Jo

What I would like to see is your analysis of the cost of overseas Students.

This PR scam has become a huge political boil, which by all accounts is totally out of control, and which They dare not treat.

Consider basically 300,000 unwanted overseas students (hairdresser "graduates" etc).

Say infrastructure/ welfare/ job costs are $300,000 per person (probably a low estimate).

Giving Government funding requirenent of $90 billion dollars ( ie 2 X cost of NBN).

Say X 4 for immediate or new family = $360 Billion.

Say X 1.5 for reunions, total cost = $480 Billion.

Totally unnaffordable; but a cost that Government cannot acknowledge, since it has occured largely as a result of Government policy.

So how will the Government deal with/hide this?

I suggest by hiding this amongst a deliberately large population increase; so disguising the student component, all the while reducing the immigration criteria by subtle manipulation, eg changes to language scoring systems or skills lists. Thus a further deception which makes the situation worse.

Clearly also they will not provide the funds needed to rectify the situation; they do not, and will never, have the money!!

Clearly a political issue, with major ramifications and serious consequences lasting for generations.

Planet earth to last word. Total spending by all levels of government (state, local and Commonwealth) on all activities (capital and services) in 2010 was about $325 billion. I think someone might notice if the government spent $480 billion on overseas students.

Did you perhaps learn maths at the same place as Jo Coghlan?

The big paradox for the pop growth spruikers is to explain the huge government debt, infrastructure and service shortfalls, and housing affordability crisis at a time of high commodity prices and a very favourable balance of trade. Accusations of racism and stupidity, and exaggerations of the consequences of an ageing population do little to hide the likelihood that high population growth is harming the prosperity of the average Australian.

Rhian

You say:

"I think someone might notice if the government spent $480 billion on overseas students."

I could not agree more.

If you had wanted to enter into a discussion, instead of trying to score cheap points, then you would have noticed that I stated:

"Clearly also they will not provide the funds needed to rectify the situation; they do not, and will never, have the money!!"

This will be a reason why you will notice a serious decline in the standard of welfare and infrastructure services over the next five to ten years.

Rhian,

If population growth is as wonderful for us as you think it is, why has life been getting harder for ordinary people? Why do we have to put up with overstretched and crumbling infrastructure and public services? Why are the costs of essentials such as housing and electricity far outpacing wage growth?

http://www.smh.com.au/national/charities-feel-pressure-as-prices-soar-20110327-1cc13.html

People such as yourself tend to blame poor planning, as if all our politicians at federal, state, and local level had suddenly started taking stupid pills. The truth is that the deterioration was inevitable. Lester Thurow, the economist, once wrote that 1% population growth requires 12% of GNP to be spent on infrastructure. (I assume that he means both public and private.) Since infrastructure has an average lifespan of about 50 years, this implies that a stable population would have to spend about a quarter of its GNP just on replacing worn out infrastructure. Now imagine that the population is growing at 2%. The amount that would need to be spent would double to nearly half of GNP, just to maintain the same standards. New migrant families immediately need housing, roads, schools, hospitals, sewer systems, power plants, port facilities, etc., etc., but it is likely to be a generation before they have contributed enough to pay for their share of it.

http://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/6869.html

This puts Infrastructure Australia's $770 billion infrastructure backlog into context. How do the politicians cope? They can't borrow the money for infrastructure because they would then have to slow down population growth in the future to pay back the loans. They can't raise taxes on existing residents for no improved services or the peasants will revolt. There are some gains to total GNP from immigration, but they are mainly distributed to the elite and the migrants themselves. The only remaining choice was to let the infrastructure crumble.

I agree that some of the math that has been thrown around is over the top, but this doesn't discredit the general argument.

Rhian,

many thanks for your comment and corrections.

I wondered why the article did not appear to make a great deal of sense.