The border wars are back.
A temporary migration boom following COVID-19 has stoked worries about housing affordability and congestion. Last month, opposition finance spokesperson Jane Hume even claimed migration was “out of control”.
Immigration is shaping as a key electoral battleground - again.Credit: Louise Kennerley
The political combat has intensified since a High Court decision put an end the indefinite detention of asylum-seekers. A rattled Labor government now claims to be cleaning up the policy “mess” left behind by its Coalition predecessors. Regardless, border policies are shaping as a key electoral battleground – again.
It’s no surprise immigration sucks up so much political oxygen; it is a critical federal responsibility. What’s unusual – given how much migration is debated – is how little we focus on its long-term effects.
Australia’s openness to new migrants will be a major asset as the 21st century unfolds. If you don’t believe me, take a look at the population modelling.
Last month the Bureau of Statistics released its latest 50-year population projections. They show that Australia’s population will climb from the current 26 million to between 34 and 46 million by 2071. That’s broadly consistent with the latest United Nations long-range projections which show Australia with 38 million people by the end of the century.
Illustration: Simon Letch. Credit:
But those forecasts for steady population growth are in stark contrast to many nations with a less friendly approach to migration.
A major study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation based at Washington University, published by The Lancet in mid-2020, forecast the population of 23 countries to fall by 50 per cent or more by the end of the century. For another 34 nations it predicted declines of between 25 and 50 per cent. The proportion o f old people in those places will surge higher as a result.
Such rapid population losses will have dramatic economic consequences. With far more elderly retirees, and a shrinking pool of workers and taxpayers, it will be tough to generate the revenue needed for aged care, social security and healthcare. Funds for other crucial state responsibilities such as national security and the military will dwindle. Many governments will be forced into difficult, and potentially devastating, policy choices.
Australia is also vulnerable to the negative effects of an ageing population. Like most high-income countries our fertility rate (the number of births per women on average) has been trending lower since the 1970s. Last year it was 1.63, well below the so-called “replacement rate” of 2.1 needed for a stable population, not including migration. Our fertility rate could fall even further without more generous support for working parents, including child care and parental leave.
The federal government’s most recent intergenerational report warned the number of people aged 65 and over will more than double in the next 40 years and the number aged 85 and over will more than triple, putting added pressures on the federal budget.
Even so, our relatively liberal approach to migration will ensure Australia’s population continues to rise at a gradual pace in coming decades.
The scenario is very different for many other developed nations. Take Italy (now 58 million), South Korea (51 million) and Spain (47 million) for example; all three now have much bigger populations than Australia, but UN projections show they’ll have fewer people than us by 2100.
Australia’s openness to migration will help maintain a relatively stable working-age population – something that will become increasingly scarce as the century unfolds.
According to The Lancet study, immigration-friendly nations including Australia, Canada and the US will be able to “sustain their working-age populations” over the long term, ensuring they “fare well” economically relative to others.
Australia is now the world’s 14th largest economy when measured in $US, according to recent International Monetary Fund estimates. But modelling for The Lancet study showed the boost to population delivered by our relatively liberal immigration regime will help lift Australia’s ranking to 11th largest economy by 2050 and to 8th largest by 2100. Not bad for a country with a population forecast to remain less half a per cent of the global total throughout the century.
Perhaps the biggest threat to that healthy outlook is politicians who choose to undermine voter support for immigration in the hope of short-term political gain.
Australia has a strong migrant history and, so far, has been spared the intense backlash against immigration which has roiled politics in the US and Europe for much of the past decade. Rather, opinion polls suggest Australians have become more accepting of immigration since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The highly regarded Australian Election Study, compiled by the Australian National University and Griffith University, found the share of voters who think the number of migrants allowed into Australia has gone “too far” fell from 45 per cent in 2019 to 26 per cent in 2022, the lowest since the survey began in 1990. The proportion who said immigration was good for the economy jumped from 54 per cent in 2019 to 65 per cent in 2022, a record high.
A separate Lowy Institute poll last year found seven in 10 Australians (68 per cent) agreed that “openness to people from all over the world is essential to who we are as a nation” – a 15-point increase compared with 2018.
To sustain voter support for migration, governments must deal with the challenges posed by population growth – especially housing supply, adequate infrastructure and effective environmental protections. But we shouldn’t underestimate the economic and social benefits our traditional openness to migration will deliver, especially as the world’s demography changes over coming decades.
Our political leaders should keep that in mind as this new phase of the border wars hots up; stoking voter fears about immigration for cheap political gain risks long-term economic damage.
Matt Wade is a senior economics writer at The Sydney Morning Herald.
Take the long view on immigration, it might surprise you
11
0
05.12.2023
The border wars are back.
A temporary migration boom following COVID-19 has stoked worries about housing affordability and congestion. Last month, opposition finance spokesperson Jane Hume even claimed migration was “out of control”.
Immigration is shaping as a key electoral battleground - again.Credit: Louise Kennerley
The political combat has intensified since a High Court decision put an end the indefinite detention of asylum-seekers. A rattled Labor government now claims to be cleaning up the policy “mess” left behind by its Coalition predecessors. Regardless, border policies are shaping as a key electoral battleground – again.
It’s no surprise immigration sucks up so much political oxygen; it is a critical federal responsibility. What’s unusual – given how much migration is debated – is how little we focus on its long-term effects.
Australia’s openness to new migrants will be a major asset as the 21st century unfolds. If you don’t believe me, take a look at the population modelling.
Last month the Bureau of Statistics released its latest 50-year population projections. They show that Australia’s population will climb from the current 26 million to between 34 and 46 million by 2071. That’s broadly consistent with the latest United Nations long-range projections which show Australia with 38 million people by the end of the century.
Illustration: Simon Letch. Credit:
But those forecasts for steady population growth are in stark contrast to many nations with a less friendly approach to........
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