Growth spurt sparks call for 13m extra jobs

Australia will need to produce 13 million extra jobs in the next half century just to ­accommodate population growth.

“I travel around Perth metropolitan area, but importantly (in) regional Western Australia, population issues are becoming more top of mind,” Senator Dean Smith said. Picture: AAP

The Australian economy will need to produce 13 million extra jobs in the next half century just to ­accommodate population growth, according to Liberal senator Dean Smith, who has urged Malcolm Turnbull to put further curbs on immigration levels to protect the nation’s standard of living.

With a Lowy Institute poll last week showing most Australians think the immigration level is too high, Senator Smith has upped the pressure on the Prime Minister about population, arguing there should be a new cap for immigration levels in Sydney and ­Melbourne.

The West Australian senator said the government was missing a political trick by not doing more to further reduce immigration levels, arguing the issue had become a key economic concern to voters.

“I travel around Perth metropolitan area, but importantly (in) regional Western Australia, population issues are becoming more top of mind,” Senator Smith told The Australian.

“At their core, population ­issues are about economics, which is a key Coalition strength and a debate that we should own.”

In analysis based on data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Senator Smith said Australia’s Labor force could double in the next 50 years to 26.8 million, creating big challenges for keeping unemployment at its current ­levels of about 5.5 per cent.

He said this did not account for the potentially damaging impact on employment that could be ­endured over the next five decades because of robotics, artificial intelligence and automation.

“These job figures put the spotlight firmly on Australia’s very high immigration rate and the impact it will have on our economy and society over the coming decades,” Senator Smith said.

He said Australia’s yearly population growth rate of 1.63 per cent was higher than in Asia (0.9 per cent), North America (0.73 per cent) and 20 times higher than in Europe (0.08 per cent).

“Not only should the total number of migrants coming to Australia be curtailed, a cap should be considered on the number of international migrants moving to cities already under infrastructure stress,” Senator Smith said

“The number of international migrants moving to Sydney and Melbourne is unsustainable. New migrants should be encouraged to move to other parts of Australia where infrastructure is under less stress.”

Former prime minister Tony Abbott has heaped pressure on the government to halve immigrant levels to about 80,000 a year until infrastructure caught up, which led to a swift slapdown from Trade Minister Steven Ciobo and Treasurer Scott Morrison.

One Nation has also campaigned on a reduction to immigration levels, with some Coalition MPs believing the government was losing ground to minor parties on the issue.

The Australian revealed this month that Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton proposed cutting the yearly cap on immigration from 190,000 to 170,000, but the idea was rejected by Mr Turnbull and Mr Morrison.

The migration level was expected to drop to between 160,000 and 170,000, despite the government failing to formally reduce the cap.

Moderate Liberal MP Jason Falinski said Mr Abbott was right in arguing for additional curbs on migration levels. But he said the argument should not excuse the failure of NSW Labor governments that did not invest in enough infrastructure.

“The thing that concerns me is that it has been latched onto by people like Mark Latham and others who really are using it to excuse poor Labor governments during the 1990s and early 21st century for essentially no investment in infrastructure,” Mr Falinski said.