Australia, don’t demonise immigrants. Just thank them

February 27, 2026 — 2:30pm

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Worried about Australia’s future prosperity? Our ability to continue to provide high living standards to our children and those who come after us? Me too. More than ever, with the return of the toxic game of blaming migrants for whatever is wrong this week.

This is a game that apparently wins polling numbers, and certainly wins media airtime, but pity the losers – who are all of us. Even those who are ardently anti-immigration. The world that you are being sold – where migrants are shut out, or they’re here but treated badly – will be a poorer, harder world for you, too.

Let’s go back to some basics. Economic growth per person has slowed across the developed world, with a drop in “dynamism” that has many theorised reasons and one unavoidable one.

In Australia, we are rich and ageing. That means high demand and higher expectations for labour-intensive services – most notably healthcare, where usage escalates dramatically the older people are. That means less dynamism in the economy – fewer new ideas and fewer new businesses. And that means fewer people of traditional working age relative to those who have aged out of the workforce.

Like a person, a population can age poorly or well. To date, one thing that has enabled Australia to age as gracefully, as the Baby Boomers have aged into retirement, is immigration.

Housing........

© Brisbane Times