Migration, and particularly temporary migration, is emerging as a key issue in the shape of the post-pandemic Australian economy, and the idea is deeply worrying to business and supporters of neoliberalism.
Kristina Keneally’s weekend suggestion that post-pandemic migration policy should be different to our pre-virus emphasis on high permanent and temporary migration induced an immediate and hysterical reaction today from the Financial Review, which accused her of sounding like Pauline Hanson.
The froth-mouthed reaction from the editor of the AFR is informative, however — it illustrates just how crucial high immigration is for neoliberalism.
The individualist, market-based principles of neoliberalism require free movement — of money, of goods and services, of individuals. Investment needs to be able to go wherever it will be most profitable. Goods and services need to go wherever they are most valued by the market. And people need to be able to go wherever they can maximise their economic value.
The only problem is, the world hasn’t had open borders for more than a century. Nation-states insist on having what are, from a neoliberal perspective, childish displays of nationalism: they stop people from entering any country they like, they restrict investment flows in their (so-called) national interest and insist on preferring their own goods and services over those of others. Now, of course, virtually all movement across borders by people is completely suspended.
Restrictions on immigration are, in the view of neoliberals, particularly damaging. Everyone suffers: the poor individual from a developing country prevented from moving to a wealthier country to make more money, and the economy of the wealthier country that misses out on the additional economic growth from migration. And business suffers, because migrants expand the pool of labour, add whatever skills they bring to the market and put downward pressure on wages.
Temporary migration is particularly good: temporary migration based on particular skills can address skill shortfalls in key industries, keeping costs down; temporary migrants benefit from higher wages than they might earn at home, but the host society doesn’t have to look after them after they retire, or fund their health costs, or welfare costs if they lose their job.
And if they don’t speak the local language, or don’t understand how local institutions work, they’re more easily exploited, putting yet further downward pressure on wages. Australia’s wage theft epidemic is particularly severe on temporary foreign workers and foreign students, who are exploited by at least a quarter of employers, and often far more, in industries like hospitality and horticulture.
But as will be readily apparent, this affection for open borders sits poorly on the traditional ideological divide.
Neoliberals are at home on the right, but many conservatives view tight border controls as a core part of sovereignty, and high immigration as a threat to social cohesion (despite many decades of evidence in Australia that it isn’t).
On the left, unions see the direct threat posed by high temporary immigration to their members. Parts of the Green left (or the Sustainable Australia Luddites) see all immigration as a threat to the environment. But there’s also a “let them all come” section of the left that objects to border controls of any kind.
The post-pandemic migration debate will thus be the ultimate gathering of strange bedfellows, pitting business (especially sectors like IT — think media darlings like Atlassian), neoliberals and left-wing open-borders sentimentalists against traditional border control conservatives, unions and some environmentalist/sustainability types.
The premiers of NSW, Victoria and Queensland (of which Keneally used to be one) will be interested bystanders, given they will have to find ways to house and service immigrants — or cover the revenue shortfall that will come from lower immigration.
The debate has hitherto been conducted mainly in abstract: over the last 15 years, even despite the financial crisis and a prolonged period of economic stagnation since 2017, Australia has had relatively low unemployment, albeit with an overly high level of underemployment. Despite that, Labor pushed back against temporary migration twice in that period, once in government, and once in opposition under Bill Shorten — so successfully that the Turnbull government was forced to dump the 457 visa category.
If Labor could achieve that when unemployment was low, the period of high unemployment ahead offers considerable opportunity to inflict a lasting cut to temporary migration — especially as the government will have to take a conscious decision to re-open borders and resume migration, something that as Keneally notes has never happened before.
Past debates — which featured the Coalition hurling accusations of racism and hypocrisy at Labor — may end up looking fairly innocuous compared to the coming argument over how many migrants Australia should allow in as we recover from an economic catastrophe.
Hmm…I’m not holding out for anything from Labor’s AA. He acts and sounds like yesterday’s man and hasn’t laid out any vision or path that would benefit Australia despite the yawning gap provided by the sleepers in the coalition. Australia needs to empower it’s citizens and curtail the irresponsibility, corruption, ineptitude and featherbedding by its politicians and bureaucrats. Unfortunately, since just about all rights have been taken from citizens by governments over the decades, citizens have no tools to police or correct failed administrations. This is unlikely to end up well for anyone except those with big yachts, offshore islands and bank accounts, and reliable flows of money from public purses around the world.
or the Sustainable Australia Luddites…. So you don’t believe in a Sustainable Australia BK? Have you looked at our environmental track record lately?? It is appalling and migration should be curtailed on that basis alone, it is time for a post growth mentality to prevail and I don’t think it makes one a luddite to think so!
Immigration has averaged 200,000 pa for the last 20+ years – include “temporary” work visas & overstayers and the population has increased by 25%, from under 19M in 1999 to over 25M over that period.
Less than a quarter of that increase has been births.
Most unions don’t object to permanent immigration, though any genuinely democratic union reflects the views of its members. Still, a movement built on solidarity is inlikely to divide on the basis of birthplace. The union movement is an international movement and there are no shortcuts to organised labour.
What is true, is that a temporary visa systems controlled by the bosses is an inherently unjust system. Migration controlled by employers is the problem. Not migration.
There exists an unholy alliance between the economic right, who want temporary (never permanent) migration because a temporary workforce is generally unorganised and the cultural left who take the bait business sets that any kind of immigration-critique is automatically racist.
The lack of robust debate in this area I feel, is why even though our immigration intake is increasing, our permanent migration is decreasing. It’s also been getting increasingly more difficult for people to access family reunion visas.
Business is controlling the narrative, and the “lowercase l” liberals nod their empty heads along with ’em.
By contrast the economic left (unions) and the cultural right (conservatives) do not have such an accord between them.
Unions broadly reject temporary migration but welcome permanent migration. The two industries you referred to, horticulture and hospitality are both covered mostly by the United Workers Union. UWU is about 60% migrant worker and so is explicit in it’s support for migrant workers, but not the system that enables their exploitation.
The cultural right just don’t like brown people.
Really is this the time for a toxic divisive stir of the migration pot?
Borders are closed- 2 million people stuck w/o jobs, ability to leave or access to support because of visa status.
Surely a debate as to the collapse of values which sees political leaders blithely condemn 2 million humans to Destitution based on their visa status as non- citizens, people waiting years for decisions on visas and temporary migrants, could be held over while the immediate crisis of homeless destitution is addressed as we go into winter.
Considered civil debate could come down the track.
I have nothing against immigration as such. The successive generations of immigrants who have made their home with us have enriched us all. However I am deeply opposed to the way since the 1980s it has been used by successive governments to suppress wages and conditions, to relieve businesses and governments of the responsibility for educating and training our own people, and to keep inflating the (ultimately unsustainable) housing bubble.
With regard to sandbagging wages and conditions – and the concomitant objective of weakening the industrial and political strength of the organised working class – a tiny fraction of our people have made out like bandits, a much larger proportion have experienced some illusory benefits in the form of cheaper products from sweated labour and house price inflation, while the bottom third have experienced further immiseration as they have been forced further and further to the margins. I do not blame them for voting for Hanson. She gives voice to their rage and frustration – even as she deceives and exploits. She is nothing more than an undercover agent for the same neo-liberals whose spittle-flecked ordure is smeared across our monopoly media.
“However I am deeply opposed to …”
I, too, am opposed to all the developments you have listed. And I also oppose the resulting ‘gig economy’ that has resulted from these employment conditions.
Times two Griselda. Covers it nicely. The immigration Ponzi scheme was having all these nasty side effects, most particularly on the quality of life in big cities. Fine if the infrastructure kept up, but it didn’t. Not fine on environmental grounds.