David,

Yes, Australia should always remain a generous country for immigration. It would be pretty selfish if we did not given our wealth.

But, there is always a need to ensure that numbers are fair in terms of the impact they have on Australia.

I would love to see a breakdown of data that shows just where our immigrants end up in terms of later professions. That would really help Australia understand the debate.

I have heard that many Chinese people study social work degrees here, but they use the qualification simply to apply for permanent residency. I would love to know what proportion actually go on to be social workers.

Only research can help us know, and maybe help to quash (or fuel) our fears.

How ridiculous it is to accuse someone of “beating up on immigrants” because she is doing what she was elected to do, what she is paid to do - which is the best she can for the country and the people she works for. She is also reflecting what the majority of Australians think.

Australia and Australians come first; just as any other country and its citizens do.

So weak is this fellow’s argument, he needs to bring in Trump. Can we please see to our own country and its problems without reference to a foreign politician, who is irrelevant to what goes on here!

No. It’s not migrants who are at fault. It is the lazy idiots who bring them here who are at fault. Instead of working to get unemployed Australians working, they are taking the easy way out by bringing in more people to boost the GDP, without attention to infrastructure and the erosion of all workers’ pay and conditions.

The only people benefiting from Australia’s mass immigration are the migrants themselves and big business bosses. Australians and Australian society are the big losers. And it should not be, and it is not intended, that money money earned in Australia should be sent out of the country to ‘families back home’. That is economic idiocy.

All of the words David Hale has wasted here are just more Leftists drivel and ignorant nonsense. Mass immigration must stop. All immigration must stop until everyone in Australia capable of working is working. Even when that happens, technology has reduced the need for large work forces in the First World. Large populations are now totally unnecessary. They are actually a burden.

In light of all the flus bouncing around the world, if your got a 20000 acre farm that cant survive without cheap foreign labour, they should make them break it up into 200 x 100 acre farms and sell to aussie families thereby creating a yeoman patriot class to defend against a left or right wing tyranny should it ever arise.

I don't agree that anyone is blaming anyone for anything!

So, why the refocus on migrants? Too many have come here to study, then apply for permanent residence. If they all had to return from whence they came? More Aussie kids would take more of those place in professional studies. And the other nations would benefit by having their professional ranks swelled!

I tire of fully imported, non-Australians deciding our future and with a biased eye on how decisions made here affect outcomes from whence they came?

If we and the UK are competing for trade deals, who do you think our head of state advocates for? Us? No way!

We also need to understand the role of rapidly advancing automation, particularly in the U.S.A. And bound to happen here as we reinvigorate our manufacturing sector and take it back from those foreign investors, buying us out and trying to make us tenants in our own country, as in Tibet?

The virus has forced us to get out of the warm and comfortable bowl and take a good long hard look at where we've been heading!

And our masters are not pleased with tha inspection, ask any barley grower.

As things stand, we're around ten minutes away from being Asianized? And are totally unprepared for a genuine contest for our threatened remaining economic sovereignty?

Time to stop listening to foreign voices with foreign accents and attitudes and start to listen to our own!

And as we do, understand, we just do not need these foreigners or their cheque books!

But have other superior choices where we still call all the stots and retain all the profits and tax liabilities onshore!

And given that' the selected paradigm? Able to lower the tax burden to around 15% flat as the only and total tax take! And given it is unavoidable by anyone for any reason? A much larger source of revenue than the current convoluted, complexity.

If we need skills we don't have here, then we could continue with some temporary migration THAT HAS TO BE THAT, i.e., TEMPORARY!.
Alan B.

There is considerable movement from temporary visas to permanent residence and family reunions. In particular students and the former section 457 category. If Australia had a formal immigration policy this should be factored in but instead it seems to be a backdoor way of swelling the numbers.

I'm puzzled how letting in more skilled migrants will help refugees. Already there is scepticism that some refugees were truly in dire circumstances when they go back for visits. Whoever is pulling the migration levers is playing at social engineering. As I said in OLO yesterday let's base it on criteria like GDP per capita not decreasing like it is now.

Thanks, David.

So how would our health system be doing without non-Anglo doctors, nurses, other professionals and para-professionals ?

Where would our fruit and vegetable industries be without non-Anglo labour, backpackers and hard-workers from the south Pacific ?

And whatever happened to the complaint that all immigrants and refugees were on welfare, taking up public housing, using up our taxes, etc. ?

But they certainly can be exploited both ways like that -that they take Australians' jobs (shades of South Park) AND won't work and so soak up the taxes of hard-working Australians (who can still be found in many parts of the country). Not only that but, unlike Australians, they take up space on the roads.

It's interesting how a crisis brings out the best and the worst in people.

Thanks again, David. Yes, increase the migrant and refugee quotas, we need skilled, hard workers, for all those crucial jobs that Australians can't or won't do.

Joe