Elected members imagine themselves trapped between an economy needing immigrants and a public wanting fewer. It’s time they questioned their assumptions.
Politics has forced the hand of the major parties to announce immigration cuts.
But on those promises, Australia would run one of the highest per-capita intakes in the developed world – above most of Western Europe, where immigration is fracturing the social fabric. Politicians imagine themselves trapped between an economy needing immigrants and a public wanting fewer. It’s time they questioned their assumptions.
Start with productivity. Our lacklustre productivity performance has coincided with a migration program that is less skilled than advertised. Many immigrants work below their qualification level, while the permanent “skilled” program is less skilled than its name suggests: only 46 per cent were primary applicants – the rest were spouses and children.
Across the skilled, family and humanitarian streams, Treasury puts the lifetime fiscal dividend at just $41,000 a head. Even that rests on an infrastructure cost of only $40,000 to $70,000 per immigrant. University of Queensland’s Jane O’Sullivan puts the infrastructure requirement at no less than $100,000 per immigrant. On that estimate, much or all of Treasury’s dividend disappears.
The main evidence that Australia’s immigration program makes us more productive is weak: a series of Treasury-funded OECD papers, one of which it headlined as “Migrants boost the labour productivity of Australian-born workers”.
Source: https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/politicians-beware-economics-says-australia-should-have-net-emigration-20260830-p60sty