Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven AM. Immigration
Speaker 1: is back at the center of federal politics again. The
Speaker 1: Coalition's new leadership is arguing Australian needs lower numbers, tougher
Speaker 1: rules and a clearer cap on how many people we
Speaker 1: bring in each year. It's a familiar conversation. At the
Speaker 1: last election, Peter Dutton tried to put a hard number
Speaker 1: on it, promising the cut migration by one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: a year, saying would help free up housing for Australians,
Speaker 1: but critics say a large cut would hit the workforce
Speaker 1: Australia relies on, including the people needed to build more homes.
Speaker 1: Abil Risvey was a senior official in the Department of
Speaker 1: Immigration from the early nineties to two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: when he left as Deputy Secretary. He says the argument
Speaker 1: will keep having election after election, skips the bigger question
Speaker 1: Australia's need for a long term population plan and what
Speaker 1: we want it to achieve. Today, we're bringing you an
Speaker 1: episode from the lead up to the twenty twenty five
Speaker 1: federal election with Abel Widsby on the politics or population growth.
Speaker 1: It's Sunday, March one. This episode was first published in
Speaker 1: April twenty twenty five, ad well, thanks for speaking with
Speaker 1: me again. Pett doesn't said he wants to see one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand and fewer new migrants come to Australia each year.
Speaker 1: In the debate on Tuesday night, he said that every
Speaker 1: forty four seconds a new migrant is entering Australia.
Speaker 2: And a person is coming in every forty four seconds
Speaker 2: into our country, and we haven't got the housing to
Speaker 2: accommodate that.
Speaker 1: What do you make of this goal?
Speaker 3: It depends on what he is referring to, and I
Speaker 3: assume he's referring to net overseas migration, which is the
Speaker 3: arrival of permanent and long term entrance to Australia, irrespective
Speaker 3: of these a category or citizenship, and the departure of
Speaker 3: people similarly long term or permanent. In twenty four to
Speaker 3: twenty five, the Government is forecasting net overseas migration at
Speaker 3: three hundred and thirty five thousand. It is forecasting net
Speaker 3: overseas migration in twenty five twenty six at two hundred
Speaker 3: and sixty thousand. If mister Dutton is saying he can
Speaker 3: deliver in twenty five twenty six net overseas migration of
Speaker 3: one hundred thousand less than the government's forecast. Well, I
Speaker 3: think it is just about impossible to deliver that.
Speaker 1: Why is that?
Speaker 3: There are three reasons he won't do that. One, the
Speaker 3: labor market is likely to still be relatively strong, that's
Speaker 3: certainly what Treasury is forecasting, or subject to whatever mister
Speaker 3: Trump does, things may change. Two, the legislative and regulatory
Speaker 3: changes mister Dutton would need to make would probably take
Speaker 3: the whole of the financial year before he could make them.
Speaker 3: The third reason, he will encounter massive opposition to the
Speaker 3: cuts he wants to make. Firstly from the National Party,
Speaker 3: and they've made it clear there are a range of
Speaker 3: visas they think are off limits, and secondly a range
Speaker 3: of lobby groups in the business community. I would be
Speaker 3: very surprised if mister Dutton is prepared to have a
Speaker 3: fight with both of those.
Speaker 1: So what type of changes would he need to make
Speaker 1: to get anywhere near that target?
Speaker 3: So one he has suggested he wants to cap student
Speaker 3: visas or the number of students. In terms of net
Speaker 3: overseas migration. In twenty three twenty four, just under fifty
Speaker 3: percent of net overseas migrants were students, So if someone
Speaker 3: wants to reduce the level of net overseas migration, if
Speaker 3: you're not talking about students, you're not not really in the.
Speaker 4: Game, despite their presence being worth fifty billion dollars a
Speaker 4: year to the economy. The federal government now wants to
Speaker 4: legislate student caps from twenty twenty five if the legislation.
Speaker 3: Late last year the Labor Party introduced legislation to give
Speaker 3: government the power to cap lesus Separately it's introduced or
Speaker 3: announced where it would set those caps. They were two
Speaker 3: separate actions. One is get the power, second is to
Speaker 3: use the power. Mister Dutton denied the government that power,
Speaker 3: and so if he does win the election, the first
Speaker 3: thing he's going to have to do is go back
Speaker 3: to Parliament and say, by the way, you know that
Speaker 3: power I thought was really really really hopeless and I
Speaker 3: opposed it.
Speaker 5: Could I have it now? Please?
Speaker 1: Can you see him doing that.
Speaker 3: I'm sure he'll word it, perhaps differently, but fundamentally that's
Speaker 3: what he's going to have to do.
Speaker 1: So speaking of international students, we've heard a lot about
Speaker 1: how they are supposedly having an impact on the housing crisis,
Speaker 1: with Peter Dutton saying that the reason he wants to
Speaker 1: cut international student numbers is so that young Australians can
Speaker 1: realize the dream of owning their own home.
Speaker 2: I want desperately to make sure that we get an
Speaker 2: opportunity for young people to believe in and achieve again
Speaker 2: the dream of ownership. There are about forty two international
Speaker 2: students coming into our country for every one student accommodation
Speaker 2: unit that's been approved, and that has had a big impact.
Speaker 1: What's your view on the impact international students are having
Speaker 1: on the housing crisis.
Speaker 3: Well, the first thing to be said here is very
Speaker 3: few students actually buy houses. They generally don't have the
Speaker 3: money to afford to buy a house. So what they
Speaker 3: will impact is the rental market. That's true, But the
Speaker 3: rental market they will impact will tend to be that
Speaker 3: market very close to our universities, which tend to be
Speaker 3: in the central business districts of our cities. Very few
Speaker 3: students live out in the outer suburbs and commute into
Speaker 3: the middle of the city to study. That's not where
Speaker 3: they are concentrated.
Speaker 1: What, in your view, has prompted this debate on international students.
Speaker 3: Well, there's a few things worth saying here about what's
Speaker 3: happened to student numbers. Firstly, we did have a steady
Speaker 3: rise in student numbers leading up to COVID. We had
Speaker 3: something over six hundred and fifty thousand students in Australia
Speaker 3: prior to COVID, plus students who had applied onshore and
Speaker 3: were in what's known as the bridging visa backlook. So
Speaker 3: that's about the numbers before COVID. When COVID started, mister
Speaker 3: Morrison famously said, we'd like you to go home, please.
Speaker 6: Not held here compulsorily. If they're not in a position
Speaker 6: to be able to support themselves, then there is the
Speaker 6: alternative for them to return to their home countries.
Speaker 5: We still have quite and many did so.
Speaker 3: The number of students in Australia fell sharply during COVID.
Speaker 3: Towards the end of COVID, governments were very worried that
Speaker 3: students wouldn't come back, so the Coalition government introduced a
Speaker 3: range of policies to encourage students to come back, such
Speaker 3: as unrestricted work rights, work as long as you like,
Speaker 3: wherever you like, fee free applications. As a result of
Speaker 3: those changes, combined with a really really strong labor market
Speaker 3: during twenty twenty two, we had a massive boom in
Speaker 3: the number of students, and by twenty twenty three both
Speaker 3: sides of politics were worried about the huge explosion in
Speaker 3: the number of students. It's worth saying though, that at
Speaker 3: the end or towards the second half of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 3: mister Dutton was saying the government needs to increase migration
Speaker 3: and needs to do it quickly, but he wasn't confident
Speaker 3: how quickly the Labor government could increase migration. Nine months
Speaker 3: later he was saying the Labor government has lost control
Speaker 3: of migration.
Speaker 5: It's increased migration much too quickly.
Speaker 1: Coming up after the break, how big should Australia be?
Speaker 1: Our population is coming up on twenty seven million now,
Speaker 1: we're projected to double that in the next eighty years.
Speaker 1: So how have passed it's approached population planning? Is this
Speaker 1: growth by design?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 3: Most governments have shied away from talking about population. They
Speaker 3: did that right through the nineties. Even though there were
Speaker 3: parliamentary committees recommending the need for a population policy, they
Speaker 3: avoided it. They didn't want to talk about population. Mister
Speaker 3: Rudd famously in two thousand and seven eight said he
Speaker 3: believed in a big Australia.
Speaker 5: I actually believe in a big Australia. I make no
Speaker 5: apology for that. Everyone jumped all over him. That was
Speaker 5: the Big Australia movement's biggest moment.
Speaker 2: Its founder was dislodged, his idea sent packing.
Speaker 7: I don't believe in simply hurtling down a track to
Speaker 7: a thirty six million or forty million population.
Speaker 3: Ever since then, no government has been keen to talk
Speaker 3: about population. Having said that, in twenty nineteen, mister Morrison
Speaker 3: introduced a very grandly titled document called the Future of
Speaker 3: Australia's Population. The problem with the document is that not
Speaker 3: once mentioned what he thought the future of Australia's population
Speaker 3: should be. He not once mentioned what future net overseas
Speaker 3: migration it should be. He never once discussed what the
Speaker 3: fertility rate would be or life expectancy would be. How
Speaker 3: he was talking about the future of the population without
Speaker 3: mentioning any of those things is an absolute mystery to me.
Speaker 1: Sounds like a bit of an oversight.
Speaker 5: Well, I think it was a marketing exercise.
Speaker 1: What were we expecting out of that document before you
Speaker 1: read it?
Speaker 3: Able, I was hoping for a population policy, something that
Speaker 3: talked about our future population. But we didn't talk about
Speaker 3: the future population in that document at all. In fact,
Speaker 3: two months later mister Friedenberg issued his budget papers, in
Speaker 3: which you had to go to Budget Paper number three,
Speaker 3: Appendix A page about eight or nine before you got
Speaker 3: to what mister Fredenberg was forecasting was going to be
Speaker 3: our population and net overseas migration for the next four years.
Speaker 3: He was, in in fact forecasting in that document over
Speaker 3: a four year period, the largest level of absolute population
Speaker 3: growth since a period in the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 5: It's beyond me.
Speaker 3: How two months ago, in March twenty nineteen, mister Morrison
Speaker 3: was talking about a population plan with no mention about population,
Speaker 3: and mister Freedenberg was talking about a back in black
Speaker 3: budget with massive increases in population forecast. But in Appendix
Speaker 3: three of Budget Paper three.
Speaker 1: What you've been laying out of all is that politicians
Speaker 1: love talking about cutting immigration well at the same time
Speaker 1: forecasting massive population growth in budget papers to boost the
Speaker 1: economic outlook. We saw that with the coalition, So once
Speaker 1: Labor got in, what was their approach.
Speaker 3: I was disappointed that the Labor government did not in
Speaker 3: when it commissioned the Parkinson Review, the review of Australia's
Speaker 3: migration system deliberately left out the question of immigration levels.
Speaker 3: It essentially said to mister Parkinson, we'd like you to
Speaker 3: talk about everything about migration, but just don't tell us
Speaker 3: the level. We don't want to know about the level.
Speaker 3: We'll work that out ourselves. Frankly, it is impossible to
Speaker 3: design a migration system unless you start with the level,
Speaker 3: because if you don't have a level in mind, then
Speaker 3: you're basically just making up numbers and policies as you
Speaker 3: go along, and you don't care about.
Speaker 5: What they add up to.
Speaker 3: Governments think the moment you start talking about a population plan,
Speaker 3: you will be tard with the big Australia brush. Irrespective
Speaker 3: of whatever you number you forecast, you'll be saying, ah,
Speaker 3: you're big Australia.
Speaker 5: I'm not.
Speaker 3: And politicians love pointing at people and saying I don't
Speaker 3: believe in big Australia.
Speaker 5: You do, and therefore you are bad. I am good.
Speaker 1: Well, let's say hypothetically a government wanted to do this properly,
Speaker 1: to have a well thought out population and migration policy.
Speaker 1: What would that look like in your view?
Speaker 3: A useful thing to understand in this context is that
Speaker 3: immigration mainly because it targets young people, tends to slow
Speaker 3: the rate at which we age. We age more slowly.
Speaker 3: But the second thing that is often not understood is
Speaker 3: if you've moved to a situation of zero net migration,
Speaker 3: within the next ten to fifteen years, we would experience
Speaker 3: a situation where deaths exceeded berths for the first time
Speaker 3: in our history. Now I'm not saying we can avoid
Speaker 3: the point in the future where death succeed berths, but
Speaker 3: i would not be recommending to a government. Let's head
Speaker 3: towards that as fast as we can, and you want
Speaker 3: to use the migration program to fill skill gaps that
Speaker 3: you can't in the medium to long term fill. So,
Speaker 3: for example, there is no chance we will have enough
Speaker 3: nurses over the next ten or twenty years for all
Speaker 3: of us, including me baby boomers who are going to
Speaker 3: be desperately needing health and age care support. There is
Speaker 3: no chance we will have enough concer struction tradees over
Speaker 3: the next decade. That's carpenter's plumbers, bricklayers, et cetera. So
Speaker 3: you've got to take that into account. The second would
Speaker 3: be what are the speed limits from an infrastructure service, delivery,
Speaker 3: housing et cetera perspective for net overseas migration, and that
Speaker 3: boils down to, okay, what is the rate at which
Speaker 3: we can develop infrastructure and housing, et cetera and service
Speaker 3: delivery and there are speed limits to those things, and
Speaker 3: we should understand those speed limits. You also need to
Speaker 3: take into account family migration, You need to take into
Speaker 3: account our various free trade agreements, and you need to
Speaker 3: take into account whatever we're going to do from a
Speaker 3: humanitarian and refugee perspective. You've got to bring all of
Speaker 3: that together into a sensible plan.
Speaker 1: And without a plan, that leave the question of migrations
Speaker 1: acceptable to politics.
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 3: Absolutely absolutely, And in many ways the lack of a
Speaker 3: population plan has contributed to the Polario. Not the only thing,
Speaker 3: but it has contributed to the polarization of debate on immigration,
Speaker 3: not just in Australia but in other places.
Speaker 1: And finally, Apple, you spent more time than probably anyone
Speaker 1: thinking about Australia's migration program. You've dedicated your life to
Speaker 1: these questions about the makeup of this country. So in
Speaker 1: your view, how big should Australia be?
Speaker 5: That's a good question.
Speaker 3: And I'm not sure we can ever assume that we
Speaker 3: can reach a level of population and then stabilize at
Speaker 3: that level forever. I doubt whether it's going to look
Speaker 3: like that. It's more likely to look like a curve.
Speaker 3: If you think back to your high school days, think
Speaker 3: of a parabola. So the question is where does it
Speaker 3: peak before it starts to decline, Because the period nineteen
Speaker 3: fifty to twenty fifty will be a unique period in
Speaker 3: human history. That is, the human race just exploded in
Speaker 3: that one hundred years. We've never had population increase like
Speaker 3: that on the planet, and after twenty fifty we'll never
Speaker 3: have it again because steadily the fertility rate of all
Speaker 3: countries around the world is falling and is projected to
Speaker 3: keep falling.
Speaker 1: Abel, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 5: You're most welcome, Danny.
Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James seven Am. Will be back tomorrow with
Speaker 1: the first episode in a special three part series, The
Speaker 1: Howard Affect. Author and political commentator Amyrimikus takes us back
Speaker 1: to the Howard Years, which kicked off thirty years ago tomorrow,
Speaker 1: from John Howard's probable rise to the Prime ministership, in
Speaker 1: which he resurrected a political career many had written off,
Speaker 1: to the way he consolidated power and reshape the nation
Speaker 1: in his own image.
Speaker 7: He was speaking to Australians who felt they had been
Speaker 7: left behind. Howard Cell was going, Oh, I'm not actually
Speaker 7: selling you anything. I'm just pointing out that you are
Speaker 7: right to feel discomforted by all of this. And while
Speaker 7: he was doing that, while he was started waging a
Speaker 7: lot of these culture wars. At the same time he
Speaker 7: was winding back union power, he was winding back government regulations,
Speaker 7: he was winding back government support and all of these
Speaker 7: other things that people had relied on for community, for organizing,
Speaker 7: for being able to actually get ahead. He presented all
Speaker 7: of this to the Australian people in a way where
Speaker 7: they felt he was speaking for them, even when what
Speaker 7: he was doing was essentially setting them up for failure.
Speaker 7: What he did was set us up for generations of inequality,
Speaker 7: division and and put us backwards, not only on the
Speaker 7: world stage, but also domestically.
Speaker 1: See you there,