‘Big Australia’ RBA chief should stick with his day job

Let’s be clear, the governor of the Reserve Bank, Philip Lowe, is not an expert on the economics of immigration.

In fact, it is very obvious that he doesn’t even understand the core features of our migrant intake.

He’s a “big Australia” man. He can’t get enough of extra immigrants because this makes economic growth look good even though the real situation in per capita terms is much less flattering. While we may have had over a quarter of a century of unbroken economic growth, this is not true of per capita income. The speech he made yesterday should have acknowledged this point.

And as for his laughable proposition that high rates of immigration slow the rate of the ageing of the population, what he needed to mention is that this Ponzi scheme only continues if the rate of immigration continues to be ratcheted up.

It’s just too obvious — migrants themselves age. If he had bothered to consult a number of important reports put out by the Productivity Commission, he would have learnt that immigration is not an effective tool to stop the ageing of the population. We are better to let it happen and adjust. Lowe also thinks that having more than half a million international students in the country is an unalloyed plus.

That one-sixth eventually gain permanent residency — the figure is probably much higher as graduates leapfrog to other visa categories — is a good thing in his view because they increase our stock of human capital.

How naive can you get? Second-rate degrees from second-rate universities where a very large proportion of international graduates don’t even work in professional or managerial occupations — less than half the proportion of local graduates — do not add to the nation’s useful human capital. It’s simply a means of many students gaining permanent residence.

Lowe really needs to get out more.

He is happy to foist the cost and inconvenience of additional infrastructure on the incumbent members of the population to cater for the needs of new entrants. It would be better to avoid the need for all the new expensive infrastructure in the first place.

There is no doubt that there is a conspiracy among businesses, property developers, universities and governments to promote migrant intakes much higher than the members of the population would actually prefer. We can add the Reserve Bank to the list of agents that are in on the conspiracy.

Lowe would be best advised to stick to monetary policy when he gives speeches rather than express gratuitous opinions on contentious topics about which he knows very little.