The numbers in the migration program aren’t going down — they’re actually going up … How does Jim Chalmers look the Australian public in the eye and tell them a story about migration which is not true? The pressure that they’re putting onto housing is going to make it less affordable for families to get a home.
The government had the opportunity under the migration program review to allow more tradies to come in … So the government in a single decision is going to make it harder to find a tradie and more expensive to find a tradie.
Peter Dutton, within a single minute, December 12, 2023
One of the few positives of being in opposition is that you don’t have to be consistent and you can say whatever you like because you’re not in power. So there’s no need to align your actions and your words.
Normally, however, opposition leaders do not take advantage of that relatively low bar to literally say things that are the exact opposite of each other. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton not only managed that yesterday, he said them in sequence, one after the other, more or less in the same breath. The government hasn’t cut immigration hard enough, he says. But it has cut immigration too hard because it’s not letting enough tradies in.
A malicious right-wing newspaper might be tempted to write this up as “Opposition leader wants to flood Australia with foreign tradies”, warning that our homes would be overrun by foreigners with who knows what qualifications driving down the wages of hard-working dinki-di Aussie tradies.
If it was Labor in opposition, that is.
Dutton was merely demonstrating the flexibility that being out of power gives one, of course. It’s not the first time the Coalition has demanded less immigration and more immigration. His immigration spokesman Dan Tehan has constantly railed at Labor’s secret agenda for a “big Australia” — “Labor’s big Australia could see 1.87 million people arrive in the country over five years as Australians continue to struggle with the cost of living and the rental crisis,” he warned recently — but Tehan has a soft spot for backpackers who he wants to flood the country with to benefit farmers and horticultural producers.
Dutton can declare the Liberals have turned their backs on big business, thereby freeing them from having to stick rigidly to the neoliberal policies demanded by the top end of town, but there are some political constituencies the Coalition will never abandon. That leaves him wanting to look after the Coalition’s political mates in the agricultural and construction sectors, while railing against migration — you have to complain about too many migrants and not enough migrants of your preferred kind at the same time.
“What has migration ever done for us,” Dutton thus wonders, John Cleese-style. “Well, except for the tradies … Need the tradies,” pipes up someone. “And the backpackers — can’t do without the backpackers.”
And how about aged care? The Coalition’s traditional means of avoiding funding increases in remuneration for aged care workers has been to tell the industry to import more from overseas — in fact, before the last election the then-government attacked Labor for relying on migration to provide healthcare staff while admitting it would be importing more aged care workers itself.
Construction. Agriculture. Aged care. Pretty soon you’re talking real migration numbers, all with the goal of keeping wages down for employers.
Migration is complex. It spurs inflation by increasing demand but reduces inflation by reducing employment market pressure. It inspires innovation by bringing new talent to Australia but undermines productivity by reducing the incentive for businesses to invest in automation. It increases revenue for governments but requires more spending on infrastructure. It’s nuanced, and as the Productivity Commission once noted, ensuring the costs and benefits are properly distributed to deliver an overall benefit means having the right distributional policies in place more broadly.
Dutton doesn’t do complexity. Like Tony Abbott, he’s not one for nuance. For Dutton, it’s either zero or one, no in-between. Or, as is the case on immigration, he’s zero and one.
The media does not routinely give attention to Putin so why does it give attention to Dutton?
The two are basically saying the same thing (albeit Putin generally relies on troll factories).
Putin has for years now used immigration (and other divisive subjects including Brexit, Trump, race and other culture wars) to destablise Western democracy.
We know this.
The Guardian uncovered Russian troll factories operating out of West Africa.
Biden has said that the aim of Russia is to destabilise Western democracies by showing that they are incapable of dealing with issues and delivering for their people and they use disinformation to destabilise and paralyse democracies (see Britain and the US in the past few years). Immigration is one of many divisive subject matters for this psychological warfare.
The likes of Dutton (and the Brexit Party (formerly known as the Conservative Party) and the Trump Party (formerly known as the Republican Party) are both useful idiots in this war, as well as actually being aligned with Putin – ideologically if not strategically. Putin and modern Russia are an inspiration to these oligarchs masquerading as conservatives – a country that is outwardly socially conservative and where a small group of people control all of the wealth and power.
This is oligarchism.
And this is in fact what we are dealing with in most countries in the 21st century (not neo-liberalism which died around the Global Financial Crash when governments bailed out the banks).
The global oligarchs have a number of other things in common:
The tactics in Western democracies are remarkably similar. The main focus is paralysing democracies by engaging in constant culture wars, undermining democratic institutions (in Dutton’s case the High Court of Australia – no less) and generally promoting populism and disinformation.
On the issue of immigration – which is being weaponised globally by these groups – responsible politicians and media need to deal with this issue head on. And dealing with it head on does not mean pretending that in a world of more people and with ageing populations we can reduce immigration. It means facing up to the reality that there will be immigration and ensuring that housing and other infrastructure is managed in a way to deal with that.
That means we absolutely cannot afford to waste a single inch of land and we need to maximise the efficiency of how we distribute housing. So as a matter of national security – no less – we need to sort out housing policy including restricting investment properties, improving rental rights, and building more public housing. Because if we don’t do that the likes of Dutton and Putin will win.
There’s a lot of truth in your comment. Especially regarding the relationship between oligarchism and the weaponisation of migration. However, the problem with your contention about us needing to accept migration due to an aging population is that migrants themselves age. In Australia the median age of migrants is older than the existing population. Coupled with the desire for migrants to bring over the elderly relatives and we’re actually making the “aging population issue” worse.
The wealthy also use migration as a tool to lower wages, and boost demand for housing and services. Thus driving inflation, and making inequality worse as the capital class reaps the rewards while socialising the losses.
What we need is a migration program the helps us attain genuinely skilled people in areas we lack in the short term while rapidly boosting training to ensure that our domestic population is able to then fill job shortages, while being paid good wages to enable them to live. Labor is starting to try to move towards that, but we need to have a sustainable population policy which then informs our migration policy. Policy needs to force business to the table to recognise that they need to increase wages – which will also see innovation and productivity gains
My comment on ageing populations is not really a contention but reality.
People age. There are more people in the world. The world is more connected than at any time in human history. And that is before we get to migration caused by climate change.
It is simply fanciful to pretend that migration is going to come down. Brexit Britain tried to bring down immigration and it increased.
Ironically the EU was at one stage (and still probably is) the most successful model for managing migration. The EU’s model (which worked unbelievably well until the GFC and migrant crisis began in circa 2007) was to open up to poorer countries, provide support to those countries so that they grew their living standards, and then increase the geographic and political area so as to better manage a growing population.
This is what happened with Ireland which went from being a net exporter of people to a net importer. The same happened with Poland which actually now seeing reduced emigration and increased immigration.
When it comes to Australia, I mean it’s not even an issue. Australia is a vast continent with the largest houses on the planet. The reason Australia cannot manage a population of just 24m people is because it is grossly negligent in its management of housing stock which is why this sparsely populated continent has the most expensive houses on the planet.
Literally everything about Australian housing is farcical:
I mean I could go on but honestly the property market here is third world stuff.
The least of our worries in some migrants coming over who don’t exactly have the six figure salaries and six figure gifts from parents and seven figure investment properties to compete.
What is the basis for insisting Australia – a sovereign nation surrounded by ocean – cannot do anything to reduce immigration, simply because other people exist in the world ?
There’s a practical, albeit rather extreme, example of it happening only a few years ago.
If you want to advocate for high immigration, then by all means do so. But don’t pretend it’s not a deliberate policy choice.
It is ironic you complain about oligarchism and culture wars disrupting functional discussions while enthusiastically supporting just that.
Look at you getting all sovereign.
There’s that nationalism/exceptionalism rearing its head.
Australia has the numbers set by the government and it looks the government will try and reduce those numbers at some point (but apparently it won’t include tradies!).
Keep screaming at the clouds!
LOL. I regret I do not have an eyeroll big enough.
Not according to you. Your argument is that the Government cannot restrict immigration.
Like I said, if you want to make an argument that nation-states shouldn’t exist, then do so. That would at least be honest.
When did I argue the government couldn’t restrict numbers?
When did I make the argument nation states shouldn’t exist?
What are you talking about???
“And dealing with it head on does not mean pretending that in a world of more people and with ageing populations we can reduce immigration. It means facing up to the reality that there will be immigration and ensuring that housing and other infrastructure is managed in a way to deal with that.”
“There are more people in the world. The world is more connected than at any time in human history. “
“It is simply fanciful to pretend that migration is going to come down.”
It is difficult to interpret those statements any other way. I’ve certainly asked you to clarify what you actually meant by statements like these in the past, and you haven’t.
See above. It’s implicit in the argument that the international movement of people cannot be restricted.
Like I said, clarify what you actually mean, please, that way I don’t have to try and interpret vague motherhood statements.
It would be interesting given over on another thread[1] Malidnis wrote
If there’s overpopulation (with all the known consequences) why support policies that will continue to take Australia past a sustainable population level (as recognised by scientists not economists)?
[1]: https://uat.crikey.com.au/2023/12/14/stage-three-tax-cuts-progressive/
Yes we have overpopulation but one can’t drastically reduce said population without doing some things that are frowned upon.
So we need to plan for the population that exists rather than the one we want to exist.
You can in any country where births have fallen below replacement rates. Let your population level out and decline.
If we were to do that, it had better be at the same time as a massive campaign to train up an army of tradies of all persuasions, because every where I look there shortages. Try and get a bathroom or kitchen built as I recently did and you’ll find yourself waiting several months.
Depends on your definition of sustainable. Australia doesn’t do sustainable very well, growing cotton on the upper Darling comes to mind. Bloody stupid! The Netherlands, almost half the size of Tasmania and almost 20M people, has trucking, shipping and aircraft industries, and is one of Europe’s largest agricultural exporters. We cut down forests and dig up stuff and sell it OS – not too smart…
These are just descriptions of our reality.
But governments of course can and do limit the numbers and nation states are a handy way of managing resources.
But all of that has to be grounded in reality.
The difference between you and me is you think you can guess the carrying capacity of a continent and I don’t.
But they’re not, in that case.
Because we can absolutely and trivially reduce immigration if we want to, simply by not issuing visas allowing people to enter the country.
I agree it is fairly fanciful to think migration is going to reduce, but that’s because the world is run on supply-side neoliberal economics that demands it remain high. This is a very different scenario than ‘it must continued because there are more people in the world and they want to move’, which is your justification.
I never claimed to be able to guess the carrying capacity of Australia. I have certainly read material by people who have some expertise in this area.
My fundamental argument is that immigration should be managed and moderated so as not to damage the living standards of existing citizens and residents.
The difference between you and me is that you think they’re just like numbers on a spreadsheet, whereas I think they’re actual real people who have real impacts in the world (like, say, using houses).
“Little Peter Abbott has no idea to propose,
Little Peter Abbott has no idea to suppose,
Little Peter Abbott has no idea and it shows,
But he flips it and he flops it
That’s the Peter Abbott way.”?
Peter “Pig’s Ear” Dutton doggerel? This is a headline minister of the previous Limited News Party Coalition government of nine years – that did nothing on these matters (he’s whining and droning on about now), but make them dogs’ breakfasts, for someone else to come along after, to clean up. Why isn’t Labor, let alone the massed pipes and drums of the ‘news media’, shouting his/their record on that? … Maybe he’s been getting ‘Talking Out of Both Sides of Your Mouth At Once Logic” ‘electrocution lessons’ from Cousin Jethro?
Why is it that it seems few in our ‘news media’, besides Keane and a couple of others, can see this Emperor Dutton’s new arrayment? That more of our ‘news media’ can’t hold up and hang out his hypocrisy for more general distribution and derision?
“Out of power” indeed.
…. But then again they can get away with it – they know sod-all of the media is actually going to hold them to account, if they win and become the ‘powerful’ that is government : because Rupert owns 70-odd% of our views media and 90% of the rest hasn’t got guts or ethics enough to call it out on any of their false dychotomies.
“Engineered Obsolescence” at work in our economy – years of governments, he’s been a big wheel in, ‘saving money, by not training our own’, home to roost and work.
A party/government ideologically set against lower classes being helped to positions above their station – from vandalising TAFE colleges to the less well-off being excluded by affordability from uni degrees with rising costs.
Preferring to rely on immigration of trained personnel (that could afford such training) to fill those engineered pot-holes – with legislation that allowed employers to exploit those foreign workers, where ‘necessary’.
Why can’t he show, take, more pride – come out and claim his (and his Coalition’s) share of the credit for that (to be repeated) history/legacy too – for this, their sh*tty nest – while he’s at it?
Dutton says it’s going to be harder for FAMILIES to get into a home. Great, so it doesn’t affect everyone who is not a FAMILY. Phew.
As for immigration, it’s long past time when we could have a sensible discussion about this. Real environmentalists (like David Attenborough, who is the official patron of anti-population-growth groups) are deeply concerned about the burgeoning human population, and its effect on the environment, other species, and also the quality of life for people themselves.
And yet our very own “Greens” have used the racism accusation to stifle any discussion about population and over-population.
For too many years, successive governments have used immigration as a quick way to increase our population and appease their big-business donors. John Howard started it, with the baby bonus and a ratcheting-up of family-based welfare, but his government also quadrupled the yearly immmigration intake, all the while demonising a pitiful few thousand asylum seekers.
It was typically sneaky and devious, but it worked.
Alan Kohler has referred to growth by immigration as a sugar-hit to the economy. And like sugar hits, there’s a brief burst but with nothing but a slump after it. Infrastructure hasn’t kept up, and the actual economy doesn’t grow. The pie remains the same size, but with more people wanting a piece of it.
and that’s the problem.
This is a bad piece.
As much as it pains me to apparently agree with Peter Dutton – who I am entirely confident would not be handling this situation any better whatsoever were he PM – lower immigration overall, with a higher proportion of appropriate immigration, is a perfectly reasonable position to hold.
Labor’s exclusion (for obvious reasons) of tradies from the temporary visa program utterly destroys any possible argument that addressing skills shortages is a primary – or even significant – objective.
Half the NOM intake are dependents, not workers/students, so there’s plenty of scope to dramatically reduce overall volume without negative impacting the supposed “skills shortages” or “education industry”. Again, not that I think Dutton & Co. would be handling this much differently.
As they say, it depends – the “tradies” Dutton refers to are likely to be lower than average income (fruit pickers certainly), and in construction trades specifically the productivity of workers had been falling (not the fault of workers, rather bad project managers).
I think the real message should be to invest more in technology and innovation, and don’t expect the government to find workers for lazy businesses.
No no embrace your new found agreement with Dutton….
So these ‘dependents’, are you suggesting we should split up families, or what is your point?
I have to say even as a person who doesn’t fall for the anti-immigrant malarkey, it is a little amusing that their answer to the housing crisis is to bring in more tradies to, erm, build houses!
If ‘supply’ is the main issue, how come the percentage of people who own houses has fallen?
There’s clearly enough houses as we haven’t got mass homelessness. It’s just a small group own most of them and rents them under the worst rental laws in the world!
Even a broken clock has the right time twice a day.
I thought it was pretty clear. That the intake could be significantly reduced – or made more effective at the same volume – by not allowing dependents or, eg: requiring all adults to have a valid work or study visa on their own merits.
The queue of people wanting to immigrate is effectively infinite. I’ve no doubt there’s plenty of singles and working couples in it.
What really needs to happen is NOM needs to be cut back to something like 100k for a decade – or until vacancy rates are up around 3-4% – and a massive public housing build undertaken.
“Skills shortage” has been the primary argument in favour of high immigration for over a decade, and the stupidity of bringing in loads of people with little real filtering going on to make sure they’re actually going to be doing useful work has been pointed out for the whole time.
This is why any sensible person knows that Dutton is thoroughly disingenuous and just playing political games. He’s had the chance over multiple Governments to do what he’s currently saying Labor should do and not.
Fewer people can afford to buy. Ownership is concentrating into a smaller group.
It’s not just housing either. There’s been a general upwards transfer and concentration of wealth going on for decades.
https://homelessnessaustralia.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/HA-Overstretched-and-overwhelmed-report-v03-1.pdf
And that’s not even considering people forced into sharehousing thanks to skyrocketing rents and incredibly tight vacancy rates.
People with full time jobs and families are living out of cars and tents.
If you could snap your fingers and turn every tenant into an owner tomorrow, the shortage would still exist. Indeed, it would be technically worse since now there wouldn’t be any rentals available *at all*, and lots of people who couldn’t afford to buy.
Ownership falling is due to increased temporary churn over of students etc. from 2006 under the NOM being included in the estimated resident population (ditto why using per capita GDP is highly flawed).
Banks would not touch these temporary residents with a barge pole because they are not permanent, students lack income & viewed as ‘high risk’, while wealthy offshore investors account <1% of property.
2/10 try Harder….
Ownership is falling because it costs a million dollars to own!
And it costs a million dollars to own because a person who already owns can use the equity in the home they own to outbid no home owners.
You are actually suggesting splitting up families.
Wow.
You get families share a house so don’t put more pressure on houses…..
I am not.
Why lie ? What I actually wrote is literally right there.
As do singles.
You get it’s not just houses that people consume, right ?
Forget about it, there’s no source provided nor analysis, but we have to trust someone who spruiks SPA talking points that match the QLD LNP & RW MSM…..
Unlike the conspiracy theories that you routinely spout.
For example? Or are you just doing your cynical schtick of running protection for fossil fueled RW nativist talking points that RW MSM etc. trying to mainstream, ditto UK & US?
The example is your comment.
That’s been the Big Australia talking point since Howard started pumping the population in 2005. It is amusing because it’s a never ending Ponzi scheme. What’s tragic is that so many people fall for it.
Just a note about the population ‘pumping’ (we are talking about people here not water, right?) the reality is everywhere on planet earth experienced population growth this century for a variety of reasons including but not limited to:
But, sure, let’s talk about ‘neo-liberalism’ and ‘population pumping’.
Nobody is forced to migrate to Australia, Australia is not obliged to allow them to.
Ah, straw-man slandering. The last refuge of the intellectually bankrupt. I’ve never said anything that remotely comes close to expressing anything that you’ve attributed to me here.
Every tradie immigrant doesn’t arrive and build one house, hopefully they’ll build a a hundred or more each. I should think that in a nation where housing supply is hundreds of thousands below market demand, this would be a priority! High time govts did more to force local councils hands in development approvals as well. Also high time govts become as serious about affordable and social housing as they are in other OECD countries.
He now wears spectacles showing he’s recently become more intellectual so nothing to be embarrassed about :-/
I doubt it’s painful for you to agree with Dutton and the QLD LNP, ON or SPA 🙂
What’s your ‘sauce’ on ‘Half the NOM intake are dependents‘ that’s a big unsupported statement? At face value it doesn’t make any sense but deflects from decline in working age since 2009 & ever increasing old age dependency ratios (till end of boomer ‘bomb’?), tugging on budgets, with relatively fewer working age taxpayers, join the dots e.g. how to fund hospitals & source health/medical personnel (of course using moniker Dr you would know this?).
If LNP, SPA influencers and talking points in MSM can force ALP into doing something silly to cut migration numbers, then lead to softer ’24 economy & stressed budgets, then much electoral powder for the LNP; imported nativist RW stunts, but too easy.
Same negativity vs. ‘immigration’ is running in US on border walls, UK on migrants & Rwanda offshore ‘solution’, while LNP with RW MSM are readying for ’24 electoral attacks on ALP and the future.
Blah, blah, blah.
I will self-correct one thing, however.
It’s only “skilled” temporary intake where every other person is a dependent.
For “students” it’s about 10%.
Still plenty of low-hanging fruit though, especially in the “students” cohort.
Well said.
However I don’t agree with your view on the article. Dutton is not making a nuanced argument as you are. He’s trying to score political points while trying to turn public opinion back to the idea that migration is fine, as long as we’re importing cheap labour.
What’s the market mechanism to solving the issue of “it’s harder to find a tradie”? More people will want to go into the trades, which will increase the demand for training and skills. Too bad that the Liberals hate TAFE.
The solution to genuine skills shortages is to train our own people.
Very true, but training people takes time, which has unfortunately been wasted (and not just on this issue, but on pretty much everything).
Whooo. It wore me out reading through this comment trail. Thanks drsmithy for having the time and the patience to go so many times unto the breach. I admire your intellect and your stamina.