Big Australia ‘not what the people want’
Ramping up immigration to pre-COVID levels would increase youth unemployment, Sustainable Population Australia warns.
Ramping up immigration to pre-COVID levels as part of a Big Australia agenda is not what the majority of people want, environment group Sustainable Population Australia warns.
The group, which lists former Labor foreign minister Bob Carr among its patrons, said Australia was “big enough already” and welcomed the projected slowing of Australia’s population over the next decade.
“Opinion polls repeatedly show that a majority of Australians do not want our population to grow much beyond its present size of nearly 26 million,” SPA president Sandra Kanck said.
“They do not agree with the idea of a Big Australia. We are big enough already.”
Today we released Australia’s Annual Population Statement – the first of its kind to be produced by the Federal Government’s Centre for Population. It provides the most comprehensive analysis of trends & projections in our history. https://t.co/3UesrTCOdD
— Alan Tudge (@AlanTudgeMP) December 4, 2020
Ms Kanck was responding to the nation’s first Population Statement released last week by federal population minister Alan Tudge, which projected average population growth of 1.1 per cent through to 2031, after a 1.6 per cent average increase across the past decade.
“Australia’s population is estimated to be around 4 per cent smaller (1.1 million fewer people) by 30 June 2031 than it would have been in the absence of COVID-19,” the statement says.
Ms Kanck warned against increasing immigration to bolster the post-COVID economic recovery.
“The slowing of Australia’s population growth due to COVID-19 has provided a fortuitous opportunity to reset our priorities for the future of Australia,” she said.
“We do not want a return to the red-hot rate of population growth we have had for the first two decades of this century. Our future does not lie in perpetual, unsustainable, population growth.
“We disagree with the Statement’s assumption that we ought to be ramping overseas migration (NOM) back up to 235,000 by 2028-29, close to pre-COVID-19 levels.
“Ramping up immigration again is not a long-term solution to population ageing.
“Migrants eventually get old too. Boosting the working age population through higher immigration has resulted in our labour market being oversupplied, contributing to youth unemployment, wage stagnation and rising inequality.”
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