Gillard ducks for cover on immigration
|
When challenged on immigration yesterday, Julia Gillard ducked for cover. Unwilling to even admit the logical consequence of her concerns about sustainable population, that she would have to reduce immigration, she offered a distraction about “issues about water about soil about city planning about infrastructure and services.” There’s a powerful constituency for high immigration in this country. Business strongly supports it. So too do a number of mostly conservative media commentators, and some libertarians. And for generations, both sides of politics have backed high immigration as well. But throughout that time, despite the benefits of high immigration being manifest, they have failed to carry the case with the wider electorate, and convince ordinary Australians — most of whom, of course, either come from overseas themselves or who are descendants of immigrants — that maintaining high immigration is important. State Governments in Queensland, NSW and Victoria, which have systemically failed to invest in infrastructure, and which have laid obstacle after obstacle in the way of a market response to housing demand, have also failed. Now, if their rhetoric is to be believed, a new generation of political leadership is turning its back on high immigration with the aim of securing the support of voters disillusioned with long commutes, poor public transport and their inability to afford housing except on the fringes of our cities. This is a colossal failure of policy, management and political communication, and it will have significant consequences for generations to come. |
|
|
|
19 Comments
The logic is clear. Can the politicians not see that? And if they can, why don’t they do something about it?
But what can we ordinary mortals as individuals do about it when all that’s on offer this election is the choice between dumb and dumber.
Hopefully, as we still have some weeks to go and time for the reality to get through, our candidates will wise up.
Likely? I think not.
Surely in a pack of 22 million there are leadership candidates of vision and ability.
The UN population projections put the forecast papulation for 2050 between 7.4 billion to 10.8 billion from our present 6.1 billion. Of course there are many variables such as fertility rates, life expectancy etc etc.
Why wouldn’t an intelligent political leader inform and encourage reasoned debate on the impact of growing world population? Why would a future PM dumb the discussion down to border protection and setting the alarm clock earlier?
Are we so stupid that we let these political spin meisters treat us as if we are incapable of intelligent thought. Why do the redneck racists views matter so much?
Meanwhile, regional councils talk of not having enough people to fund a small town’s own essential infrastructure..
http://www.strathbogie.vic.gov.au/Files/Infrastructure_Funding_020710.pdf
and the Victorian auditor general finds 18 regional councils across the state are unsustainable due to a lack of populace.
forward moving certainly looks very backward in its approach
Because Pamela, Gillard is your typical lazy migrant with the attitude of “I’m here, you stay out now”.
And she panders to the others who feel the same way.
We all know it was only about kicking around the couple of thousand refugees.
I think Julia Gillard might already be realising that this was perhaps not a particularly smart genie to let out of the bottle.
Its all very well to beat the drum, but in the end you have to actually say whose rights you want to curtail to achieve a lower rate of population growth. Is it the rights of people to choose to have children, or those of already settled immigrants to sponsor family members, or businesses to hire the migrant workers they need to grow and earn profits for their shareholders?
Not so easy when you really look at it.
The Australian Government raises $37 billion per year from the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and transfers this revenue to the states in an attempt to achieve 100 percent equality in the capacity of state governments to provide services.
In aggregate, the recipient states constitute around 42 percent of Australia’s population, yet receive around 51 percent of total GST revenue. Put another way, NSW and Vic constitute around 60 percent of the national economy, yet receive around 50 percent of the GST revenues.
If states like n.s.w,vic and qld are to invest in infrastructure and remove these odstacles how about the federal govt hand the gst raised out in preportion to population in each state and then not only may immigrants get a better go we all might be able to live well in this country.
You write this article attacking state failures in a fedral election remember The MAD MUNK what’s to take money out of infrastructure and with the same amount legal and illegal immigrants still coming to australia imagine how much poorer the big cities will be.
But in the end who know’s all i know is i have to vote but i don’t have to vote for these 2 there are other options you might want to explore.
Remember it’s not these 2 as people your voting for it’s the parties as a whole don’t get caught like some did last time in voting for Kevin Rudd and get all upset set when they get the bullet because the party makes the decisions.
“long commutes, poor public transport and their inability to afford housing except on the fringes of our cities” - the solution to these problems caused by mindless growth being, of course, even more mindless growth.
Greatman wrote: “..In aggregate, the recipient states constitute around 42 percent of Australia’s population, yet receive around 51 percent of total GST revenue.”
I don’t want to quibble with your greatness, Greatman, but if the recipient states (ie. all the states of Australia receiving shares of the GST revenue) contain 42% of the population, where do the other 58% live? Also, I thought 100% of the revenue raised from the GST went to the states. Is there some other place (not a state) where GST revenue goes?
Hugh,
The recipient states who make up 42% of the population are everyone but n.s.w(33% of the nations population) and vic (25% of the nations population) they are more like donors raising more gst revenue and recieve less that’s why they are called recieient states.That’s where the other 58% live.
But when it comes to issues of infrastructure, etc, business points straight to government.
Whether you like it or not the defining factor in deciding population numbers is water.
We are not like Europe with dependable rainfall and snow fields.
We are the driest continent.
To satisfy business craving for huge numbers of consumers, we would have to build desalination plants all round the coast and in rural areas process sewerage (about the same energy needed for desal as for processing sewerage)
To cope with sustainable growth and provide a decent standard of living, the states need money for infrastructure previously denied them particularly where the largest populations live as outlined by The Greatman
If big business and the money end of town support immigration, why and the hell don’t they build their shop’s and or factories out on the fringe’s. All the new structures are in the cities, don’t keep blaming the pollie’s. Build a few industrial site’s out of town and maybe people will follow.
The systemic failure of government to invest in infrastructure refered to by Crikey’s editorial has arisen because the powerful constituency for high rates of immigration, refered to in the editorial, has also been a powerful constituency against any increases in taxation and therefore the taxes that governments need to fund the infrastructure needed to cope with the population increase. Neither side of politics really want a real debate where someone points this out but the electorate isn’t that silly that it cant see this inconsistency and I dont think you can blame anybody out in voter land for being disillusioned. Eventually population policy is going to become an election issue.
There’s a circular argument that more people means more jobs thus more tax revenue, hence more infrastructure, and so on.
However, as we all know, since the boom years of public spending in infrastructure following WW2, infrastructure now lags population badly and there’s no sign of that ever changing.
The argument also assumes that every migrant steps straight into a well-paying job in the middle income lucrative tax bracket, and requires little or no welfare assistance. In other words, they start generating maximum tax revenue from day one. Another fairy story.
While there are pluses with immigration it appears that there are too many difficulties without solution at the moment and a short pause won’t do a great deal of harm. Call it dog whistle politics if you like but it is how people here feel and why shouldn’t they when high population growth appears to have a few problems which need attention?
Those who rail against high house prices and poor infrastructure have a natural cause to support - full capital gains tax on all real estate profits. The lower the gain from overly large houses, the less incentive there is construct them.
The less incentive to store capital in housing stock, the lower the pressure on housing prices.
The closer the marginal rate of taxation on capital gains as compared with other forms of income, eg personal exertion, the less incentive there is to borrow against home loans.
And so forth.
Result, over time: Reduced average size of dwelling. More of the nation’s capital freed from bricks and mortar and available for productive investment. More compact cities, requiring proportionally less extent of services such as transport and lower consumption of services such as water and electricity.
Eventually: Greater ability to house an increasing population while reducing the rate of growth of the size of cities and large towns.
It is also appropriate to consider reducing the 300k per year migrant intake and maintain or increase the 13k or whatever refugee intake. Remember, the immigrant intake increased substantially during the Howard years and it is entirely plausible for this to be reduced to its former, still substantial, magnitude.
A sustainable population means different things to different people. We will have to accept climate-change refugees from our region and there may be millions of them, even if we have lower our standard of living. We have been very wasteful of our environment so we can afford it.
If there is a guaranteed water supply we can create cities in previously uninhabited areas - Canberra is the obvious example of a planned city created on a sheep run. It was very expensive in dollars and in social cohesion. There are serious social issues associated with moving people away from their family support group - isolated young mothers in raw suburbs, students changing schools and peers at a critical time in their social development and live-at- home adult children and aging parents who cannot move to the new city.
If the water supply of an existing town/city fails there is an even greater problem, does the taxpayer pipe water into a dying town or buy up all the houses so that the owners can afford a home elsewhere or just let them die off slowly as has happened in the past when the mine closed or the gold ran out.
Can we have an end to “this was not a particularly smart genie to let out of the bottle” and get back to genuinely debating issues of major significance to the Australian people. It’s bad enough that “The Australian” seeks to shutdown any debate which deviates from its right wing positi0n.
Australians are c0ncerned about population growth. They are hysterical about boat people. I’m damned if I know why on either account, but they are. It needs to be addressed not by slogans and biased media attacks, or myths and lies, with politicians vomiting garbage from their one sided fixed positions, based on the polls.
A zoo at Monarto well clear of the Adelaide Hills area, now stands where Don Dunstan proposed a city decades ago. Meanwhile suburban Adelaide sprawls futher and further across the hills, now engulfing Mount Barker and causing concern to many people. It’s the same to the north and south of Adelaide. It’s worse in NSW and Qld and bad in Melbourne.
Aren’t there some issues there worthy of discussion? Isn’t it time we returned to the concept of decentralisation? Why is everything focussed in our gigantic, choking cities? Just because London, Berlin, New York are huge doesn’t mean to say that there aren’t many successful cities in the world with a mere one or two million. Look around at Canada, Europe and you’ll find fantastic infrastructure. Here we can’t even get a thirty year old train to run on time.
But with the black and white football barracking world of politics and the media’s pathetic treatment 0f it, there’s no room for ideas or listening to another opinion or trying to conduct reasoned argument and persuasion or listening to others with the prospect one may not know everything already. We go around in circles chasing our tail and ignoring the many possible soutions that are already in place in other places.
The world’s largest island nation, is just so insular and shut off. Being run by Rupert isn’t perhaps the best thing.
And God knows Ruddock may have stopped the boats (at a huge personal and financial cost), but meanwhile Costello was encouraging and paying families for population growth and Howard had the highest immigration numbers in recent history. Now the Coalition notices we have 100,000 too many people coming a year. Where have they been for the last decade?
The debate isn’t mpostly about numbers. It’s about where they go and why our cities have become vast magnets draining the nation. Why can’t businesses and enterprises be established beyond them? Why can’t regional centres become new centres of thriving energy and life? What would it take? These are the things we need to be talking openly about. Not shrieking and caterwalling to shut the debate down.
I quote CliffG, and vent some jaded cynical venom in the general direction of Maquarie St. sydney.
“The debate isn’t mostly about numbers. It’s about where they go and why our cities have become vast magnets draining the nation. Why can’t businesses and enterprises be established beyond them?”
I agree, however it seems proven that nothing exists west of the great divide other than the odd
akubra-mandatory photo-op, err… a cow and lots of Toyotas….Oh!, and Mudgee!….besides, the expenditure/placated electorate ratio renders even a thought in that direction a waste of government rescources.
“Why can’t regional centres become new centres of thriving energy and life? What would it
take?”
There is no reason that they cannot be. It would take a big shift in political culture (see above)
and no small investment in infrastructure beginning with basics like water. However, we only exist as a distant “someplace”, a land of quaint hatwearers desperately line-dancing interprative voodoo spells at the sky to make the government shower us in tax relief and new Toyotas….. Oh, and don’t forget the coal, the land of someplace needs to be dug up and sent to China post-
haste to buy more elections…or perhaps create a foot in the door for a job after politics.
“These are the things we need to be talking openly about. Not shrieking and caterwalling to shut the debate down.”
Amen. I will leave the constructive discussion to those with cooler heads than I.