OPINION
The left are just addicted to their idees fixee. One of which is the unquestionable boon of open borders. Not just immigration, but turbocharged mass immigration, more and ever more, from the third world. After all, they argue, wasn’t immigration beneficial in the past? So that must mean that more immigration must be even better.
Like a junkie who reasons that their first hit felt great, so shooting up more must be even better, the left are addicted to mass immigration. More, more, more! Gotta get that immigration fix, no matter what!
Even if it’s long passed the point of being beneficial. When, instead of a social and economic boon, it’s turned into an economic delirium tremens.
You could call them the four I’s of our economy. And they’ve now collided in spectacular fashion.
Almost all of us have been obsessed by just two: inflation and its impact on interest rates.
But there’s another two that need to be brought into the equation: immigration and the need for infrastructure.
Anyone who’s endured a major Australian city, which are where nearly all migrants wash up, in recent years knows perfectly well just how badly infrastructure is under stress. Schools are full to bursting, highways are jam-packed 24/7, and don’t even bother trying to get in to see your GP anything less than weeks in advance.
As for housing, rents especially: we’re in the middle of a full-blown crisis.
And the immigration junkies just keep packing them in.
Just on a third of all Australian households rent and […] rents have been soaring for most of the past year and vacancy rates, at just 1.1 per cent across the nation, according to property data firm PropTrack, are now at their lowest levels in history.
Our immigration intake, meanwhile, is running at record levels with up to 600,000 arrivals expected this calendar year. If we continued at that rate for four years, there’d be enough people to fill a city the size of Brisbane.
And here’s another little snippet highlighted by the most recent inflation data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics: Rents now are growing at their fastest pace in 14 years and are a key factor driving our inflation.
In fact, rents are the second-largest contributor to inflation.
And yet, despite the overwhelming evidence, few appear willing to confront one of the key forces driving inflation.
Rather than whack everyone with ever higher interest rates because rents are going crazy, wouldn’t it make more sense to simply scale back the level of immigration, even temporarily, to take the pressure off rents and help lower inflation?
All those people arriving need somewhere to live and the increased demand is driving rents higher.
That’s not the wicked, right-wing Murdoch press saying it, mind you: it’s the uber-woke, green-left ABC.
One of the biggest problems we’ve faced since the turn of the century is that our politicians have been more than happy to import people but they’ve been unwilling to spend the required money on ensuring our cities work properly.
For decades, until COVID hit, we used to boast about being the miracle economy. No recession in 30 years! Technically, it was true. Our GDP climbed each and every year. But it was off the back of one of the biggest immigration programs in the developed world. Adding more people adds to the size of your economy.
ABC Australia
Which is like saying that guzzling more sugar adds to your body mass. It’s good for growing bodies!
The question that has to be asked, though, is: is it worth it?
Economists and immigration-addicts love to boast that immigration boosts GDP by a percent or two. But they never talk dollar amounts per capita. Because, when you break it down, that little boost to GDP works out to about $150 per Australian, per year.
Does anyone in their right mind think that’s a bargain?