Immigrants advance Australian economy, but what happens if we 'close the door?'

The discussion below has some reasonable points but it comes from the Left-leaning ABC so commits the usual Leftist error of treating all immigrants as the same.  There has long been a broad consensus that Australia should prioritize immigrants with useful skills and that implies that all immigrants are NOT the same.  So the Left are being deliberately obtuse about this.  The truth is that immigrants from both ends of the Eurasian continent  -- Europe and East Asia -- have indeed assimilated well and made a great contribution to the development of Australia.  But that is NOT so of immigrants from the Middle East and other Muslim lands.  So to apply the lessons from past immigration to the inflow we are getting those days is totally invalid and deceptive.  Muslim and African immigrants are largely parasitic and are not even grateful for their reception.

And the claim that hostility to Muslims is our fault and not theirs rests not only on a refusal to look at Muslim behaviour but also rests on an accusation that Australians have always been hostile to immigrants.  That is nonsense. 

The example that always comes to my mind concerns the government of NSW a few years back.  Under the Iemma administration an Italian Premier was assisted in government by a Greek finance minister and several other Italians. NSW was run by what some would once have called "wogs" with hardly any consciousness of that.  All the politicians concerned were born in Australia of immigrant parents and were freely elected by the people of NSW to run Australia's most populous State.  Where did the racism go in that?

There will always be racists in every community but to point to a few isolated examples of it does not establish a generalization.  My example of what millions of NSW people did with their vote does, however, tell you much more about the attitudes of Australians in general


For a nation built mostly on newly-arrived immigrants, it's an issue guaranteed to inflame heated and at times vicious debate.

Outright distrust and opposition to anything "foreign" was part of our social fabric until 70 years ago, and at one stage was enshrined in our political system via The White Australia policy.

Then, the post war immigration boom saw waves of European refugees flee their war-torn homelands in search of a better life.

Those new arrivals changed Australia forever, overwhelmingly for the better, as did the influx of Asian immigrants fleeing conflict in the 1970s.

But despite the proclamations from our leaders that we are a tolerant mob who embrace cultural diversity, the deep-seated distrust among established Australians never really evaporated, as evidenced by the animosity towards new arrivals from the Middle East.

So inflamed are passions, it is nigh on impossible to have a sensible debate over levels of immigration whether it be in regards to the continent's environmental sensitivities or on the impact on the economy.

Those who raise legitimate concerns often are accused of racism.

That's understandable given environmental protection and the economy have become convenient smokescreens for those who harbour deep prejudices.

From around 90,000 at the turn of the century, our annual intake of immigrants has risen to more than 200,000 a year.

That's put a rocket under our population growth rate, which has surged to 1.8 per cent over the past 15 years, way above the OECD average of 0.7 per cent.

From a humanitarian perspective, it's allowed us to strut the world stage from the vantage of the high moral ground.

However, from an economic viewpoint, it's delivered our leaders a convenient buffer with which to hide a multitude of fiscal sins and allowed them to shirk making tough decisions.

How immigration boosts GDP

There's a fairly simple relationship between immigration and economic growth. The more people you have, the bigger your economy. More people buy more goods and services.

There's nothing inherently wrong with boosting your growth through immigration.

But the crime committed by Australian governments of all persuasions in the past 20 years is that, while they've been happy to accept the kudos for economic growth, they've been totally unwilling to spend the necessary cash to ensure the economy can cope with such a dramatic influx of new arrivals.

In essence, they've cooked the books.

As a result, many of our major cities are choking. Our infrastructure is obsolete. Utilities are struggling. That, in turn, has adversely affected our productivity and led to further distortions in how our wealth is distributed.

The laughable illusion of our economic miracle — the nation that fuels and feeds the world — is highlighted by looking just one small step beyond the raw GDP data.

If you simply divide our economic growth performance by the number of Australians, our growth doesn't look anywhere near as flash.

On an annualised basis, our per capita GDP growth has never been much above 2 per cent since the last recession 25 years ago, and that was for just a few years around the new millennium.

Most of the time it's been around 1.5 per cent and more recently 1 per cent. That's tepid at best.

That's the reason why, in recent years, it often has felt like a recession. In fact, during 2009, the economy was in reverse when measured in per capita growth terms.

Once you spread the extra wealth around all those extra people, we've been barely marking time. So much for the boom.

More people, less pay, same old infrastructure

Most new arrivals head to where they can find work. That's meant most immigrants have headed towards the biggest cities, Sydney and Melbourne.

Since around 2003, Melbourne's population has swelled by almost 1 million, with Sydney not far behind.

All those extra people have to live somewhere and that puts pressure on housing.

Despite the common misconception peddled by shock jocks that new immigrants flock here for social security benefits, most in fact are desperate for work. That puts pressure on wages.

It is little surprise then that in the past decade, housing prices, particularly in the major centres have soared while wages growth now is the slowest since the last recession.

It's never a simple, linear argument. Immigrants are amazingly adept at starting their own businesses, thereby creating employment.

And record low interest rates combined with tax incentives that have transformed housing into a preferred investment vehicle have been the primary drivers in inflating the east coast housing bubble.

But there's no denying the failure of successive governments to develop infrastructure that would have facilitated new housing, thereby helping alleviate the dangerous east coast property bubble, and maintained productivity.

Immigration crackdown — Where now for growth?

In the past week, there has been a clear shift in Federal Government thinking. The scaling back of 457 visas — which undoubtedly have been rorted — and the tougher approach to citizenship appear to herald a new approach to immigration.

Once again though, the motivation appears to be more on pandering to electoral and party room prejudice than being sourced in sound economics or environmental grounds.

Political posturing aside, it would appear Canberra unwittingly has exposed itself to a far greater problem.

Without the immigration sugar hit, what will drive the Australian economy into the future?

Most of our economic growth forecasts have been based on population growth of around 400,000 a year; almost a new city.

With the mines now running at peak capacity, resource prices in decline and the east coast housing boom on its final doomed run, a pull back on immigration — the secret weapon in our economic miracle — will leave our leaders with nowhere to hide.

To further complicate matters, if productivity is to be lifted, a major infrastructure spend is required; the money that should have been spent all along to cope with the immigration intake.

Perhaps they will be forced to confront serious fiscal issues if they truly want to bring the budget deficit back under control instead of simply relying on endless numbers of new arrivals to inflate the economy and the tax base.

Maybe they will get serious about a resources rent tax, rather than idly standing by and watching the nation's riches hauled off for little return.

Tax cuts for foreign corporations may take a back seat to enforcing the law on company tax. And they might even question whether we can afford the enormous tax breaks on superannuation and property investment for the wealthy.

Maybe. But it will probably take a recession to do it.

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A French lesson for Australia

The comparisons made by Robert Gottliebsen below are a little strained but I see some truth in them

Now for a different twist on the French Presidential election.

In a strange way, many of the problems facing France are incredibly similar to those facing Australia. On the economic front (aside from refugees and terror) in the looming Presidential run off, France is being given two very different solutions to its version of the problems. Down the track we will face similar choices, so let’s compare our two nations.

Both of us find that our employment creating industries suffer from a high currency. France has 10 per cent unemployment. We are at 6 per cent, mainly thanks to our building industry and housing boom. If this sector falters, we will find ourselves in an unemployment situation that’s not much different from France.

The French currency is high because it uses the euro rather than the franc, and the euro is boosted by the inclusion of Germany.

Our currency is high because of our iron ore and LNG exports, which are commodities produced by industries that are not big labour employers and, in the case of LNG, it is damaging the economics of our energy-reliant labour-employing industries.

Both of us have labour laws that restrict employment and are not consistent with the currency. The French situation is far worse than Australia but, as so often happens in France, the French have found ways to mitigate the problem.

They try to restrict the size of their businesses to less than 50 people (and sometimes even lower) to avoid the worst of the labour laws and that creates entrepreneurialism.

Here in Australia we mitigated the shift allowance and penalty rate part of our labour problem by large corporate deals with the unions which covered a huge portion of the workforce, and another big slab was covered by the use of the cash economy.

Although our official penalty rates were high, in reality relatively few paid them. Fair Work Australia tried to bring the official penalty rates closer to what people were actually being paid but were ambushed by Opposition leader Bill Shorten and the Prime Minister did not know how to bring the debate back to reality.

As a result, a large number of large and small enterprises, particularly large retailers and small cafes, may end up increasing their weekend/public holiday shift allowances to the official rate which will make the problem a great deal worse. We are heading in the French direction.

Both our countries have a serious Muslim terror problem although the French one much is worse than ours.

Both countries have horrific debt, although ours comes via the banking system rather than the government.

Both countries are becoming sick of the existing political parties that have not been able to grasp the state and national problems.

The French have a presidential system which has enabled them to easily dump both traditional parties in the latest election in favour of people outside the traditional political arena — exactly what the Americans have done when confronted with their version of the same problem.

If the next French president is Emmanuel Macron, then he is promising to reduce unemployment from ten to seven per cent by changing the labour laws. He will slash the public service to reduce the deficit. I wish him luck. The unions in France are ferocious.

The other candidate Marine Le Pen is planning to take the French out of the euro, which means the labour problem will be solved via the currency. If Macron wins and he fails to change the labour laws and/or his measures do not reduce unemployment, then there will be no alternative for France but to leave the euro and adopt a version of the Marine Le Pen solution.

The French are being given a real choice as to which solution they pick.

In Australia, an effective leader has not yet emerged from the left or right in the conventional parties. If a leader willing to tackle the issues does not emerge from one of the conventional parties, then voters may well go elsewhere as France has done.

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Fairy tale revisionism

Disrespect for children's traditional fairy stories will always grate on those of us who grew up with them and enjoyed them but there is a defence of that disrespect below that does have something in it.  It is an attempt to attack sentiment with logic, however, so will not do much to shift attitudes. That there are important life lessons embedded in the stories will however always be their strongest defence.  For children they a way of learning important lessons about reality in an enjoyable way

This year, the Respectful Relationships curriculum was rolled out in Victorian schools. As part of it, children are taught to think critically about traditional fairy tales by looking at the gender roles they contain.

But not everyone likes the idea. When we asked our readers to give their thoughts, many felt that fairy tales should be left alone:

    "They are cliched romantic tales for children, meant to be taken as fantasy."

    "If we start mucking around and changing stories to make them politically correct we will destroy the joy of reading."

    "PC gone mad. How bout the Government concentrate on real things, not damn fairy tales."

    "Give us a break. They are beautiful fairy tales. Let kids be kids and have their childhood memories."

What exactly does the Respectful Relationships curriculum teach?

The curriculum was devised to address gender-based violence.   According to the teaching materials, gender norms "influence beliefs about how girls and boys should act, speak, dress and express themselves", and are often "reinforced through popular television shows and story books".

    "Analyses of popular books have found that central characters are more likely to be male, female characters are more often in nurturing roles, and occupations are gender stereotyped," the teaching materials state.

To get primary school children thinking about this, the program gets them to look at traditional fairy tales and identify their "gendered messages".

Students are asked to take on the role of a "fairy tale detective" and consider, for instance, what would happen if the characters swapped roles — "if the girl had the sword and the boy waited for her to rescue him".

They are then asked to look at more modern fairy tales to see how they compare.

If you're curious, the teaching resources are all available online.

Here are just a few sexist tropes as identified by Dr Lauren Rosewarne, a social studies expert at the University of Melbourne:

    women being saved by men

    women's value being attached to how beautiful they are

    old women being witches

"Fairytales have long been in the crosshairs of feminists who have considered the presentations to reiterate antiquated stereotypes," Dr Rosewarne said.

Is this teaching program an example of political correctness?

Dr Rosewarne doesn't think so. "I see this as being about a culture that has become savvy about identifying where stifling gender roles come from and how they get reinforced by our culture," she said.     "It's about thinking critically about material we too often dismiss as 'just entertainment' or 'just children's stories'."

Dr Matthew Beard, from the Ethics Centre, says there's a difference between sanitising texts and critically looking at them. "If children are being told, 'This story is bad, stop enjoying it,' then that's a problem, there's a genuine reason why parents would be concerned," he said.

But he says simply thinking critically about a story doesn't stop you from enjoying it.  "We can revel in the excitement of a prince that's fighting a dragon but also think, 'Hmm, I wonder why it had to be a man?'," he said. "I don't think criticism or reflection is the enemy of entertainment."

Are we breaking with tradition?

Dr Rosewarne says no, because what we think of as "traditional" fairy tales are actually recent inventions anyway.  "The fairy tales so common in storybooks and cartoons are actually already heavily sanitised versions of the stories original circulated by the Grimm brothers," she said.

Dr Beard also notes that the nastier aspects of fairy tales have already been washed out.   "The little mermaid in the Hans Christian Andersen version kills herself at the end because she doesn't actually find true love," he said.

A couple years ago, we took a closer look at the surprisingly dark and gruesome stories behind Disney's fairy tales.

Aren't fairy tales supposed to be all about teaching values in the first place?  Dr Beard says they are, and that looking at gender stereotypes adds another dimension to this. "Fairy stories have always been about teaching moral lessons, that's the entire purpose of these morality tales," he said.

"They're meant to teach about courage, they're meant to teach about humility, or patience."

Dr Rosewarne says fairy tales and folk stories should adapt over time to reflect changes in our culture.  "Holding tight to some notion of 'tradition' isn't about authenticity but rather about rigid adherence to conservative values that have, historically, limited women," she said.

She points to Frozen and Tangled as examples of modern fairy tales that challenged gender stereotypes and were still popular with children.

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Q&A: Citizenship, visa changes dominate program forcing Alex Hawke to defend policies

Changes to Australia's 457 visas and citizenship tests dominated Q&A on Monday night, with Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection Alex Hawke spending most of the program defending the Government's policies.

Last week Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced the Government would abolish the 457 visa, replacing it with two new visas, and introduce sweeping changes to the nation's citizenship laws, including a tougher citizenship test.

On Q&A immigration lawyer Sarah Thapa challenged Mr Hawke to justify what she said was a "sudden" decision to scrap hundreds of occupations allowed under current visas.

"Many of these occupations are relied upon by my clients in the [information and communication technology], medical research and renewable energy sector," she said.

But Mr Hawke said the overhaul had faced "extensive public reviews" and was about "Australians getting access to the Australian labour market first".

"When you look at the kinds of occupations that are there, when you look at the requirements that are there, too many Australians are being overlooked for jobs and too many Australians in those fields that have been mentioned right there haven't been offered those jobs, whether they are new graduates out of our universities or if they are people older in life that get redundant and are replaced," he said.

He said would have been unwise to announce the changes ahead of time because it could have led to a rush on positions from foreign job seekers.

Questions over racism, Islamophobia

Audience member David Butt opened his question with a line from the film, The Big Short:

"I have a feeling in a few years people are going to be doing what they always do when the economy tanks — they will be blaming immigrants and poor people." He asked if last week's announcements were the Government's first step in pointing the finger of blame at immigrants.

But Mr Hawke rejected the suggestion. "It is not about any ethnicity or any immigrant," he said.  "These are temporary visas. These have never been about permanent visas. This is a temporary skill shortage program.

"There are pathways to permanent residency that have been attached to it [to recognise that] when people come and work for substantial periods of time they should be able to have a pathway to permanent residency, but the changes that I am making are non-discriminatory across the board."

Labor spokesman for business Tony Burke, who was also on the panel, said he was yet to see the detail of the changes but he questioned their motivation and highlighted what he said was a focus on immigrants.

He also questioned how citizenship test changes could improve Australia's national security.

"How on Earth can it be we are making a decision about whether or not somebody should be in Australia as a citizen when the only people we are talking about have already decided to be permanent resident?" he said.

"Of course it is not about national security."

"It [the overhaul] might still be sensible and there might still be aspects that are sensible, but the rhetoric claiming somehow people who are permanent residents and they've had their security checks and we have decided that are fine to live here but if we make them citizens and they are suddenly dangerous, it is absurd."

Migrants 'work hard to grow'

Debate continued with fellow panellists Senator Derryn Hinch and author and prominent feminist Germaine Greer before Zimbabwean activist and social entrepreneur Chido Govera was asked for her outsider's view.

She admitted she found it surprising Australia was having what appeared to be an insular debate in an increasingly global world.

Ms Govera said she also feared the changes were motivated by xenophobia.

"It feels like it is all geared to isolate a certain group of people from coming to Australia and that if they come, there was a mention they come to work in rural Australia and they should not be in the city.

"So they come from other countries and then we keep them in a small spot where they cannot grow. They stay in the rural areas and they cannot come into the city.

"That is a bit difficult to digest for me, knowing that this is maybe part of my people who are being spoken about in this way, when they work very hard to be in a space where they can also grow, but there is no chance for that. "Rules that are made like this are a little bit difficult because, again, it will lead us to the whole cycle of blaming, so it is blaming the immigrants, blaming the poor people.

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here