Treasurer Josh Frydenberg in question time on Monday.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Only once in our history has net migration been a little more than 300,000 and that was just before the global financial crisis. I am not suggesting immigration had anything to do with that crisis,but net migration fluctuates with economic conditions,particularly the labour market. While the labour market is weak right now,there are predictions it will bounce back next year.
When John Howard was prime minister,I was responsible for firstly managing Australia’s immigration intake down,and then increasing it again from about 2001. Oddly enough,I found increasing numbers was more difficult than cutting them.
One of the challenges was that while the smaller states and regional Australia wanted more immigration,the NSW government insisted Sydney was full and any increase in the intake had to be directed away from Sydney. Presumably,Perrottet does not have the same concerns.
Leaving aside “trivial” questions of whether our infrastructure and services such as health,education,housing and transport can be ramped up quickly enough to accommodate the proposed unprecedented increase in immigration,the immediate question is how the increase would be designed and delivered.
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet is pushing for more immigration.Credit:Nick Moir
The crucial means by which we increased immigration from 2001 was through an increase in overseas students,with clear pathways to permanent residence. These pathways became far more opaque from about 2008-09,but overseas students still represented more than 44 per cent of net migration in 2018-19.
The decision to make the pathways to permanent residency less clear has left hundreds of thousands of overseas students and graduates who have moved on to temporary visas to develop their skills in immigration limbo.