Suppression of wages and increasing population have been a part of neo-liberal policies for the past four decades. It's their way of creating economic growth and development. A classical example is my home town of Sydney: the LNP government has a policy of bringing in large numbers of cashed-up migrants who generate demand requiring development in the infrastructure and building industries as well as creating local employment. Problem is growth in migrant intake is running far ahead of the economic capacity to cater for them resulting in overcrowded transport, insufficient and expensive housing, and rising prices in food and commodity. In other words neo-liberal policies are unsustainable for the long-term interests of the city.

While I fully accept and agree that immigration is a nett detriment for the welfare and wealth of those already here and that curtailing such immigration would benefit the working and middle classes somewhat, if your main concern is the wages of the workers perhaps you could look elsewhere for solutions.

"The [US] Labor Department’s June jobs report showed average hourly earnings for private-sector workers increased 3.1% from a year earlier..."

This compares to increases in Australia of around 2.2%.

Australia hasn't had 3% wages growth since 2012.

Additionally the US wages growth is roughly double the inflation rate, whereas Australian wages are barely keeping up with inflation.

So you want to improve wages - look to the US. Massive cuts to regulations, business friendly policies, significant tax cuts etc.

But don't hold your breathe.

mhaze there are of course several factors that go into wage increases. Interestingly you will find that population increased by 1.64%, 2016 to 2018 in Australia, and only 0.63% (2.6 times as much) in the US. Also immigration was 2.8 times higher in Australia than it was in America (1.01% v 0.35%), plus illegal immigration is down in America.

https://databank.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL/1ff4a498/Popular-Indicators#

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/us-immigration-trends

https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/3412.0Main%20Features42017-18?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=3412.0&issue=2017-18&num=&view=

I'm sceptical on the wisdom of reducing taxes on the rich
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/01/opinion/trump-economy.html

Dear Hasbeen
You don't have to worry that without immigration we'd run out of people overnight because of low fertility.
Last November's ABS projections show that with zero net overseas migration, and a total fertility rate of 1.8 (ie well below 2.1), and high life expectancy, natural increase will keep on adding to our numbers until at least 2055.
As Eric explains, we still have a relatively youthful population. This means that there are a lot of young and youngish people who haven't yet had children. This provides momentum for growth from natural increase within our age structure.
Congratulations to Eric on a fine article.

Those unskilled migrants already here will ensure the population growth will continue.
It's merely the greedy white Australians who are so selfish that they choose to remain childless.

For those like individual and Jane Grey who are worried about population decline I have only one thing to say: STOP WORRYING! because there are tens of millions of Chinese signing up to come here creating a new Sino Australia. Australia definitely has a future; it's just not our future!