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The Forum > Article Comments > Australia's population > Comments

Australia's population : Comments

By Peter Curson, published 29/10/2013

Increasing longevity and low fertility, not to mention totally unacceptable obesity and diabetes rates, will pose countless challenges for policymakers in the future.

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"One road points towards increased immigration, higher fertility and moderately high population growth"

And that road will have its own crossroad.

The sign says "Civil War. 20 years."

That will put an end to Big Australia and its Multopian immigration base.
Posted by Shockadelic, Wednesday, 30 October 2013 6:54:02 AM
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The article fails to tell the story of our upcoming death bust. Our actual deaths over the next few decades double and our natural growth may drop to zero or even negative.
It also fails to point out that 60% of our NOM are temp visa holders and our emigration is hitting record highs with over 92,000 people leaving permanently over the last 12 months.
Posted by dempografix, Wednesday, 30 October 2013 9:39:41 AM
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<There is also little doubt that immigration has enriched Australia’s economy and enhanced its quality of life.>

This link includes a graph of Australia's growth in real GDP and GDP per capita since 1996. While there may have been real economic benefits from mass migration in the 1950s and 60s, it is obvious that most of the more recent "enrichment of the economy" has been simply due to greater numbers, while growth in GDP per person has been quite weak. Bangladesh has a bigger GDP than Denmark, but so what?

http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2013/09/population-growth-juices-australian-gdp/

The Productivity Commission has said that evidence that immigration is an important driver of per capita economic growth is "poor or mixed" (p. 6)

http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/113407/annual-report-2010-11.pdf

No doubt great new ethnic restaurants improve our quality of life, but all the problems with more crowding, infrastructure and public services that can't keep up, and more competition for jobs, housing (where average costs have more than doubled since the 1970s in terms of the median wage, and nearly tripled in some places), amenities, etc. are all too real, not due to "emotion ruling the roost". These problems are not simply due to "poor planning", as the problems exist in virtually all major Australian cities, regardless of the individuals or parties in power.

As for aging, young migrants grow old like everyone else, and they cannot be deported when they have outlived their value to the economy. What happens when they need pensions and healthcare? Take in still more migrants?
Posted by Divergence, Thursday, 31 October 2013 2:45:49 PM
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Divergence
The article you point to also stresses the strong growth of GNI per capita and Australia’s favourable record compared to other developed countries in growing per capita GDP after the GFC. You seem to select only the parts of the article that support an anti-population stance, and ignore the ones that don’t.

There is rather more to the contribution of migrants to Australia than ethnic restaurants. Talk to some of the resource related companies that helped us to avoid recession, in part by using 457 and other migrants.

Yes, aging migrants eventually move into retirement, but by that point their contributions to taxes, demand, superannuation and savings will more than offset the costs of their health care and pensions – and their children’s taxes will also help to pay these costs not only for retired migrants, but for other Australians too.
Posted by Rhian, Thursday, 31 October 2013 3:44:28 PM
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Rhian,

How can you be sure that the improvements you point to are due to immigration and not something else? If you look at that graph comparing the different countries, you will see that Japan (which actually has a declining population) showed an even sharper improvement coming out of the GFC, albeit from a lower base.

I am surprised that you have nothing to say about the crowding, extremely high housing costs, mostly due to the cost of residential land, etc. Why do you think that the migrants will pay for their declining years, but not the existing population? The fact is that there are a number of countries with essentially stable populations on the very high human development list of the UN Human Development Index. These countries already have stable age structures and haven't collapsed.

There is no question that some immigration is beneficial. There are educational and cultural benefits, as well as rare skills that don't exist in Australia. My objection is to the huge numbers we are having imposed on us to suit business interests that are able to privatise the profits from mass migration and socialise the costs. The labour market is already overstocked, with 10.4% real unemployment and 7.9% underemployment, according to Roy Morgan research. We are currently acquiring one new full time job for every 5 new people

http://www.smh.com.au/national/majority-of-new-jobs-go-to-migrants-20130614-2o9p4.html

http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/cpur/files/2013/02/Immigration_review__Feb-2013.pdf

As for "jobs Australians won't do", the US had essentially zero net immigration from 1921-1965. Fruit still got picked, toilets still got cleaned, etc. It is "jobs Australians won't do for the pittance that I want to pay".
Posted by Divergence, Thursday, 31 October 2013 4:32:27 PM
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Divergence

I am not arguing that Australia’s recent relatively strong population growth is the cause of its superior economic performance. I only point out that Australia has done comparatively well on some per capita measures, as the article you link to attests, but you selected only the negative ones to illustrate your point.

Likewise, I don’t think only migrants will pay for their declining years. Other things being equal, though, the burden of an aging population is easier to carry with a larger than a smaller working age population, and the demographic modelling I’ve seen suggests that the old age dependency ratio will be a little lower with current immigration levels than with radially reduced migration. It’s not a big difference though – my key point is that higher migration does NOT lead to a higher old age dependency burden; if anything, the opposite is true.

457 visa holders are not unskilled workers doing menial jobs Australians don’t want. They are mostly skilled workers doing jobs not enough Australians are able to do, or in places Australians don’t want to work.

I’m not sure about crowding. Australian cities have low population densities by international standards. Our houses are and getting larger, while average residents per household are falling. Affordability has certainly deteriorated, but I believe poor planning and temporary bottlenecks account for much of that.

I’m intrigued by your US net migration data – could you point to a source?
Posted by Rhian, Thursday, 31 October 2013 6:28:49 PM
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