Small thinking in great leap backwards
Whatever the PM says, immigration will remain strong while there are jobs to be filled
JULIA Gillard's rejection of a Big Australia as the defining point of difference between herself and Kevin Rudd is strictly a poll-driven position as distinct from being a justified policy.
Having declared herself as an optimist about Australia's future, Gillard becomes our first Prime Minister to seek re-election on an agenda of a smaller growing Australia. If Gillard is serious, this is a change in national direction. If she is not serious, then Labor is running an election scam with unpredictable consequences.
Gillard's message is not a step forward but a lurch backwards. It heralds the transformation of the Labor Party: it sees elections not the opportunity to win mandates for new policy reforms but as marketing exercises for each election with slogans discarded once their polling traction is exhausted.
The rhetoric Gillard deployed invests the end of Big Australia as a historical moment. The truth, however, is more mundane: this is about imagery. The message is sympathy for suburban tribulations. Gillard is saying she has heard about the woes of traffic congestion, shortages of doctors, high home prices and inadequate services. Yes, she has listened and will respond while Tony Abbott only plans more cuts to services.
Yet the mobilisation of blame for so many of the problems of modern life on to migrants is unmistakable. Rejection of Big Australian plays to the Greens, the populist pro-Hanson Right and the decent hard-working suburbs. Gillard's tactic has been prosecuted over three speeches: the Lowy Institute on July 6, the EIDOS Institute last Sunday after calling the election, reaching its high tide in her mid-week speech to a Western Sydney summit.
Gillard said: "I choose my words very carefully when I say this: Let's slow down, let's take a breath and let's get this right." The imagery is powerful yet the policy meaning is vague. This is deliberate. "For my part I have said that I do not believe in the idea of a 'big Australia'," Gillard said. "I will focus on preserving the quality of life of our Australian sanctuary." She said it was time "to reconsider whether our model of growth is right" because Australia faced water supply constraint, contested land use, energy supply challenges, under-investment in major cities and housing prices that put at risk "the great Australian dream".
Gillard said there was "an Australian way of life" typified by "clean beaches and precious open spaces" and she would protect it. When John Howard resorted to such nostalgia he was attacked relentlessly by the progressive media that spent most of last week in spineless applause of Gillard.
Moving to her central point, Gillard affirmed she will stop Australia "from hurtling down the track towards a big population" and that 222 years of European settlement without a sustainable population strategy is "something that has to change and it will change if the Government is returned."
Bold words. Almost heroic. The suburbs could only respond positively. Yet Gillard's framework is intellectually dishonest at multiple levels and constitutes a dangerous incursion.
First, immigration far from being uncontrolled is dictated by the labour market. When the economy is strong immigration is strong. As demographer Peter McDonald repeatedly explains, immigration will stay strong because of labour demands in resources areas, in infrastructure and in our cities. Immigration is more the solution than the problem. It is integral to our economic growth. If Gillard wants to reduce immigration she must reduce growth. This is what the Greens want. Because Gillard knows this is untenable she skirts the nexus between growth and immigration.
Second, the real task is to manage population growth not to scapegoat such growth as the problem. State governments have failed in this. Proper federal-state co-ordination on transport, land, water, infrastructure and rapid transit has been missing. This is the real public policy failure. It is the authentic test for Gillard.
Third, while the regions should take more migrants, most of the intake will still flow to the capital cities where, as McDonald says "labour demand is strong and unemployment is low." Gillard and her minister, Tony Burke, are right to seek more momentum in regional cities but it is dishonest to imply the western suburbs are full or that migrants can be rigidly diverted elsewhere. They cannot.
Fourth, Treasury predictions (that underpinned the 36 million figure by 2050) are for population growth to slow to 1.2 per cent annually over the next 40 years. This compares with growth of 1.4 per cent over the past 40 years. Why does Gillard not reveal this? Is she saying that such slowing is not enough?
Note that any reference to Canada is strictly avoided, yet Canada grew quickly from 22 million to its present 34 million. Have you checked out Canada recently? Its quality of life has not been ruined. One relevant lesson, however, is the distribution of Canada's growth across a number of smaller to medium-sized cities. It is a pointer for Australia.
The strategic dimensions of this issue demand an article in its own right. Suffice to say that Australia's reputation as a new world immigrant society is fundamental to its global image. Having a new Prime Minister elected on a platform of opposing a Big Australia has the potential to "take off" if various overseas media decide to press this button. Australia's postwar immigration model has not just been in the national interest. In a globalised world of strong population growth the idea that Australia, a rich nation of only 22 million people occupying a continent, can announce its selfish intention of embracing a new smaller pathway to boost its own quality of life while simultaneously denying boat people, constitutes a recipe for serious strategic troubles.
There are only two conclusions from Gillard's election mantra. First, that she is toying with public sentiment for electoral motives and will be punished down the track for raising phony expectations. Or second, that she really intends to alter the foundations of the immigration program to achieve a smaller trajectory under the framework of sustainability.
It is possible that Gillard herself is confused or is constantly re-positioning. Confronted with a belatedly critical media, she insisted mid-week the debate was not about immigration levels. This claim was a nonsense. She cannot avoid a Big Australia without dealing with immigration.
Gillard's speeches allowed only one interpretation: she wanted people to believe she was going to reduce immigration levels. In this sense she risks exposure as an agent of gesture politics, selling the smaller growth Australia but knowing the real issue is the need for better planning and infrastructure. Given that Rudd fell because of lack of conviction and too much spin, Gillard's tactic is high risk.
To be fair, Gillard has been disciplined enough to stop short of two follies in this debate: seeking a population target or championing the false intellectual construct of a "carrying capacity" for Australia. No sensible PM would commit to the loopy notion of a target that would be certain to be missed. As for "carrying capacity" it is an idea from the physical sciences that is undermined by the sheer number of variables and by numerous required assumptions from pricing to investment. For example, Australia has plenty of water where there are few people; and any discussion of water or infrastructure supply cannot be divorced from the price of water or such infrastructure. The platform underpinning Gillard's position is the strategy on sustainable population being devised by Minister Burke. This is an entirely worthwhile endeavour. It can be expected to produce valuable ideas but it is unrealistic to think it will re-define immigration policy.
Finally, Gillard's Big Australia campaign cannot be justified by resort to the opposition's stance though Labor has been provoked. The Coalition began this bidding process by attacking immigration levels and pledging to be bound by a population growth cap set by the Productivity Commission.
Abbott, always a big Australia man, is also playing to the polls. The nominal hook on which the Coalition's hangs its hat is the recent net migration peak of 300,000 a year. This is unsustainable and far above Treasury's assumptions of 180,000 annually. Opposition spokesman Scott Morrison attacks Gillard for "hollow words" and not more aggressively tackling immigration levels.
The message, again, is riddled with hypocrisy. The opposition campaigns as the better sustainable population party but knows that Australia's economy means immigration levels will remain strong for years.