Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media. I'm Daniel James. This is seven am.
Speaker 1: Peter Dunton says he'll cut migrant numbers by one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand people a year as soon as he gets in
Speaker 1: the government. He says as part of his plan to
Speaker 1: free up housing for Australians, but it also could impact
Speaker 1: the workforce needed to build new hopes. Dunton is putting
Speaker 1: a number to his plan just days after immigration dominated
Speaker 1: the first Leader's debate.
Speaker 2: How will cutting migration affect industries like healthcare and construction
Speaker 2: and what will you do to ensure migration discussions remain
Speaker 2: respectful and avoid demonizing migrants.
Speaker 1: Well, the point I made before was Abil Risby was
Speaker 1: a senior official in the Department of Immigration from the
Speaker 1: early nineties to two thousand and seven, when he left
Speaker 1: his Deputy secretary. He says, the conversation we're having now
Speaker 1: ignores the need for a long term population plan, addressing
Speaker 1: how big our country should be and why today with
Speaker 1: feed on the politics of population growth and the real
Speaker 1: impact of immigration on the housing crisis. It's Saturday, April
Speaker 1: twelfth at well, thanks for speaking with me again, pet
Speaker 1: It doesn't said he wants to see one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: fewer new migrants come to Australia each year. In the
Speaker 1: debate on Tuesday night, he said that every forty four
Speaker 1: seconds a new migrant is entering Australia.
Speaker 3: And a person is coming in every forty four seconds
Speaker 3: into our country, and we haven't got the housing to
Speaker 3: accommodate that.
Speaker 1: What do you make of this goal?
Speaker 2: It depends on what he is referring to, and I
Speaker 2: assume he's referring to net overseas migration, which is the
Speaker 2: arrival of permanent and long term entrance to Australia irrespective
Speaker 2: of visa category or citizenship, and the departure of people
Speaker 2: similarly long term or permanent. In twenty four to twenty five,
Speaker 2: the Government is forecasting overseas migration at three hundred and
Speaker 2: thirty five thousand. It is forecasting net overseas migration in
Speaker 2: twenty five twenty six at two hundred and sixty thousand.
Speaker 2: If mister Dutton is saying he can deliver in twenty
Speaker 2: five twenty six net overseas migration of one hundred thousand
Speaker 2: less than the government's forecast, well I think it is
Speaker 2: just about impossible to deliver that. Why is that there
Speaker 2: are three reasons he won't do that. One, the labor
Speaker 2: market is likely to still be relatively strong, that's certainly
Speaker 2: what Treasury is forecasting, or subject to whatever mister Trump does,
Speaker 2: things may change. Two, the legislative and regulatory changes mister
Speaker 2: Dutton would need to make would probably take the whole
Speaker 2: of the financial year before he could make them. The
Speaker 2: third reason, he will encounter massive opposition to the cuts
Speaker 2: he wants to make. Firstly from the National Party, and
Speaker 2: they've made it clear there are a range of visas
Speaker 2: they think are off limits, and secondly a range of
Speaker 2: lobby groups in the business community. I would be very
Speaker 2: surprised if mister Dutton is prepared to have a fight
Speaker 2: 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 2: So one he has suggested he wants to cap student
Speaker 2: visas or a number of students. In terms of net
Speaker 2: overseas migration, in twenty three twenty four, just under fifty
Speaker 2: percent of net overseas migrants were students. So if someone
Speaker 2: wants to reduce the level of net overseas migration, if
Speaker 2: you're not talking about students, you're not not really in
Speaker 2: the game.
Speaker 4: Despite their presence being worth fifty billion dollars a year
Speaker 4: to the economy. The federal government now wants to legislate
Speaker 4: student caps from twenty twenty five if the legislation.
Speaker 2: Late last year, the Labor Party introduced legislation to give
Speaker 2: government the power to cap visas. Separately, it's introduced or
Speaker 2: announced where it would set those caps.
Speaker 5: The two separate.
Speaker 2: Actions one is get the power, second is to use
Speaker 2: the power. Mister Dutton denied the government that power and
Speaker 2: so if he does win the election, the first thing
Speaker 2: he's going to have to do is go back to
Speaker 2: Parliament and say, by the way, you know that power
Speaker 2: I thought was really really really hopeless and I opposed it.
Speaker 5: Could I have it now? Please?
Speaker 1: Can you see him doing that.
Speaker 2: I'm sure he'll word it perhaps differently, but fundamentally that's
Speaker 2: 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 3: I want desperately to make sure that we get an
Speaker 3: opportunity for young people to believe in and achieve again
Speaker 3: the dream of home ownership. There are about forty two
Speaker 3: international students coming into our country for every one student
Speaker 3: accommodation unit that's been approved, and that has had a
Speaker 3: big impact.
Speaker 1: What's your view on the impact international students are having
Speaker 1: on the housing crisis.
Speaker 2: Well, the first thing to be said here is very
Speaker 2: few students actually buy houses. They generally don't have the
Speaker 2: money to afford to buy a house. So what they'll
Speaker 2: impact is the rental market. That's true, but the rental
Speaker 2: market they will impact will tend to be that market
Speaker 2: very close to our universities, which tend to be in
Speaker 2: the central business districts of our cities. Very few students
Speaker 2: live out in the outer suburbs and commute into the
Speaker 2: middle of the city to study. That's not where they
Speaker 2: are concentrated.
Speaker 1: What, in your view has prompted this debate on international students.
Speaker 2: Well, there's a few things worth saying here about what's
Speaker 2: happened to student numbers. Firstly, we did have a steady
Speaker 2: rise in student numbers leading up to COVID. We had
Speaker 2: something over six hundred and fifty thousand students in Australia
Speaker 2: prior to COVID, plus students who had applied onshore and
Speaker 2: were in what's known as the bridging visa backlock. So
Speaker 2: that's about the numbers before COVID. When COVID started, mister
Speaker 2: Morrison famously said, we'd like you to go home, please.
Speaker 5: Not held here compulsorily.
Speaker 2: If they're not in a position to be able to
Speaker 2: support themselves, then there is the alternative for them to
Speaker 2: return to their home countries.
Speaker 5: We still have quite and many did so.
Speaker 2: The number of students in Australia fell sharply during COVID.
Speaker 2: Towards the end of COVID, governments were very worried that
Speaker 2: students wouldn't come back, so the Coalition government introduced a
Speaker 2: range of policies to encourage students to come back, such
Speaker 2: as unrestricted work rights, work as long as you like,
Speaker 2: wherever you like, fee free applications. As a result of
Speaker 2: those changes, combined with a really really strong labor market
Speaker 2: during twenty twenty two, we had a massive boom in
Speaker 2: the number of students and by twenty twenty three both
Speaker 2: sides of politics were worried about the huge explosion in
Speaker 2: the number of students. It's worth saying though that at
Speaker 2: the end or towards the second half of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: mister Dutton was saying the government needs to increase migration
Speaker 2: and needs to do it quickly, but he wasn't confident
Speaker 2: how quickly the Labor Government could increase migration. Nine months
Speaker 2: later he was saying, the Labor Government has lost control
Speaker 2: of migration. 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 governments approached population planning? Is this
Speaker 1: growth by design?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 2: Most governments have shied away from talking about population. They
Speaker 2: did that right through the nineties. Even though there were
Speaker 2: parliamentary committees recommending the need for a population policy, they
Speaker 2: avoided it. They didn't want to talk about population. Mister
Speaker 2: Rudd famously in two thousand and seven eight said he
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 2: That was the Big Australia Movement's biggest moment, its founder
Speaker 2: was dislodged.
Speaker 3: His idea sent packing.
Speaker 2: I don't believe in simply hurtling down a track to
Speaker 2: a thirty six million or forty million population. Ever since then,
Speaker 2: no government has been keen to talk about population. Having
Speaker 2: said that, in twenty nineteen, mister Morrison introduced a very
Speaker 2: grandly titled document called the Future of Australia's Population. The
Speaker 2: problem with the document is it not once mentioned what
Speaker 2: he thought the future of Australia's population should be. He
Speaker 2: not once mentioned what future net overseas migration it should be.
Speaker 5: He never once.
Speaker 2: Discussed what the fertility rate would be or life expectancy
Speaker 2: would be. How he was talking about the future of
Speaker 2: the population without mentioning any of those things is an
Speaker 2: 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 you expecting out of that document before you
Speaker 1: read it?
Speaker 2: Able, I was hoping for a population policy, something that
Speaker 2: talked about our future population. But we didn't talk about
Speaker 2: the future population in that document at all. In fact,
Speaker 2: two months later, mister Friedenberg issued his budget papers in
Speaker 2: which you had to go to Budget Paper number three,
Speaker 2: Appendix A page about eight or nine before you got
Speaker 2: to what mister Friedenberg was forecasting was going to be
Speaker 2: our population and net overseas migration for the next four years.
Speaker 2: He was, in fact forecasting in that document over a
Speaker 2: four year period, the largest level of absolute population growth
Speaker 2: since a period in the nineteen sixties. It's beyond me.
Speaker 2: How two months ago, in March twenty nineteen, mister Morrison
Speaker 2: was talking about a population plan with no mention about population,
Speaker 2: and mister Fredenberg was talking about a back in black
Speaker 2: budget with massive increases in population forecast. But in Appendix
Speaker 2: 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 2: I was disappointed that the Labor government did not in
Speaker 2: when it commissioned the Parkinson Review, the review of Australia's
Speaker 2: migration system, deliberately left out the question of immigration levels.
Speaker 2: It essentially said to mister Parkinson, we'd like you to
Speaker 2: talk about everything about migration, but just tell us the level.
Speaker 2: We don't want to know about the level. We'll work
Speaker 2: that out ourselves. Frankly, it is impossible to design a
Speaker 2: migration system unless you start with the level, because if
Speaker 2: you don't have a level in mind, then you're basically
Speaker 2: just making up numbers and policies as you go along,
Speaker 2: and you don't care about.
Speaker 5: What they add up to.
Speaker 2: Governments think the moment you start talking about a population plan,
Speaker 2: you will be tard with the big Australia brush. Irrespective
Speaker 2: of whatever you number you forecast, you'll be saying, ah,
Speaker 2: you're Big Australia.
Speaker 5: I'm not.
Speaker 2: And politicians love pointing at people and saying I don't
Speaker 2: 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 2: A useful thing to understand in this context is that immigration,
Speaker 2: mainly because it targets young people, tends to slow the
Speaker 2: rate at which we age. We age more slowly. But
Speaker 2: the second thing that is often not understood is if
Speaker 2: you've moved to a situation of zero net migration, within
Speaker 2: the next ten to fifteen years, we would experience a
Speaker 2: situation where deaths exceeded berths for the first time in
Speaker 2: our history. Now I'm not saying we can avoid the
Speaker 2: point in the future where death succeed berths, but I
Speaker 2: would not be recommending to a government. Let's head towards
Speaker 2: that as fast as we can, and you want to
Speaker 2: use the migration program to fill skill gaps that you
Speaker 2: can't in the medium to long term fill. So, for example,
Speaker 2: there is no chance we will have enough nurses over
Speaker 2: the next ten or twenty years for all of us,
Speaker 2: including me baby boomers who are going to be desperately
Speaker 2: needing health and age care support. There is no chance
Speaker 2: we will have enough construction trades over the next decade.
Speaker 2: That's carpenter's, plumber's, brick layers, etc. So you've got to
Speaker 2: take that into account. The second would be what are
Speaker 2: the speed limits from an infrastructure, service delivery, housing etc.
Speaker 2: Perspective for net overseas migration, And that boils down to, okay,
Speaker 2: what is the rate at which we can develop infrastructure
Speaker 2: and housing etc. And service delivery? And there are speed
Speaker 2: limits to those things, and we should understand those speed limits.
Speaker 2: You also need to take into account family migration, You
Speaker 2: need to take into account our various free trade agreements,
Speaker 2: and you need to take into account whatever we're going
Speaker 2: to do from a humanitarian and refugee perspective. You've got
Speaker 2: to bring all of that together into a sensible plan.
Speaker 1: And without a plan, that leave the question of migrations
Speaker 1: acceptable to politics.
Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely absolutely, And in many ways the lack of
Speaker 2: a population plan has contributed to the polarization. Not the
Speaker 2: only thing, but it has contributed to the polarization of
Speaker 2: debate on immigration, not just in Australia but in other places.
Speaker 1: And finally, appl 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 2: And I'm not sure we can ever assume that we
Speaker 2: can reach a level of population and then stabilize at
Speaker 2: that level forever. I doubt whether it's going to look
Speaker 2: like that. It's more likely to look like a curve.
Speaker 2: If you think back to your high school days, think
Speaker 2: of a parabola. So the question is where does it
Speaker 2: peak before it starts to decline, Because the period nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty to twenty fifty will be a unique period in
Speaker 2: human history. That is, the human race just exploded in
Speaker 2: that one hundred years. We've never had population increase like
Speaker 2: that on the planet, and after twenty fifty we'll never
Speaker 2: have it again because steadily the fertility rate of all
Speaker 2: countries around the world is falling, and he's projected to
Speaker 2: keep falling.
Speaker 1: Abel, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 5: You're most welcome, Danny.
Speaker 1: Seven Am is a daily show from Schwartz Media and
Speaker 1: The Saturday Paper. It's made by Atticus Basto, Shane Anderson,
Speaker 1: Chris Dangate, Eric Jensen, Ruby Jones, Sarah McVie, Travis Evans,
Speaker 1: Zotonveco and me Daniel James. Our theme music is by
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