Congestion – The Australian Population Research Institute

Why voters are ignored on immigration

Katharine Betts
This article originally appeared in The Herald Sun, 10 May 2018

For more than 10 years Australia’s population has been growing fast, mainly through immigration, and most of the new arrivals have found their way into Sydney or Melbourne.

As these cities buckle under the weight of numbers voters are shifting from discontent to anger. They resent crush-loaded trains, jammed roads, clogged schools and hospitals, outrageously expensive housing, and an eroding natural environment.

Despite stressed infrastructure and growing evidence of voter resistance both Coalition and Labor maintain their bipartisan commitment to even more years of high migration.

In 2016 the Australian Election Study (AES) found that 42 per cent of voters wanted immigration to be reduced. By August 2017 The Australian Population Research Institute (TAPRI) found that 54 per cent wanted lower immigration (and at an April 2018 Essential poll this had risen to 64 per cent).

Why do political elites continue to ignore voters’ unhappiness?

One answer is that politicians ignore voters because they can. They believe that voters have nowhere else to go, except for minor parties such as Sustainable Australia or One Nation.

The 2016 AES Candidates study provides evidence for elite indifference. Sixty per cent of election candidates wanted even higher immigration, including 67 per cent of Labor candidates. (Labor candidates were much closer to Greens candidates and Greens voters than to their own supporters.) An elite indifference driven by special interests leaves voters sidelined.

But there is a second answer to the question of why voters are ignored. Taking their concerns seriously risks breaking a rule stronger than politeness. It risks courting immorality.

This makes the division of opinion between political elites and voters more comprehensible. It stems from elite origins in the growing class of university graduates, a class imbued with progressive values.

A clear majority of professionals working in the media want even higher immigration, as do 49 per cent of university academics and teachers. Politicians and professionals are drawn from a similar pool of graduates, many of whom embrace progressive values including enthusiasm for cosmopolitanism, globalism, diversity and social justice.

Within this world view scepticism about high migration easily equates to racism. For example, Greg Jericho writes in the Guardian Australia that ‘because there are many desperate to hate – [the subject of immigration] must be treated with extreme care by politicians and journalists’ (24/2/18).

If scepticism about immigration is fueled by racist hatred, voters asking for reductions should not be taken seriously; their pleas are nothing more than poorly sublimated racism.

Beliefs of this kind have been held in elevated circles for some time. Politicians and their close associates are aware of them, and many share them. An in-group culture remote from the average voter, attention from well-heeled lobbyists, and a co-dependent relationship with media elites all contribute to creating an insider class. On the immigration question they live in a world remote from that of most Australians.

The TAPRI survey confirms that many progressives think that immigration sceptics are in fact racist. It also found that 65 per cent of voters know that this belief is widely held and that nearly half are inhibited by it.

The survey also found that, while many graduates can be termed ‘guardians against racism’, many other graduates feel threatened. They fear the slur. Because of this they are reluctant to speak their minds. After all they were likely to be working with other graduates imbued with progressive beliefs, and may even value such people as friends. Saying openly that immigration is too high puts them at risk of public shaming as well as exclusion from social groups that they care about.

TAPRI’s findings and those of the AES show that voters who are not university graduates are much more concerned about high migration than are graduates. Those who are the most concerned are non-graduate business managers, closely followed by a broad group of technicians, tradespeople, machinery operators, drivers and labourers. These non-graduates are less likely to fear ostracism but are also less likely to be in positions of influence. They can however say what they think in anonymous surveys such as those run by the AES, TAPRI and Essential Research.

They can also make their dissatisfaction felt at the ballot box. This, of course, is provided that there is at least one mainstream party courageous enough to stand against progressive opinion and the vested interests of the business lobby.

Taking a strong stand against racism is a core principle of progressive identity. And rightly so. The problem lies in the ill-informed reflex that is too quick to equate any discontent with high migration to racism.

This reflex helps to silence critics. It also gives the business lobby a free pass to enjoy the benefits its narrow constituency gains from population growth. As property developers bank their profits they can claim to be on the side of virtue or, if that is too far a stretch, they can safely deplore any opponents as xenophobes.

Katharine Betts is deputy head of The Australian Population Research Institute and author of ‘Immigration and public opinion in Australia: how public concerns about high migration are suppressed’, released this week on tapri.org.au.

Victoria: Parasite State

Victoria: Parasite State
Bob Birrell

Australia’s affluent lifestyle depends on huge imports of manufactured goods, particularly hi-tech electronic goods – for the simple reason that few of these products are made in Australia. In the official statistics these goods are labelled as Elaborately Transformed Manufactures (ETMs). In 2015-16 Australia exported $20.8 billion worth of ETMs and imported $190.3 billion. The resulting deficit was $169.5 billion.

This deficit was largely covered by the export of primary goods, mainly minerals and fuels. There was an Australia-wide surplus of $129 billion in 2015-16 in exports over imports of these primary goods. Victoria contributed a tiny $1.3 billion to this surplus in 2015-16.

At first sight, this is not a pretty picture. Victorians’ life style appears to be dependent on commodity exports, most of which originate from Western Australia and Queensland.

But surely Victoria makes a contribution to the export of ETMs? After all, Victoria has been in the lead in promoting advanced manufacturing and other innovative industries since the early 2000s, when Bracks and Brumby led successive Labor governments.

At that time, there were concerns about the consequences of the Hawke/Keating governments’ reforms of the 1980s and 1990s, which included drastic reduction in tariff levels. These opened Australian manufacturing industry to global competition. The fear was that Victoria’s legacy of protected manufacturing industries was at risk.

Bracks and Brumby embraced Keating’s reforms. Victorians were told not to worry about this risk. This was because Labor was putting in place initiatives that would promote hi-tech advanced manufacturing in Victoria. These initiatives, voters were told in 2002, would ‘make Victoria one of the world’s most innovative and international focused economies’.

Bracks and Brumby set out an Agenda for New Manufacturing. The Labor government promised to provide some financial support for innovation. But the trump card was its determination to turn Melbourne into an exciting destination city that would attract the best and the brightest from around the globe. Docklands and various iconic buildings like Southern Cross station were part of this. Labor claimed that these bright newcomers would enhance Melbourne’s already strong base in science and technology research.

The strategy included plans to boost Victoria’s population – labelled Beyond Five Million. The goal was to grow the states’ population from around 5 million in 2004 to 6 million in 2025. It actually reached 6 million in 2015, with Melbourne increasing its domination of the state’s population, despite the plan’s stated aim to decentralise Victoria’s population.

However the Labor leaders took no chances. Their new planning scheme, Melbourne 2030, provided for massive growth in Melbourne’s population by rezoning much of inner Melbourne and all of the city’s major transport and shopping hubs for high rise apartments. In addition, a huge swathe of Melbourne’s fringe was rezoned for new housing.

Labor’s initiatives were rewarded with the accolade of the world’s most liveable city in 2002. With so many ‘creative’ people expected to be attracted, the Labor leaders promised that Victoria would become ‘a world leader in the 21^st century drivers of prosperity’.

Now let’s turn to the real world. How has Victoria performed since these promises were made? Victoria’s contribution to Australia’s meagre exports of ETMs has actually declined since the early 2000s. In 2004-05 Victorian enterprises exported $7.2 billion worth of ETMs. In 2015-16 they exported $7.3 billion. This is less in real terms than in 2004-05, because the Australian dollar was worth far more a decade ago than today.

There have been a few hi-tech success stories in Victoria, notably CSL, but these gains have been more than offset by the losses stemming from the demise of protected manufacturing industries, including the motor vehicle industry, which was the leading exporter of ETMs from Victoria in the early 2000s.

Meanwhile as Victoria’s population swelled and its residents’ affluence has grown, the state’s appetite for ETM imports has surged. As noted, some $7.3 billion of ETMs were exported from in 2015-16. In the same year, Victoria imported $52.5 billion worth of ETMS. The result was a deficit on international trade of ETMs of $45.2 billion.

And it’s getting worse. Victoria’s deficit on international trade in ETMs is deepening along with its growing population. Just a few years ago, in 2012-13, Victoria’s deficit on ETM trade was $34 billion.

Victoria is a parasite state. In 2015-16 Victorians, who made up 25 per cent of Australia’s population, were responsible for 28 per cent of the national deficit in ETM trade of $159.6 billion. Furthermore, as indicated, Victorian made only a tiny contribution to Australia’s surplus in the trade of primary products that largely finances the national ETM deficit.

Victoria is relying on the rest of Australia to provide for its import intensive life style. Melbourne, of course is driving this dependence because of its increasingly dominant role in the state’s economy.

In Melbourne, this dependence is ignored. Why worry when the economy appears to be booming. However the boom is being driven by employment growth in the health, social assistance and education industries that are largely financed by the commonwealth and state governments and a boom in the finance and property industries fuelled by a massive increase in mortgage investment debt.

The current Labor government is basking in Victoria’s national leadership in job creation, the continued award to Melbourne as the world’s most liveable city and the evidence of cranes on every horizon.

This is a mirage – where not a word of the truth, as summarized above, is allowed to intrude.

Bob Birrell is the head of the Australian Population Research Institute

An edited version of this text was published in The Herald Sun, on Monday the 28th of August 2017, page 20.
It was accompanied by an article by John Masanauskas, Bailed Out: Victoria dubbed a parasite state as imports trump exports by $51 billion a year and followed by an editorial, 29 August 2017, Livability clouds gather.

Migration policy: All about numbers

Bob Birrell and Bob Kinnaird

[This post was first published in the March 2017 newsletter of Sustainable Population Australia. It has been republished on John Menadue’s blog – Pearls and Irritations]

The permanent skilled migration program should be cut by nearly half, from 128,000 (primary and secondary applicants) to around 70,000. This includes migrants granted visas under the points test and those sponsored by employers.

Our political leaders have prioritised growth in the migrant intake over other pressing concerns. These include the migrant contribution to city congestion and housing costs. You might think that our leaders would also be worried about the job competition for locals. Almost all proclaim their concern about jobs for Australians. Yet they are mute about the obvious clash between current immigration policy settings and Australian jobs.

This article summarises our research on the seriousness of this clash and how migration advocates manage to avoid critical scrutiny. Our focus here is on the permanent entry program rather than on the 457 program – detailed in the published report.[i]

The ABS estimates that Australia’s total population growth (some 340,000 a year) is adding around 280,000 a year to the civilian population aged 15 plus. If past work force participation rates continue, 65 per cent (or some 180,000) of this additional population will enter the labour market.

Yet in the year to November 2016, the growth in the number employed in Australia fell to just 87,000. Other signs confirming a weakening labour market are that almost all of the growth of employment in the last few years has been in part-time work and that there has been no growth in the total number of hours worked by those employed.

This is hardly a time to be running a record high permanent entry migration program of around 205,000, or to be encouraging the intake and prolonged stay of those holding temporary visas with generous work rights. These include students, Working Holiday Makers and temporary workers on 457 visas. An egregious example is the rule allowing overseas students to apply for tourist visas when their student visa expires. 35,877 were granted such visas in 2015-16. Does the government really think that many of these former students, with expenses to cover, will not work illegally?

The total stock of these temporaries has risen to around 1.3 million, excluding New Zealanders. They are providing ferocious competition for young job seekers. That is why the unemployment rate for persons aged 15-24 has reached 13 per cent and why increasing numbers are forced into internships and other forms of unpaid work.

Yet there is little sign from leading politicians and commentators of any rethink on the migration policies contributing these outcomes.

Why is this? The answer may be obvious to SPA members. Population growth is seen by the government and business interests as boosting the economy at a time when expenditure on resource industry investment has fallen from around 8 per cent of GDP in 2012 to around 4 per cent in 2016. The views of the current Governor of the Reserve Bank, Philip Lowe are typical. He has declared that population growth is the key to offsetting Australia’s current difficult economic setting. He argues that if Australia continues with the fastest rate of population growth amongst OECD countries this will drive Australia’s economic growth since migrants ‘will require somewhere to live, to work and to play’.[ii]

How do our political leaders get away with it? It is partly because they have created a smokescreen of (false) claims that the ‘skilled’ permanent and temporary entry programs only recruit highly skilled persons in short supply in Australia. On this basis, they assert that these recruits do not worsen local job opportunity. Our recent research, summarised below, refutes these claims.

The skilled migration smokescreen

The permanent resident skilled program

This is currently set at 128,000 (primary applicants and dependents). About two thirds are selected via the points-tested visa subclasses and the rest mainly via employer sponsorship. The Australian points-test and its alleged success in recruiting highly skilled migrants is regularly touted as a model for European nations to emulate as they struggle to manage their migrant influx.

These claims are taken seriously because of one key feature. This is that eligibility for the points tested visa subclasses is limited to those in occupations listed on the Skilled Occupation List (SOL). This list was introduced in 2010 at a time when the previous selection system was in disarray because of the huge number of cooks and hairdressers being visaed. The 2010 SOL was limited to managerial, professional or trade level occupations judged to be in overall national shortage. Cooks and hairdressers were not included.

On the face of it, this policy remains intact. The Australian government conducts an annual review of the SOL, where the public is invited to submit their views about whether particular occupations should be on the SOL or not. But this is a façade.

The growing evidence of oversupply in major professions like accounting and engineering has had little impact on the SOL. For example, the Department of Employment has recently recommended that accountants be removed. The Department of Health did the same for general practitioners (and some other health professions, including dentists) in the course of the 2015-16 review of the SOL.[iii] This advice was rejected.

The government has justified this stance by changing the criteria for judging when an occupation is in oversupply. SOL listing is now determined not by the current state of the Australian labour market, but by the government’s expectations about the medium to long term demand for skilled workers in the relevant occupations.

The Coalition Government makes no bones about its position. Its advice to those putting submissions on the 2016-17 SOL is that the SOL is concerned only:

With ‘medium to long term’ skills needs rather than immediate skills shortages. As such, the Department of Education and Training is only seeking information on longer term trends rather than immediate shortages and costs. ‘Medium to long term’ means 2-10 years.[iv]

No matter what is said in the annual review of the SOL about oversupply problems in particular occupations right now, the government can (and usually does) claim that when ‘normal’ rates of economic growth and job demand return, additional skilled migrants will be needed. This policy stance hides the government’s main priority, which is achieving its skilled migration numerical target. This would be gutted if currently oversupplied occupations like accounting, engineering and ICT were removed from the SOL. This is because they comprise nearly half of all the migrants granted visas after passing the points test.

So much for the claim that the program complements the domestic workforce. What about the boast that the migrants recruited are highly skilled?

Nearly two-thirds of those visaed under the points-tested visa subclasses were offshore applicants. All they have to do to meet the skills criteria of the test is attest that they have experience in their nominated occupation (usually at least eight years) and that they possesses degree level qualifications (from any of a vast number of educational institutions across the globe with greatly differing standards). There is no assessment at all as to whether they are ‘highly skilled’ or that their work experience is even relevant to employer needs in Australia.

For applicants applying in Australia, success is guaranteed if they hold bachelor level qualifications from an Australian university in any of the occupations listed on the SOL (like ICT or accounting), are aged less than 33 and have reached ‘Proficient’ level English (level 7 on the IELTS test). No job experience in their occupation is required. When these former overseas students enter the Australian job market, they add to an already oversupplied graduate labour market that puts a premium on experience and face the same problem as local graduates.

The employer sponsored permanent skilled program

In contrast to the points-tested category, the government claims employer sponsored permanent visas do ‘fill (current) skills shortages in the Australian labour market’.

But this claim is also mostly a facade. There is no genuine and rigorous testing of the Australian labour market to establish that no Australian workers are available at going market rates. The main ‘test’ is simply that the sponsoring employer says there is a shortage of Australian workers. For some employer-sponsored visas in regional Australia, the State government department responsible for regional development assesses whether Australian workers are available ‘locally’ (not nationally). These agencies usually have regional population growth as part of their charter.

Employer-sponsored permanent migrants may be less skilled than the points-tested skilled migrant group as lower skill levels and lower English language requirements apply. In 2015-16, only 26 per cent of employer-sponsored permanent migrants had occupations listed on the SOL.

The permanent skilled program could easily be cut in half by removing occupations like ICT, accounting, engineering, GPs and specialist doctors currently oversupplied from the SOL and by restricting employer-sponsored migrants to occupations on the SOL combined with rigorous labour market testing.

Dr Bob Birrell is President and Bob Kinnaird is a Research Associate, of the Australian Population Research Institute.

[i] Bob Birrell, Ernest Healy and Bob Kinnaird, Immigration Overflow: Why is Matters, The Australian Population Research Institute, December 2016

[ii] Phillip Lowe, 2014, Building on Strong Foundations, Address to the Australian Business Economists Annual Dinner, Reserve Bank, 25 November, p. 5

[iii] On the issue of GPs, see Mike Moynihan and Bob Birrell, December 2016, Doctor Oversupply-Ignoring the evidence, The Australian Population Research Institute.

[iv] <https://submissions.education.gov.au/forms/archive/2015_16_sol/documents/CPA%20Australia.pdf>