Dog whistles on migration endanger jobs and growth

Labor leader Anthony Albanese. Picture: AAP

In budget week three years ago, Labor tried to steal voter attention with a shameful foray into two-dollar-shop Hansonism. Bill Shorten fronted an almost all-white cast in an “Australia First” ad campaign that called on employers to employ Australians first. Anthony Albanese called the ad a “shocker” and said it should never have been made or shown. Perhaps it was just a sniping shot at his leadership rival rather than a statement of principle. Jolted by the jury of social media, Mr Shorten promised the lapse wouldn’t happen again. That lamentable 2017 episode comes to mind because Labor’s home affairs spokeswoman, Kristina Keneally, has reprised the dog whistle. US-born Senator Keneally, who also has carriage of immigration and citizenship, called for a policy rethink on foreign workers. “We need a migration program that puts Australian workers first,” she wrote last weekend.

Can this junk be coming from the party of free-market globalists Bob Hawke and Paul Keating and soft-left multiculturalists Penny Wong and Tanya Plibersek? Well, yes. Not that long ago Julia Gillard, born in Wales, played the Aussie jobs card in cracking down on 457 visas. The then prime minister’s spin Svengali was himself an imported temporary visa holder, as if the dark arts are in short supply here. Irony, meet hypocrisy. Still, what is it with NSW Labor leaders dabbling in nativism? Last year, then opposition leader Michael Daley was humiliated, while killing Labor’s electoral chances against Gladys Berejiklian, in claiming Asians were stealing the jobs of young Australians. His desperate predecessor, Luke Foley, in 2015 tried to inflame anti-Chinese sentiment to thwart Mike Baird’s “poles and wires” privatisation. Former NSW premier Bob Carr has called out this nasty strain in his party.

As the political wing of the trade union movement, Labor has form on denying entry to foreign workers. At its first election in 1891 the Labour Electoral League of NSW, as it was then known, campaigned on excluding Chinese workers and “stamping Chinese-made furniture”. Over our history, when we’ve been hit by economic calamity — the 1890s, after the 1930s Depression and the recessions of the early 80s and 90s — we’ve pressed the pause button on migration. The ensuing pain has been deeper, leading to years if not decades of lost opportunity. Although John Howard had taken a hard line against Asian migration in opposition, and in office ran a tough border regime, he was without fanfare the champion of front-door high immigration in the wake of Pauline Hanson’s insurgency.

Our population grew by 371,000, or 1.5 per cent, to 25.5 million over the year to last September, of which 63 per cent was due to net overseas migration. In the past few years, with net overseas migration peaking at 240,000 last financial year, we had our lowest jobless rates. Now the Morrison government expects overseas migration to decrease by 30 per cent this year; in 2020-21, net migration will be 36,000 or 85 per cent below the recent high, the lowest figure in 40 years, as tourism and education are battered. Already, temporary visa holders have abandoned Australia; in the first 15 weeks of the year, 310,000 departed, according to official figures obtained by this newspaper. That’s understandable, with holiday-makers and students returning home because of COVID-19 shutdowns and the like.

But with foreigners not qualifying for income support, it’s expected that 300,000 more could leave the country by the end of this year. The stampede out of Australia could further erode consumer demand and cause a slump in the rental and housing markets. That will crush confidence and put a clamp on the recovery, especially in home construction. Some argue we have relied too much on population growth to stoke our economy in recent times. It’s showing up as a slide in per capita income over several years. According to the budget papers, more than 800,000 net new immigrants were forecast during the next three years. The resistance to more migrants, a backlash against “Big Australia” especially in our cities, is due to the long-term failure of governments to provide infrastructure and enable home building. To his discredit, in 2005 Mr Carr declared Sydney was “full”.

Yet, as economist Chris Richardson warned, reducing migration is “bad economics”, hurting at least as much as it helps. He said while strict travel bans to protect our health were sensible, “thinking it protects jobs and workers just doesn’t make sense”. “The smart response would be to get young skilled migrants coming to Australia to help raise living standards here, as well as those of the new arrivals,” he told us. That has been this newspaper’s bedrock principle since 1964. Migration will help ease the looming ageing crunch; it has enriched the nation in myriad ways. In any case, the COVID-19 policy-induced contraction will cut demand for foreign workers. After the crisis we need a revamped economy to roar back to life. The competition for smart, skilled workers will be intense. Gold-star pandemic management and healthcare should be a pull factor. We want as many of them — PhDs, STEM wizards, start-up entrepreneurs, as well as nurses and mechanics — to choose us, to make lives here and to feel welcome.