Gladys Berejiklian wants a return to Howard-era immigration levels
PRIME Minister Scott Morrison says he is able to redirect thousands of migrants from NSW after Premier Gladys Berejiklian revealed she wants the state to dramatically slash its overseas migrant intake by up to 50 per cent.
NSW
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PREMIER Gladys Berejiklian wants NSW to dramatically slash its overseas migrant intake by up to 50 per cent, as she calls for a “new dawn” on population policy.
With Sydney struggling to cope with its ballooning population, Ms Berejiklian has called for a return to Howard-era immigration levels in a dramatic intervention into the divisive debate.
As a proud daughter of migrants from Armenia, it is not a position Ms Berejiklian takes lightly.
“It’s time to tap the brakes and take a breather on immigration levels to this state. We should return to Howard-era immigration levels in NSW,” she said.
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During the Howard years, NSW net overseas migration was steady at an average of about 45,000 a year. But since 2007 this number has risen to about 73,000 and over the past two years has rocketed to almost 100,000 annually.
Speaking exclusively to The Daily Telegraph, Ms Berejiklian said NSW “has and always will be open to new immigrants”.
“I’m the daughter of proud immigrants myself, but it’s clear that successive federal governments have allowed the rate of immigration to NSW to balloon out of control,” she said.
The Premier said cities such as Sydney were forced to “wear the pain” of this.
“My government has been playing catch-ups building the schools, hospitals, roads and transport links our state needs to deal with our growing population after years of do-nothing Labor governments,” she said.
“But it’s becoming increasingly clear that the current growing rate of immigration to our state needs to be addressed. This is an opportunity for a new dawn on this important issue.”
Ms Berejiklian said that it was time to “take stock” and “assess the situation in a mature way”.
“Let’s plan properly. I know how much we’re building in this state — it’s more than any government, but we are still playing catch-up,” she said.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Wednesday said he could redirect thousands of migrants that were destined for NSW to another state.
“In the current planning year, NSW had requested more than 5000 additional migrants into NSW, well I’ll take it from those comments by Gladys that she would like now those assigned to places to states like South Australia or other places, and we can do that,” Mr Morrison said.
“But our current permanent immigration levels are running just a little over 160,000 that was the level of permanent immigration that was running at the time of the conclusion of the Howard government and so those levels have been pretty consistent for some time, they used to be a bit higher than that in terms of what the permanent intake had been a few years ago and that’s came down somewhat over the last year or so and I expect it to sort of remain at about these levels.”
Mr Morrison said it was the responsibility of Premiers to adequately plan for migration and build infrastructure to ensure their state could cope with the migrant population.
“But we want to work closely with the state and territory governments on their population plans and make sure our migration programs work in with those migration plans but that doesn’t give any state government a leave pass on dealing with the pressures of population.
“The infrastructure has to get built and it has to be done efficiently and it has to be done in a very timely way and to ensure there is as little disruption as possible to business, small business, don’t get impacted by the management of those projects.”
Ms Berejiklian’s comments come as the federal government prepares to make thousands of migrants each year settle outside Sydney and Melbourne for up to five years.
As it lays the ground work for its new policy, federal Population Minister Alan Tudge declared the pace of growth was resulting in an infrastructure shortfall.
In May this year, Ms Berejiklian said states needed to have a greater say on immigration levels in the future.
“Our current level of migration is about right — but we cannot ignore the reality that communities are feeling growing pressures on local services and infrastructure,” she said in May at the Sydney Institute’s annual dinner.
These comments referred to the national immigration rate, but her latest intervention is specifically regarding NSW’s intake.
Ms Berejiklian yesterday commended Mr Morrison for his willingness to bring states to the table on immigration discussions.
“I thank the new Prime Minister for agreeing to my call earlier this year to involve the states on the important issue of population growth,” she said, saying that he was ending a long-held “snub”.
Labor leader Luke Foley has previously called for a closer look at immigration, saying “the capacity of our large cities in this country to cope is being severely tested and the greatest test is in Sydney”.
But Mr Foley came under attack in May when he remarked the phenomenon of “white flight” was taking place in Sydney suburbs where huge immigration populations were not matched by growing services such as infrastructure, health and education. He was accused of making the debate about race.