Dick Blames Immigration??

yes, it will be. Sydney and melbourne are already asian. Brisbane has already made it clear that its intent is to join the club and has various projects that are designed to attract asian and other international populations. Its made it clear that its future lies north of our shores.
The point is not whether its good or bad; the point as the article suggests, is that its inevitable and we are best placed not to fight it rather to plan and adjust accordingly. This to me is the way to approach it.

 

How did you work that out? Eg 'Brisbane' doesn't decide the immigration quota - the Federal government does. I don't see why it is inevitable to have mass immigration either, it doesn't benefit the existing population (quite the contrary), it is forced onto the State governments, and given that there is no evidence they are able to keep up with infrastructure and services then
isn't it poor planning and indeed reckless to have such a mass immigration policy in the first place?

 

It's not true that an Australia with 100 million people is inevitable. It may turn out that way if we continue our current high immigration trajectories (and if Australians, despite being largely sceptical about high immigration, nevertheless remain apathetic and just let it happen), but the country can definitely reduce its immigration levels and make whatever economic adjustments are necessary to maintain a sustainable population with high living standards.

The same goes for pretty much any area of policy: the NDIS was inevitable only because most Australians were happy to set aside billions of dollars to fund it, Medicare certainly didn't have to be introduced, and (unfortunately in my opinion) public will demonstrated that, no matter what the experts thought, carbon pricing wasn't an inevitability. Immigration isn't a phenomenon equivalent to a hurricane or volcanic eruption that is beyond human control - it's a deliberate policy choice by the government of the day.

What frustrates me about the current coverage is the arrogance a lot of political and media figures have in suggesting that high immigration is a perfect policy and that Australians should simply do what they say is best. Gerry Harvey's claim of 'inevitability' is an egregious example of this. More migrants in Australia not only mean a larger market for his company to sell products to, but also places downward pressure on wages and conditions so that HN can hire workers on the cheap who are unlikely to assert their legal rights or complain about poor conditions. But of course he doesn't state this, since it would torpedo any public support for immigration.

Instead he plays up the inevitability angle and implies that all we need to do is plan better or build more infrastructure. Which would be fine, except that there's no evidence that any level of government is willing or able to fund the huge infrastructure backlog we're going to have by mid-century (costing about $38 trillion between 2013 and 2060), or reform existing laws and regulations to cope with mass immigration. I mean, every time a state government tries to reform planning laws they either get stonewalled by ferocious community opposition or decide to whittle their reforms down into nothing after 'consultation' with developers and other vested interests. Then there's flat-out pork-barreling at the expense of long-term infrastructure (you know, because a quarter-billion dollar stadium in Townsville was a vital project that was so much more important than road or rail construction...).

You run the risk of increased community instability and a rise in knee-jerk, xenophobic (or outright racist) populism if people like Harvey are allowed to assert without rebuttal that that immigration is great, or can be managed through actions no government appears able to perform, or is 'inevitable' (despite it being entirely within the power of the government to change). It's all great for well-off (usually progressive) Australians to wax lyrical about the wonders of immigration and multiculturalism, but when you forget (or omit) the negative consequences (for low income workers, families in the outer suburbs, young couples trying to save for a unit without parental support, etc.), you end up with leaders like Pauline Hanson or Donald Trump who make everything a hell of a lot worse for the community.

 

Note to Gerry Harvey: If all those extra immigrants who will be buying more TV's and microwaves from your stores will all be moving into your neighborhood, or maybe even next door to you , then I trust it won't be "inevitable" that you will be so welcoming....

 

I'm sure he lives in a NIMBY neighbourhood where it's nearly impossible to bring any new development in without ******* off the aggrieved (and highly wealthy) locals, so any chance of migrants flooding into his suburb are slim to none