High immigration cannot be the solution as it will perpetuate low wage growth, high house prices and strained services. If Australia's population was say 15m not 25m we would have lower emissions and less strain on our river systems. When JobKeeper is no longer necessary, emissions nosedive and young people can afford a house in Sydney then consider immigration.

The IGR reveals that all along foreign student education has been a back door means to permanent residence, something long suspected. Perhaps Australia now has to consider long term zero economic growth and how that could be managed.

Over 2005-2020, "Big Australia" policy gave us 215K annual net migration on average. This is astonishingly high, close to 3 x the long term historical average.

Coming out of COVID, the IGR (in effect, Morrison) ups the ante to a devastating 235K net migration a year. No suggestion of asking mug punters about it.

But, according to this author, "the IGR steers clear of controversial economic suggestions". On which planet?

In the future an UBI will probably become a reality.

The way that this will be paid for will be by taxing companies by the number and type of A.I. machines and robotic devices that they use to produce their goods and products. This, after all, will be the source of increased productivity and reduced participation in the work force.

The concept of a debit tax could be considered. Those on an UBI will probably spend all of their income anyway and with electronic and digital banking tax avoidance could be greatly reduced.

The best contraception ever created is increased wealth and increased standard of living.
A tapering off of population should not be seen as a bad outcome but as a maturing of the economic climate.

WTF? - Not Again,
Firstly, the point of a UBI is that all citizens would be on it (otherwise it wouldn't be universal). Therefore it is very expensive. And taxing the means of production (rather than the profits from it) would make the nation less competitive.

Instead of a UBI, the government should create the economic conditions where suitable work is available for everyone.

The Intergenerational Report came via the same shonky computer models that gave us climate forecasts that never eventuated. Economist Judith Sloan called it "absurd". Immigration only "slightly" slows ageing. It's a Ponzi Scheme used by lazy, incompetent politicians.

If the federal government was required to internalise the cost of immigration by paying the states $100,000 per permanent migrant that settles in their jurisdiction, so that the states can adequately fund the extra infrastructure and services required, the Treasury would no longer tout the fiscal benefits of immigration.

The Reserve Bank governor admits that high immigration suppresses wage growth. The huge increase in immigration - almost a quarter of a million - brought in by John Howard, and continued ever since, has driven wages down, increased house prices, and gridlocked cities.

"The second implication is how to increase skilled migration without an anti-immigrant backlash".

There has been a backlash against immigration from the majority of Australians for some time; it is just being ignored by the political class. Suppressed wages. Unaffordable and scarce housing. Broken down or non-existent infrastructure. People dying while waiting for ambulances. Unintelligible accents on the telephone. Kids to dumb to work in skilled jobs because the political class prefers to import workers rather than train them.

Aiden,
The author is talking about controversial ideas about the future.
I have listed four of these.

Your contribution is: the government should create the economic conditions where suitable work is available for everyone.

Nothing new or controversial about that.

WTF? - Not Again,
It shouldn't be controversial, but:
• It would make most of the controversial measures unnecessary.
• Until the pandemic hit, the government was doing the opposite by trying to balance the budget.

Aidan,
I think you need to included examples of how the government can create these conditions.
Apart from during wartime and its immediate aftermath there are few if any examples where there have been close to full employment or suitable work for everyone.
So any suggestions that you have would on how a government could achieve this would indeed be controversial.
Change is often counter-intuitive - that is why a debit tax might address budget issues and an UBI appears too expensive with current thinking.

Reckon we have troubles now? Couldn't get any worse? Well, cop this.

The Australian's analysis of a state by state Newspoll suggests that Albanese could be our Prime Minister next year.

Morrison doesn't deserve the job - but, Albanese!

What we need to do is to build our own trains, ferries and cars here, rather than buy them from overseas. In other words, make our manufacturing industry the power house it once was. This gives us two benefits: (1) more employment + increase in technological knowledge; and (2) more wealth as the wages and purchases are expended internally. In addition, we should develop the green industries to combat climate change and to prepare ourselves for the natural disasters, such as bush fires, cyclones and floods, by investing money and labour into programs that build our resistance and defence against these recurring events, which are becoming more frequent. If we plan ahead then we are in a better position than sitting and waiting for events to occur. The first thing we have to do is plan.

Oh GOD! "Finally, the big omission from the 2021 IGR is (still) any attempt to quantify the impact of climate change. Climate change is the elephant in the room, such as the risk of storm damage along the Australian coast and the problem of coastal erosion. Ironically, a few weeks after the IGR appeared, there was a building collapse on the coast in Florida which cost 54 dead with 86 unaccounted for. Climate change contributed to that tragedy".

I expected some clown would try to blame CO2 for this building falling down. I guess CO2 somehow prevented the builder putting enough reinforcing steel into the thing. What a naughty gas.

The fact that the clown tells us that global warming is a big problem shows us he doesn't have enough math to understand the physics involved. That being a simple fact also proves he doesn't have enough math to understand the result of his theories. Surely anyone with even adequate arithmetic can see that increased migration is merely kicking the aging population can down the road.

This is our real problem. We have been kicking this problem can down the road for so long, but we have now caught up to it, & its spilling all it's problems right in our lap.

Time to bite the bullet, fix the education system so we can train our own skilled workers, & start living with in our means. Getting rid of pie in the sky planners & cutting immigration would be a good start.

While I can agree with most of this! The future problems are inherent with both the cost of energy and our two-tiered tax system! Both of which need urgent reform as if there were no time to waste! And because there isn't! One cannon lead asleep at the wheel nor while we sleepwalk toward the future!

The tax system needs a complete root, branch and twig reform and simple common sense tells us the current system is not fit for purpose! And needs to be replaced in its entirety with a simple, single, unavoidable, 15% flat tax that kicks in above a very generous tax-free threshold!

And such a system would all but double consolidated revenue and not need to sit in coffers waiting for reconciliation! Nor would it be subject to bracket creep which would be removed forever! And revenue growth would be attached, for all time to economic growth/productivity!
It's too easy!

Other than that, what we require is cheaper than coal energy to ensure we have the necessary economic and production growth to ensure the above! And that energy is MSR thorium!
Which could be reticulated at 1 cent PKWH!
Alan B.

A universal basic income will never work,

When I was in high school, my economics teacher explained what would happen if we applied UBI to school grades

Any student who got a d or F would be promoted to a C, any student who got a C would stay the same, and any student that got a B or A would be demoted to a C (via taxation)

In 12 months time the D and F students still did no studying and they knew they didn't have to work as they were guaranteed a C (UBI), The C students protested as they did some work but got no reward, so gave up and started handing in subgrade word, The A and B students thought this was totally unfair , the did all the work, yet were penalised for working hard, so some of them started handing in substandard homework or none at all.

So we saw a dumbing down of all the students (there are always exceptions)Instead of 5% of the population on government welfare, we now have 80% paid via increase in taxes and no incentive to work harder.

The UBI idea has been around for years (I was in high school in the 1980's) It is becoming popular now as the havenots want what the haves have immediately and don't want to work for it.

WTF not again. You seem to grasp what's necessary for a future where machines roll day and night making all we require right here!

Aiden's problem is, I believe, his vested interest in the current convoluted system? Or he simply is an ideologue incapable of thinking outside the box?

For such a system as you envisage it would need to be entirely predicated on cooperative capitalism and a generous universal wage!

And rather than use pointless emigration to grow the economy, we'd grow it faster by simply attacking and removing poverty in all its guises and hidee holes! And as we do that, quite massively grow the discretionary spend> the domestic economy!

So, nobody is left behind or genuinely disadvantaged!

If we also tackle long overdue nation-building projects like very rapid rail there will be enough economic stimulus adding to the revenue circulating inside a cooperative capitalistic paradigm to row the domestic economy at warp speed!

After that, we need to rationalise and downsize government and all unnecessary vote-buying expenditure! Entirely redundant state legislatures cost the nation more than 70 billion P.A! Money which could build, better spent, never-ending nation-building projects and complete manufacturing self-sufficiency!

And remove all the juveniles from all the governments! And make all those workplaces alcohol free institutions for very obvious reasons! One of which, there'd be fewer decisions made while a large cohort was permanently pissed?
Alan B.

Without having read any posts I'd say it goes without saying that future flood-gate opening by Labor would indeed result in a troubled future !
I can only hope that a Coalition Govt will continue to work on repairing Australia by only admitting competent immigrants with no ideological baggage !
Refugees should be required to pull their weight in society asap & work towards re-establishing peace in their homelands & return there.
If that's not possible, become citizens here with no option of dual citizenship for anyone.
Either pull your weight here or exploit someone else ! 20+ years on welfare at work-able age is unacceptable !
Govt too needs to reward effort visibly more than is presently the case ! No National Service is no longer an option !

Kirby483,
I think that your High School teacher's 1980s understanding of UBI was not particularly comprehensive.

Let me elaborate using your teacher's example.
With a UBI all students from E up to A would receive the UBI.
Your identified E and some D students would probably get most of this via the dole anyway.
Not to be unfair to the others, D.C B and A students would receive the same.
All students E to A can then pursue other income from any other means as they wish.

With a guaranteed UBI I imagine many would pursue very creative solutions and avenues that could benefit all of society greatly.
There are a number of billionaires who once started an enterprise with a small amount of seed money working from their parents' garage.
A debit tax could completely remove all Income Tax giving a huge boost to the discretionary spending of millions.

WTF, I think you missed the point,
as I said with the exception of the few, most people would do as little work as possible, imagine someone who works shift work, why would they bother doing overtime or Sunday work, if they are going to get the UBI anyway. How would restaurants survive without putting up there prices to pay huge wages just to encourage people to work past 5 pm? Inflation would sky rocket.

Would people prefer to spend more time with their family and get the UBI or work harder, the majority of humans are lazy and will take the UBI.

The smaller percentage of people that want to get on and make a success of themselves will still do that and the "ENVY" brigade will shoot them down even more saying its not fair the UBI is only "X" and Ms Billionaire is earning more.

Governments will be forced to keep increasing the UBI to keep up with inflation (which will fuel more inflation)The only way to pay for this is more tax, whether its income tax, company tax, GST or any other tax, they will all increase, which will discourage more people from working hard.

Look what happened in China with the great leap forward, the workers (farmers) were killed. imprisoned for not getting there quota paid to the government (that is tax)to pay for the non-workers (government employees or in other words the UBI)

Alan B.,
I don't have a vested interest in the current convoluted system - indeed over the past few years I would have been better off with a UBI than under the status quo. However unlike you I don't have a problem either thinking outside the box or inside it. I see that a UBI is very expensive, and the money could be put to better use. There are plenty of other, cheaper, ways of achieving its objectives. Most importantly, I think the problem of a lack of opportunities to work should be solved, not merely compensated for.

______________________________________________________________________________

kirby483,
>Would people prefer to spend more time with their family and get the UBI or work harder

You missed a bit there, which makes me think you may not understand UBI. The question should be:
Would people prefer to spend more time with their family and get the UBI or work harder and get their wages as well as UBI?

People want nice stuff and that costs money. Do you really think everyone's doing as little work as possible at the moment? UBI is not the huge disincentive that some of its detractors assume it to be.

Pay needs to reflect effort & outcome !
Paying huge salaries for nothing in return is about as stupid as it can get and, we have that now !
And, it's those people who perpetually bleat equality who are mostly on that kind of payroll.
That's why they're in the Public Service under the Peter Principle ! They're the ones preventing others from benefitting from hard work !
Unions demand that under-performers can't be dismissed !

hear hear individual, could not agree more

Yes Individual, in large cities bludgers don't have to mix with those they bludge on in their leisure time. In smaller communicates the bludger is soon well known to all.

That was one thing I loved about the resort island life, where you lived with those you worked with. The bludger was quickly recognised, & in not overt ways was made unwelcome.

When on the odd occasion you employed one, you did not have to worry about unfair dismissal laws, the staff soon moved them on.

I'm watching Insiders right now & I'm just blown away by the blatant anti Govt, pro Labor stance by all the ABC commentators !
Talk about wasting our Taxes !

individual,
Unfortunately any attempt to talk about wasting our taxes is seen by you, and indeed many others on this board, as a blatant anti Govt, pro Labor stance!

Aidan,
Well, the ABC talking about wasting taxes is the height of hypocrisy ! Why don't they give us the figures on how much is wasted on keeping the Leftist saboteurs from ruining all ?
Much of the incompetence is actually sabotage by Labor orientated bureaucrats & then they point the finger at the Govt.
Are you one of them ? Sounds like it !

Hey Individual, you're looking good in your new tinfoil hat!
Not really looking smart, but it does suit you.

There's absolutely no hypocrisy whatsoever in the ABC drawing attention to the government wasting money. It's in everyone's interest, including theirs, to see the money spent efficiently instead of wasted on things like Fraudband.

no hypocrisy whatsoever
Aidan,
there wouldn't be if they also drew attention to themselves !
That lot on Insiders is just off in their bias !