Prime Minister Scott Morrison vows to lower migration caps to prevent our cities being swamped
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has revealed he will lower migration caps to prevent cities like Sydney and Melbourne from being swamped with new arrivals because Australians are saying “enough, enough, enough”.
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Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said he is set to lower migration caps to prevent cities like Sydney from being swamped because Australians are saying “enough, enough, enough”.
In his prepared remarks, he said the Federal Government will establish a national framework with the states to tackle the booming population crisis and ensure migration does not overwhelm the infrastructure of our cities.
“Australians in our biggest cities are concerned about population. They are saying: enough, enough, enough,” he said ahead of his address to more than 200 of Sydney’s key business, planning and political movers in shakers last night.
“The roads are clogged, the buses and trains are full. The schools are taking no more enrolments. I hear what you are saying. I hear you loud and clear,” said Mr Morrison, who delivered The Daily Telegraph’s 2018 Bradfield Oration at the Art Gallery of NSW.
“We need to improve how we manage population growth in this country.”
The speech is his strongest indication yet that migration caps will be lowered to prevent roads, schools, trains and hospitals in Sydney and Melbourne from becoming overwhelmed.
Mr Morrison said he is writing to the Premiers and Chief Ministers of every state to bring forward their population plans as part of a “national strategy and framework” for consideration at the Council of Australian Governments meeting in Adelaide on December 12.
“This will feed in to the setting of our migrations caps and policies for next year, ensuring that migration is finally tied to infrastructure and services carrying capacity,” he said.
“We need a more targeted and tailored approach to conversations about population.
“We have become, especially in Sydney and Melbourne, a victim of our success.”
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He said in Sydney the population in 2016-17 had increased by 107,000.
“In other words, Sydney grew by almost 2,000 people a week, every week. A suburb a week.”
The majority of those people — 90,100 — were migrants from overseas who were attracted by a booming economy with 4.4 per cent unemployment and over 300 cranes on the skyline.
“This city has become a magnet for Australians wanting a better life,” said Mr Morrison. “But the Sydney story on population is not just a migration story. It’s also a quality of life story.
“We know the story in Sydney: congestion — on roads and public transport, pressure on services like schools, and until recently, ever increasing house prices,” the Prime Minister said.
More than 18,000 people had left Sydney over the same period.
“While some of that is older Sydneysiders cashing in on their capital gains and retiring to other parts of the state, those figures also reflect concerns about densities, congestion and other questions that relate to quality of life,” he said.
The Daily Telegraph’s editor Ben English told the elite gathering, which included Premier Gladys Berejiklian and chair of the Bradfield Oration Board of Governors Tony Shepherd, that the vision for the future of Sydney was in danger of being strangled by red tape.
“The spirit of defeat we all feel at various times is the exact opposite of the spirit that embodied the man who inspired this oration, John Job Crew Bradfield,” Mr English said.
It was Bradfield’s words, as well as his vision, that overcame the bureaucracy and petty politics that stood in the way of getting the bridge built.
“Bradfield’s will and determination became as irresistible as the tide of the traffics that flows to and fro across his Sydney Harbour Bridge,” Mr English said.
“That is the spirit we aim to capture with the Bradfield Oration. Imagination. Vision and a determination to realise our impossible dreams.”
Mr Morrison praised The Daily Telegraph’s Bradfield Campaign which has fought to rein in red tape and keep the record $87 billion investment in new transport, schools and hospitals over the next four years.
“I want to congratulate The Daily Telegraph for being a voice for Sydney,” he said.
“This is a paper that is not just proudly Sydney — but persuasively puts the case for a Sydney with more roads, better services, and a stronger economy and safer communities.
“We don’t agree every day — but you are a clear, persuasive voice in this city and country and I thank you for your support of this Oration and our Emerald City.”
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