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

This article is a spurt of juvenile nonsense.

Outcomes for workers is always negative with immigration; wherever it comes from, and under whatever visa disguise.

Firstly, they lack ethics. At least the work ethics applicable to Australians.
I worked on and off in itinerant work through many years in the bush.
Remember the wide comb dispute. That was another fight lost by Australians on the work front.

Workers in this country have been chewed up and spat out in ever larger doses, particularly since "dog" Howard took his union bashing mob on an upper class rampage against working conditions of the great unwashed.

If there was one thing standing alone Howard detested, it was a worker with rights.
Manipulating immigration and visas which accomodate the comfort zones of foreigners over and above the locals, Howard was onto it.
I was one, and not alone, very happy and highly amused seeing him wear a bullet proof vest.

Dan

Dan,

I started work in factories in the mid-sixties, mostly in bakeries. Often I was the only Australian-born worker on the floor. The foremen and supervisors were usually either Australian-born or British. The Italians and Greeks and Yugoslavs and Lebanese who I worked with were usually much harder workers than me, great people to work with.

I did some work at the Auckland annual show back in 1971, in a stall next to one featuring an British industrial nion-peeling machine. I asked the pommy bloke who did the work on the machines in Australia: women of course, Eyetalians, Greeks, Yugoslavs, Turks, Lebanese. Who did the work in Britain ? West Indians, South Asians, Africans. In NZ ? Polynesians, of course.

I wouldn't be surprised if such factory workers as there still are here are non-Australian-born - Africans or Filipinos/Filipinas, Vietnamese, Polynesian. Australians seem to have moved out of such work generations ago, either up into university and onto middle-class careers, or into cushier semi-working-class jobs - and making sure their kids did the same. It may have been some time since the bulk of the actual working-class were Australian-born.

Joe

David asserts as to our attack on immigrants coming to Australia.

Since the 50's (shortly after the 2nd World War) Australia assisted passage of migration to Australia.

So what did they do, they built our railways, dams, and many structures.

These immigrants brought to Australia a new culture of food and influence.
]
They saw Australia as "the land of opportunity and growth", they were prepared to put in the "hard yacka".

There was NONE of the "Government handouts" - as seen today.

So - I ask what are "current" immigrants bringing to Australia today without the necessity of a "hand out".

Such a simple question - never answered.

Hi Saints,

Skills and effort.

Is that what you meant ?

Joe

Australia will need to start bringing in about 10 million cashed up Chinese migrants over the next 5 years and a million more each year thereafter in order for its economy to recover from the Wuhan Bat Soup Virus pandemic.

Now, everybody say after me ........ "Ni Hao!"

Hi Loudmouth2

Yep - but I guess our generation not in the "politically correct" realm/era of today, which means go "woke" you go "broke".

But, hey - who are we?

Cheers.

Mr Opinion

So pleased the opinion stated here - is your own.

Seriously - grow up.

Saints,

I'm a bit slow at the best of times, so I don't understand what you are getting at.

Joe

Mr Opinion you say -

"Australia will need to start bringing in about 10 million cashed up Chinese migrants over the next 5 years and a million more each year thereafter in order for its economy to recover from the Wuhan Bat Soup Virus pandemic."

Interesting comment - do you know something that Australia doesn't?

Currently China doesn't acknowledge the pandemic commenced there?

Do you know something the Australian Government doesn't know by your comment - of course not?

Many decent would-be migrants forfeited years of savings paying for a Visa application, only for the the Aust Govt saying thank you for the money but you don't meet our criteria (whatever that may be) & we're keeping the money !

The basic tenet of the article is that anyone who wants to come to Australia should be free to live here and anybody who speaks against it is “blaming migrants” for any and all of Australia’s problems.

A billion people in the world don’t have a toilet.
https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2015/jmp-report/en/
It’s a fair bet that most of them would love to live in Australia. Should we take them all David? Why not? Are you “blaming migrants” for Australia not being able to support a population of a billion?

How about policies, including population stabilisation, that help all the people of these poor countries, instead of just a select few elites that can afford to apply for visas. Because let’s face it David, the really needy would never be able to get the resources to apply for residency in Australia, so while you are painting yourself as a grand humanitarian you are just helping to weaken these poor countries by encouraging their best and brightest to leave.

Well done ttbn for pointing out that when you need to go to Trump in the second paragraph, you’ve already admitted that your arguments are pathetically weak.

SAINTS,

it seems you do not like the idea of having to bring in millions of cashed up Chinese to kick start the Australian economy in the wake of the Wuhan Bat Soup Virus pandemic.

What do you think has been keeping the Australian economy afloat over the past 30 years? Yes, you guessed it: cashed up Chinese immigrants.

Like it or lump it you are just going to have to get used to having an increasingly Chinese Australian society.

Tax cuts and cashed up Chinese migrants have replaced nation-building since the late 1980s.

So again: Ni Hao cobber!

How anyone would be stupid enough to not want to stop all migration until all those Australians who's lives have been damaged by the Corona virus lock down are fully back on their feet I can't imagine.

They obviously must hate their fellow Ozzies.

If after that we want to start it up again, it should never exceed 20% of what it has been in recent years.

Apart from the heavy-handed move to close Keneally down, there are so many straw men in this piece, it's hard to know where to start.

Let's come back to tin-tacks. The only number that really matters is Net Migration. Frydenberg pitched it at 270K. The virus might cut that to 50K.

So, do we stay lower, which is what the electors and the environment want? Or, do we go back to the usual rort? Which is the preference of political parties, Treasury and RBA, the states, the developers, academics, media, and unions.

It's not hard to figure out who wins, is it?

In the midst of the China virus, which came across our borders, not from within, people still want to tell us that immigration is a good thing! The closing of our borders is the one big action that is responsible for our success in restricting deaths to less than one hundred. We have had another clear example of the dangers of globalism and free movement of people. Will the message never get through!

Although the China virus will pass into history, there will be other pandemics, and they are highly unlikely to come from within.

There is no necessity for Australia's general population to leave the country, most overseas travel is merely self indulgence. There is no necessity for politicians' 'study tours'. Conferences can be conducted technologically. And there is certainly no need for immigration, including that of skilled workers, who should be trained here. Universities managed without foreigner students in the past; they can again.

Trade would have to continue of course, no matter how self-sufficient we become; but all border and health resources would be free to concentrate on that.

Keep the external borders closed permanently, except for special occurrences, which can be dealt with when they occur. Mass movement? No more!

Hasbeen,

You old chocolate smarty, watch the Chinese flow in by the millions when Australia frees up its international borders.

And bet anything that Morrison and Berejiklian will be at the airport welcoming them in and saying "Come and get it, it's all yours!".

We're facing a depression and millions of Aussies out of work!

Surely there could be a pause to ensure we train these instead of replacing them with cheaper, allegedly skilled labour.

This is what one can expect of employers, when the energy bill is higher than the wages bill and that wages bill is the product of ginormous housing costs!

For every action, there is an equal reaction and for every reaction, there is a cause!

We need to first and foremost build a very fast train, then a huge stock of public housing.

Then roll out myriad MSR thorium SMR's And use that energy to make everything and anything. And with co-ops as the principal manufacturers.

Follow that with genuine tax reform, manifesting as a single tax of 15% flat. And unavoidable for all income earners above a more generous threshold! Meaning the adjusted rate free of compliance or reconciliation costs, would be around 8% in real terms. And necessary to stop our industrial hemorrhage and reverse it!

Then bring in TEMPORARY migrants when we need skills we don't yet have.

Ensure those new kills ar transferred and remain here!

Co-ops will ensure lazy employers can no longer get away with replacing untrained butt willing Aussies, with cheap imported labour!

We need to retask some colleagues as technical training colleagues.

Could be existing infrastructure, that includes a new night school cohort? The sooner the better and the sooner the least costly!

As we put the nation back to work in import replacing production and export production.

Those two will ensure we can draw down whatever debt created to enable this very outcome!
Alan B.

Alan B.,

NO PAUSE!

Just millions of cashed up Chinese. Andrew Forrest sent the message a couple of weeks ago about who is running the country: the Chinese Communist Party.

A Chinese Australia is the new normal so get used to it and keep practising "Ni Hao cobber!"

Forrest has two Chinese directors on the board of his company; one of them is associated with a Chinese steal company with the usual connections to the CCP.

two things.
1) Andrew Forrest serves his own interests.
2) Australia will never close its borders to immigration inflows or outflows. It will only moderate or increase levels

ttbn,

Three if you include Forrest.

And don't forget there will be a lot more Chines in the country pretty soon as politicians, bureaucrats and businesses start bringing in millions more Chinese to get the economy restarted in the wake of the Wuhan Bat Soup Virus pandemic.

Never say never.

Mr. O

I would love to be a fly on the wall when Forrest gets together with his Chinese mates. I wouldn't be surprised if he has been awarded the status of honorary Chinaman.

Our stupid dependence on China, is a pigeon coming home to roost!

And that dependence has its roots in the astronomical cost of energy here! Where this not so, we'd have automated lots more and kept our manufacturing heartland onshore! Needed now for the intended recovery!

Another side of this coin, is rampant tax evasion by the largest international players, doing business/earning profits here.

Tax reform? You're kidding!

With some paying as little in actual dollars, 4%?

With up to 40% paying no company tax at all!

Why? Because they can!

A flat unavoidable rate of 15% would collect considerably more revenue!

As an additional 11% from those who currently pay a little as 4% and 15% from the 40% who pay none now!

40% being the biggest multinationals? Earning the biggest onshore, but completely repatriated profits, due to the vagaries of globalisation?

This is the migration of money and the worst kind of entirely unhelpful migration!

Has to end! As does the huge price gouge of energy as does any form of tax avoidance.

Remember, only profits are taxed regardless of the system or unavoidability even a flat tax. and then only that earned above a designated threshold

That'll stop the migration of money!

Cooperative capitalism as deliberately engineered/preferred and preferenced co-ops, will ensure that every one dollar in our economy, does the productive work of at least seven! Via the usual economic flow on factors!

If we remove the self-imposed imbecilic impediments! We can allow a nuclear energy industry to flower here as, cooperative employee-owned (co-ops) enterprise! And with that, the lowest ever, energy prices, in the world!

And a conga line of energy dependant, high tech manufacture queuing to relocate to these shores!

Ditto fully self-funded retirees, who will bring with them a need for many unskilled services, gardening and housekeeping in particular?

These are the only two forms of migration we need right now and the onshore job creation they will provide!

We just need to remove all the ideological impediments and the business as usual, political bunfights they create!
Alan B.

ttbn,

I don't recall Andrew Forrest, Kerry Spokes, and others of the their kind with apparent affiliations to the Chinese Communist Party, ever protesting about China's annexation of the South China Sea.

Wasn't Twiggy a model from the late 60's

The big eyed Twiggy look.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twiggy

Canem Malum,

Yes she was. You are referring to Dame Lesley Lawson DBE.

Was Andrew Forrest ever awarded an AO or China's equivalent The Order of the Wuhan Bat?

Mr Opinion,

Not sure, but he a clown, a rich one at that

There seems to be an unwritten assumption in modern Western nations, that ongoing and continuous mass migration is somehow "normal". Migration is a natural movement of people, yes, but we have been using it as a crutch for far too long. I do not believe it is healthy for a nation to use migration in perpetuity, as a means of building itself up. It is not sustainable, and mathematically, cannot ever be.

Surely we must reach a point where we can say that we must move away from migration, the same way that someone moves away from training wheels on their bike. Australia simply cannot stand in its own two feet economically, if we are in constant need of importing masses of people to bolster consumerism.

Our nation IS established.

The NOM is not a target but a barometer (unrelated to the permanent migration cap of 160k) via border movements, of economic activity, especially when temporary churn over are net financial contributors.

Australia like elsewhere has an ageing population with a commensurate decline in the permanent workforce and increase in retirees and pensioners.

Putting aside cultural preferences, how can Australia remain skilled up while supporting budgets for pensions, health care, infrastructure, education, JobSeeker etc. in both (often declining) regions and larger urban centres?

Alternatively we could close our borders then over time watch budgets crash, along with industry, agriculture, infrastructure, health care and the economy; or we could increase taxes significantly e.g. retirees pay income taxes?

Most Australians would chew through their (or preferably somebody else's) elbow to receive a tax break equivalent to a cup of coffee per week, so probably not the latter......

Mr Opinion

Have been viewing your posts to myself and others since my post.

Seem you believe Australians have a requirement to import 60 million Chinese residents?

Just a question - will these 60 million residents be fully supported and not require any Australian Taxpayer subsidies/welfare payments?

Don't ever let anyone tell you that many Australians pine for the nostalgia of the 'yellow peril' with much hyperbole.

If one wishes that their beliefs should be given credibility, go to church vs. forcing ignorance on everyone....

Andras -

Point being?