmental degradation? Is the contribution out of proportion? In your last para you write that “Australia has always been an immigrant society — the world’s most successful one”, without any definition of what “successful” might mean. I don’t know about you but I don’t understand why it is that Australia should set out to increase its population in complete defiance of principles of sustainability. Governments of all stripes have paid ‘baby bonuses’ in one form or another at a time when we are flat out trying to find meaningful, let alone full time, employment for an older generation that is increasingly obviously unneeded. At the same time we are told that Japan is suffering (or its economy is) from a population slump but I see no evidence of a breakdown of the society there.
So I wonder whether you would consider a slightly more nuanced argument, one where we might consider (say) halving the migrant intake for a number of years (leave the students, 457s etc as they are) and working on the infrastructure, employment, education and resources issues that are emerging while we also keep an eye on how Japan and several European countries deal with the, surely not insurmountable, issues that arise when population growth plateaus?
A worthy comment for the most part, Charlie, but I’d take issue with your statement –
“At the same time we are told that Japan is suffering (or its economy is) from a population slump but I see no evidence of a breakdown of the society there.”
Having resided there and visited frequently I seriously doubt that there’s a more anomic society anywhere in the free world. And actually it does appear that’s largely the product of unending decades of economic torpor resulting from and feeding into the negative birth rate of a country that (for deeply ingrained racialist reasons) simply doesn’t do immigration. When I was last there for a couple of weeks a year ago the entire country just felt like one enormous floating old age home. I’d say Japan is the standout example of why in some circumstances immigration can be better than good.
Will, you introduced me to a word (anomic) that I had never heard of before. My dictionary tells me that anomy or anomie means: “lack of the usual social standards in group or person: hence anomic [from the Greek anomia (anomos lawless)”. I have only a couple of fleeting, but wonder filled experiences of Japan. There is nothing that would even tempt me to describe the country or the Japanese society as ‘lawless’. Nothing!
Anomic societies aren’t lawless, Charlie. Rather, for individuals that comprise them, they are purposeless. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomie)
Japanese young adults today display almost no interest in the career, marriage, child-raising and community fixations that characterised the lives of their parents. It’s because the old social contract, a job for life in return for allegiance to a rigid but secure society, has disintegrated due to the complete disappearance of any trace of economic growth starting around three decades ago.
Beneath the magical surface of neon lights, fresh seafood, historic temples and mountain vistas, life for the vast majority of Japanese locals is actually seriously grim and grueling. And increasingly, without any hope whatsoever of improvement for all but the most privileged few, widespread anomie is setting in. My own greatest worry is that without an altogether new political economy, this may be Australia’s future too.
Very interesting observation, Will, and I accept it on face value. Japan is not unique in its no-immigration stance but I wonder if it is possible to grow an economy without growing a population? I thought this was the ongoing ‘experiment’ in Japan.
I agree we should cut the migration program down to the levels it has been in the past – 70-80,000 a year. This seems to be an absorbable number. And the idea that the 100,000 or so people that move into Melbourne each year (1 million over 10 years) does not put a strain on housing, schools and transport infrastructure can only be put forward by someone who doesn’t live in Sydney or Melbourne.
Also read Peter Mares’ excellent book ‘Not Quite Australian’ about temporary migration to Australia. We need to cut that as well. Working Holidays need to go back to being just that – the chance for young people from other countries to come to Australia for a very long holiday and supplement their savings by working. It should stop being a de facto cheap labour program and substitute for recruiting and training locals in many industries such as hospitality. Rural labour needs could be met, partly through the WHM program but also with seasonal labour from the Pacific, as New Zealand does.
There are also too many people on 457 visas not doing highly skilled work and the numbers here should be reduced and a time limit put on the time they stay here as temporary workers – max 4 years as a temporary entrant and then the employer should sponsor them for permanent residence if they are essential to the business. Otherwise they should go home. This used to be the policy. Too many on temporary visas still here after 8 years when really they should either become permanent or leave. One of the questions Mares asks is when does someone actually become an Australian and this is an issue that the Government has not faced up to – people here working, contributing, settling, but not entitled to the rights or responsibilities of residency.
We can stop immigration easily – just kill the economy & nobody will want to come. Then Dick Smith will be happy.
Someone who has a helicopter can’t preach about sustainability.
Apparently Robert, in Australia, nothing can or will stop immigration. In fact, it appears we are prepared to go to war, anybody’s war at any cost, in order to procure a new migrant/refugee stream.
+ 100
There are ecological constraints that are already being exceeded. Infrastructure and services are already overwhelmed. It is reckless and mindless to advocate a continued large immigration intake. I propose that we cut the total migration intake to 100,000 per year, with 70,000 of those places going to refugee and other humanitarian visas, 15,000 skilled visas, and 15,000 family reunion visas. It is not ethical for Australia to grab large numbers of the highest skilled people from societies that desperately need to retain skilled people. We should be more generous to people in desperate need and less greedy about taking the highly skilled from other societies.
Big businesses want large immigration because it is a lazy way to grow their profits. They don’t need to innovate better products or better ways of making things – they can just sit back and let population growth increase the size of the market they sell to.
Politicians want large immigration because it is a great way to pretend that the economy is growing when in fact the real per capita performance of the economy is poor, the quality of the growth is poor, labour under-utilization is sky high, infrastructure and services are deteriorating, and the ecosystems are getting trashed.
This appeal to the environment is regional NIMBYism, though, and about as convincing as appealing to drownings to rationalise Manus. Just as that argument founders on the question of what happens to the “saved” potential migrants, it has to be recognised that migrants don’t just materialise out of thin air – they come from other countries. If you’re concerned about the global environment you’ll want to look at the environmental footprint of a migrant in both source and destination countries. But nobody is interested in that calculation and I suspect most of these “concerned Australians” wrapping themselves in a green flag are not actually concerned with the global environment at all.
Bernard is quite right that DS legitimises One Nation with this stuff and, while careful discussions about migration need to be had, they do need to be careful. It won’t be long until Reclaim Australia are crying crocodile tears about the environmental impact of migrants (alongside all the crime waves, of course.)
The Great Barrier Reef is not being destroyed by tourism or even the urbanisation, land clearing and political populism of coastal Queensland. The rapid, carbon-intensive, debt-ridden population expansion of the entire country is antithetical to sustainable development – anywhere in the world.
Nicholas…spot on! Endless growth is not possible in any shape or form. I agree with you that we ought not to be taking their skilled and professional generation to enhance our material well being at the expense of the communities from where they come. Migration needs to be re-examined.
Almost everything we consume in this country is imported.
How does doing each other’s nails and selling each other coffees pay for our cars, clothes, computers, appliances, entertainment, building materials,industrial machinery, food, etc ?
Why do we need to import more workers when over a million people remain un- and underemployed ? Why are we worrying about a participation rate when half the jobs available are going to disappear in the next generation or two ?
Manufacturing jobs don’t need to be about making cars or TVs. But they DO need to be about MAKING THINGS that we can sell to the rest of the world. Those things could be advanced robots. Those things could be high-end medical equipment. Those things could be software. Those are semantic details. The point is that swapping money with each other doesn’t, and never will, pay the bills.
1. “Almost everything we consume in this country is imported” is an alt fact. That is, it is demonstrably and transparently false: check out any ABS or WB data on trade shares.
2. Trade as a share of GDP in the US, for example, is less than 30%. So over 70% of US economic activity has nothing to do with selling stuff to foreigners to pay for stuff they import. Selling stuff – including services – to each other is the lion’s share of the US economy and they seem to be doing pretty well out of it. Trade is more important for us and does allow us to enjoy a higher standard of living than we otherwise would, but…
3. We sell education to the rest of the world, for example, and lots of it. So no, exports do not need to be about MAKING THINGS. (And it’s not just a semantic point when you redefine intangibles like software to fit your worldview.)
Australia has run trade deficits for most of its existence.
Nearly everything we consume – clothes, shoes, computers, phones, cars, fuel, furniture, building materials, appliances, garden tools, industrial machinery, food, is imported. Heck, even most of our intangibles like software and culture (music, movies, TV shows, etc) are imported.
The US still makes a lot of things itself. Cars, appliances, clothes, etc, etc. So its internal trade of those things is meaningful and self sustaining.
We do not. So all those people selling coffee to each other, are reliant on imports (coffee beans, espresso machines, etc) to survive. This is true for pretty much all our services. Heck, even the parasitic FIRE sector is reliant on imported capital.
The US economy is doing OK ? Like ours, it is weighed down by a mountain of private debt. Real wages haven’t improved in decades and are being slowly consumed by interest payments. Un- and under-employment is enormous. Public infrastructure is insufficient and failing. Nearly all the economic benefit of the last generation or two of progress have flowed to the top fraction of a percent of society.
The whole thing is held up only by a facade of easy credit, which will eventually crack.
But like I said, the US at least has sufficient resources, expertise and will internally to rebuild itself. We’ve got a country full of people who think a balanced economy is bankers making a 110%LVR loans to contract FIFO mine workers so they can negatively gear investment properties to have the cashflow to buy a Hilux, a Jetski and a Harley, then take a holiday in Bali.
Finally, we don’t sell education to the rest of the world anymore, we sell citizenship and property. Twenty years ago we had academic institutions with a level of respect – even if only second-tier – internationally. Now we have degree factories and shonky “education” providers running borderline slave labour scams.
“Almost everything we consume in this country is imported.”
Seems like your arguing against yourself. Apparently we “import everything” and provide nothing back to the rest of the world in terms of exports. Sounds like a sweet deal.
But alas, those service jobs, like education (if you wish to count it as an export) are wealth-creating and do help pay for our imports.
As to the broader point, why is manufacturing a nail-buffer in a factory considered a “real job” while doing someone’s nails “not a real job”?