POLL: Catch-up migration - good or bad?

Discussion in 'Property Market Economics' started by SmileSydney, 20th Oct, 2021.

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Is catch-up migration good for Australia?

  1. Yes: Our economy needs it (and will be good for property too!)

    50.6%
  2. No: I’m with Dick Smith - Our schools, hospitals, roads can’t cope

    42.2%
  3. Not sure or indifferent

    7.2%
  1. Gockie

    Gockie Life is good ☺️ Premium Member

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    My thoughts.
    A high population also means our businessses become more competitive and simply easier to compete globally. For example, there is a USA business selling unicycles. The consumer market isn't that big, say 1% of people are interested in unicycling if you are lucky. The same business in Australia has a much smaller market to sell to. The Australian business cannot sell anywhere near as much stock. So, our product choices are much more limited as it's not worth stocking a bigger range of products. And if they need to make an order with the manufacturer, the manufacturer (if they do a production run) will prioritise the business with the bigger order, because that business is more critical to them. Eg. As a manufacturer, would you prioritise the customer ordering 1000 units or the customer ordering 50 units?

    The other problem is shipping to Australia is expensive. If you are buying a partial shipping container vs 1 shipping container vs 10 containers, surely more containers (or, at least shipping a fill container load) will give better economies of scale? Your shipments could be more frequent and you can try more products. Shipping to Australia is expensive anyway, we are geographically very far from everything except New Zealand which is a very small market.

    Anyway, businesses are easier in the US or other large consuming countries just because there is a huge market to sell to. So they can afford to experiment with products, try to innovate with more unusual products. It's easier to try to sell a fringe product (eg. Maybe something only 0.005% of the population wants to buy) to a large population. Then, finding the product does have a market, they become the world leader. Whereas in Australia, there is much lower demand for products overall, it may not be worth trying to sell product x because there isn't the domestic market for it.

    Anyway, I was ordering printed t-shirts. I found a US company seemed to have a much better offering than any local company I could find. A huge shirt range available and so many designs available. And I put that down to the business being able to develop in the USA to the US market, getting the processes good along the way, and then, being a product that does well over the internet, they can sell everywhere. An Australian business doesn't have quite the same size domestic market to be able to nurture that sort of business to succeed to that level. It's possible, but much more difficult. Australia has Alassian, but we don't have too many well known large tech companies. Tech companies seem to largely be headquartered from Silicon Valley. I figure it's because talent all goes there, and then the talent moves from one company to another, or, the companies learn from each other.

    Anyway, having said all that. I personally would not want to live in the US. There seems to be too many race related issues, too much inequality, too much homelessness, wages are much too low to live on for work such as retail or waitressing, and a shocking health system that relies on your own insurance cover.
    The everyday person is living very well in Australia. Government support for people doing it tough isn't overly generous, but there is something. We also have charities and other businesses supporting people who need it. I know some people are still doing it tough, but I'd think overall they'd be doing much better here than in many other countries.
     
    Last edited: 22nd Oct, 2021
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  2. Ronen

    Ronen Well-Known Member

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    US has it's own challenges, which are very complex, with very troubled past and huge population that is constantly under the water.
    US took a very strong stance on capitalism and individualism. I think it shows it's signs now - individual society struggles to cope with major disasters.

    AU, as far as I can tell, took a different approach; an healthy mixture of individualism and community approach.
    One can still chase their dreams and develop themselves, but if your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, you know that when someone will go past - they will stop and stay around until you're out.

    This community bond is now very apparent in the response to COVID.
    All my friends and family are amazed with the fact that we, in Melbourne, are in such a long lockdown and most people are doing the right thing.
    I believe most people accept that it's the right thing to do rather than fear of "what if they catch me". We were not imprisoned, we were exercise our community responsibility.

    I totally agree with you and up and ante: I've been in many countries and I have either family of friends in many different countries and I honestly believe Australia is one of (if not THE one) the best country to live in.
    I also believe skilled immigration has a major role in it.
     
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  3. boganfromlogan

    boganfromlogan Well-Known Member

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    I notice some comments, ' I am a migrant, are u a migrant'.

    We are all migrants, sons and daughters of migrants. Many born here and many like me born elsewhere ( pommy heritage ). The 3% who are not, probably have some legitimate 1st nations views ( which are always very fair imho ).

    So immigration is part of our story, let it continue if we have space and water, with compassion and common sense.

    At least the kiwis can come and go!! ( love the kiwis!).
     
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  4. Ronen

    Ronen Well-Known Member

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    I believe the idea is "were you born outside of Australia", rather then "is your ancestry not from Aussie".
     
  5. Squirrell

    Squirrell Well-Known Member

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    The issue is "how much is too much".
     
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  6. boganfromlogan

    boganfromlogan Well-Known Member

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    Totally disagree.

    I was born outside Aus, but I don't believe my claim as migrant is legitimate compared to second third 4th generation Aussie. In some way they have the bigger migrant story!!

    I can see, however, someone from a troubled nation, English second language seeing things differently, their experience, my experience 2nd 3rd 4th generation experience are diff
     
  7. Ronen

    Ronen Well-Known Member

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    To be honest, if we're talking about skilled migration - I don't think there's "too much".

    Being realistic, it's not that if we allow, every skilled person will move to Australia.
    Migration is hard. Very hard. No one wakes up in the morning and decide "I'm have toast with butter and visa to Australia today".
    If we have influx of applications for visas, we can do what every growing business is doing when they have influx of high quality applicants: raise the bar.
    Take the cream of the top. Get in the best of the best.

    Does anyone here really think that 200,000, 300,000 or even 400,000 highly skilled migrants (as if we will get to those numbers) into Australia will have bad effect on the life-style of anyone?
    Australia is a big place. Most cities can grow to accommodate for the additional population (I think Sydney is the only city that struggles due to it's topological properties).

    Bare in mind that most of those highly skilled people are brining heaps of money with then. Money is almost immediately invested in the AU economy.
    Most of them are self sufficient - they require close to zero spending from tax payer money.
    They also represent most of the time a much better second generation, as the requirement for the visa in term of ages makes them either already parents or about to be, and kids to highly skilled parents are more likely to peruse highly skilled professions.

    I really don't see many downsides to skilled migration.
     
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  8. spica

    spica Active Member

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    200K/year net migrants sounds about right, only 0.8% of the current population.
    Combining it with natural current fertility rate around 1.6%, it's just more than enough to grow Australia slowly.

    400K as proposed by Perrottet is a bit steep for Sydney & Melbourne infrastructures.
     
  9. Squirrell

    Squirrell Well-Known Member

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    70k was the average pre early 2000s, managed fine back then - stick with that i reckon. As for injecting money in the economy, lets be honest, most immigrant money ends up inflating house prices which has led to a very lopsided economy. And higher house prices has a major detrimental effect on quality of life, no idea why people cant see that.
     
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  10. MB18

    MB18 Well-Known Member

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    Yes - if you happen to be a highly skilled local then the supply/demand equation of large scale migration is not going to help wage growth.... which coincidentally been a concern of the RBA for years now, and returns to my gripe of industry relying on migration instead of investing in existing staff.

    I will agree however that most migrants are mostly self sufficent.

    I also agree there is space in the country for large numbers, however most tend to just stay in Melbourne or Sydney and not disperse Australia wide, hence recent policy pushing PR applicants out to the regions.

    As @Squirrell eludes to, investment in the economy is fine but I would speculate that what really happens is that more money is just poured into existing resi property - in of course Melbourne and Sydney.

    I dont believe we need the smartest and wealthiest per se, we need people who are prepared to assimilate with Australian culture and values while making a meaningful contribution.
     
    Last edited: 22nd Oct, 2021
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  11. spica

    spica Active Member

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    Investing in existing staff is easier said than done.
    A hypothetical example,
    1. An opening for a senior role, we want to train a junior staff to fill that role.
    2. Training/On the job learning would take > 1 year
    3. Then we have to fill the junior role with certain minimum requirements.
    4. We then have to spend months looking for a candidate from the small local talent pool because it's just hard to find anyone that passes those minimum requirements.

    Management would look at the time it takes to do 4 steps above and decide it's just easier to move the role overseas!


    Many people use that "Australian culture and values" as a code word for Anglo-saxon or at least white.
     
  12. boganfromlogan

    boganfromlogan Well-Known Member

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    Which is annoying. As is skinheads hiding behind aus flag. Aus culture if not indigenous is a blend ....... maybe we lack culture ( I know I am accused of that :) ).

    Maybe we will grow put of this, I certainly hope so.
     
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  13. WattleIdo

    WattleIdo midas touch

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    We actually need tradies and people who are willing to do physical and agricultural work. But I would prefer a smaller number than we were getting pre-covid. More like the 90s when we all loved migration.
    Agree that it drives house prices. Again, how much is enough and at what point does it start to get dysfunctional? All these benefits that we claim about migration are not as clear anymore. Of course, no migration would be atrocious but there must be a balance. Not accepting a balance leaves us open to extremes.
     
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