r/aussie • u/Fact-Rat • 20h ago
Politics Migration: How One Nation’s plans would drive up debt by $275b
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/how-one-nation-s-negative-migration-plans-would-drive-up-debt-by-275b-20261018-p61575.htmlAustralia’s budget would remain mired in deficit for more than 10 years under One Nation’s plans for lower migration, delivering an economic blow that would drive up national debt by an extra $275 billion.
As political parties of all stripes come under pressure to appease public anxiety about immigration, a 10-year analysis of lower migration scenarios using Parliamentary Budget Office tools exposes the economic and fiscal consequences of blunt measures to bring fewer people to the country.
According to the analysis, Pauline Hanson’s three-year negative migration scenario would also reduce Australia’s economic output by $212 billion by the middle of next decade, when there would be 820,000 fewer taxpaying workers in the economy.
Former Coalition finance minister Mathias Cormann, now head of the OECD, on Saturday warned against setting “arbitrary migration caps” without thought to their impact on businesses, hospitals or universities.
“An ageing country that chooses to shrink its working-age population while promising to spend more on health, care and defence has not developed a plan. It has put forward a contradiction,” he said in a speech.
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson.Alex Ellinghausen
The analysis shows cutting migration to the Coalition’s desired levels would mean $150 billion more debt in a decade under current migration settings, demonstrating the opposition has a high-wire task in executing precise changes to the visa system that avoid a compounding fiscal fallout.
The Labor government is already wearing backlash from the hospitality and accommodation sector, which relies on migrant labour, for its decision to limit working holidaymaker visas as a key measure to quickly bring down the net overseas migration intake.
Public anxiety about immigration has grown alongside the number of temporary visa holders in Australia, but industry and business groups are becoming increasingly concerned that a political contest to drive numbers down quickly risks jeopardising the economy.
The Australian Hotels Association made its own intervention into public debate this week with an AI-generated advertisement that showed services falling apart as migrant workers disappeared from cafes, aged care homes, supermarkets and hotels across the country.
“The hotel industry understands the need for migration changes, but it’s unfair our sector is copping the brunt of the planned cuts,” Accommodation Australia chief executive James Goodwin said. “There must be a better balance across the different visa categories and sectors of the economy.”
Labor will cut second- and third-year working holidaymaker visas and student family visas in its plans to get net overseas migration numbers down to 225,000. The Coalition will target graduates and refugees to hit a 100,000 target, before lifting it to 160,000 with more skilled entrants.
One Nation has not specified its plans but wants three years of negative migration, before a maximum net intake of 130,000 people a year, which would retain regional workers.
Deciphering the economic impacts of lower migration
Economist Chris Richardson said higher migration levels generally gave the federal government a higher tax intake, although they saddled state governments with more spending. He said there were not examples of economic models that effectively combined the impact of migration on federal budgets, state budgets and the complex issue of housing.
The budget office’s “build your own budget” calculator is one tool that enables users to compare policy initiatives, including cuts to net overseas migration, and their impact on the federal budget and population growth over time.
It is limited and assumes current policy settings, so the Coalition’s plans to reconfigure the migration program cannot be factored into the forecasts. But without published budget analysis from the opposition or One Nation, it is one measure to gauge the fiscal impact of cuts if current migration settings were maintained but scaled down to include fewer people.
Based on One Nation’s desired immigration levels, by the middle of next decade the country would have 820,000 fewer people in paid employment. That has a flow-on impact on personal income tax, company tax and GST collections.
Under the government’s policies, the budget is expected to show cumulative deficits of $108 billion over the next decade, returning to the black in 2034-35. But One Nation would run cumulative deficits of $391 billion, and the budget would not return to surplus over the next 10 years.
The larger deficits mean more gross debt, which is currently $995 billion. By the middle of next decade, current government policy would take debt to almost $1.4 trillion. But with deep cuts in net overseas migration, One Nation would have debt at $1.67 trillion.
The Coalition’s numbers, under today’s migration settings, would lead to debt at $1.54 trillion. There would also be a 430,000 drop in the number of working people, and run-up deficits worth $262 billion. It would get back to surplus in 2036-37.
The opposition’s own analysis deviates significantly from these estimates because the Coalition plans on changing the mix of migrants, whereas the PBO budget tool assumes the make-up of the migration program remains the same as today but in smaller numbers.
The Coalition forecasts losing $6.1 billion over the four-year forward estimates because of lower migration. However, halving the refugee intake from 20,000 to 10,000 people would deliver $2.7 billion in budget savings, while a new skilled project visa scheme is forecast to deliver $3.9 billion.
The Coalition says its policy would improve the budget bottom line by $260 million in four years and $2.5 billion over the decade, although it has not published the analysis, which was also completed by the PBO, so it is unclear what other caveats or conditions are factored into that scenario.
Richardson said high-skilled young adult migrants delivered the most positive budget and economic impact, but changing migration policy was complex. “As the government has tried to wind back migration in recent years, it’s increasingly clear that it’s hard,” he said.
“Regardless of what any political party wants to do, we’ve built a system that’s a supertanker – it doesn’t change direction fast. The politics have changed, but the poles and wires of the system haven’t.”
The Coalition is mounting its case for lower migration levels as it competes in the polls with One Nation, which has not outlined any policy details or addressed economic impacts.
A spokesperson for leader Angus Taylor said One Nation’s policy was a mess while the government had been relying on migration to pump up their budget, claiming the Coalition could both deliver a historic cut to migration and fully protect the economy.
Cormann, in his speech to the right-leaning Centre for Independent Studies in Brisbane on Saturday, doused that argument. He acknowledged public concern about immigration had grown, particularly because of housing shortfalls, but rejected cutting immigration as the answer.
“That concern [housing] is legitimate ... The answer is to fix what made it legitimate: housing supply, infrastructure, services and the composition of the intake, not to shrink the country,” said the former minister in the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments.
“We cannot have fewer workers and more hospitals, more aged care, a bigger pension bill and more defence all at the same time. Someone has to pay for all that. You cannot shrink your way out of that bind. You can only grow your way out of it.”
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u/Sad_Extreme_3998 19h ago
People forget that having our extreme migration levels is also a radical choice that we have made. We risk losing everything, the very idea of an Australian nation itself.
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u/andalady 18h ago
Even One Nations proposed 130k a year will be above oecd average.
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u/-Calcifer_ 10h ago
No its negative migration is what is the target.. more people leaving than coming in.
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u/andalady 10h ago
Only for a while. They want to reduce the stock of temp migrants. The long term target is 130k.
Of course they're politicians. So they'll do something else. But the current policy is above oecd average migration
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u/mrducky78a 18h ago
The very idea of Australia itself is rooted in welcoming others from overseas and coming together. Multiculturalism has been the prevailing stance for longer than most aussies have been alive. It's even baked into our very national anthem.
It's why One Nation's values are unaustralian
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u/Sad_Extreme_3998 18h ago
Australia has always brought in migrants but they were from countries with similar cultures and political systems.
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u/West-Alternative7612 18h ago
Like the Cantonese in the gold rush and the Vietnamese post-war? Greeks & Italians post-WW2?
None of those had similar cultures or political systems to Australia.
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u/Sad_Extreme_3998 18h ago
The examples you raised were not a large proportion of the incoming migrants. Also, Italians and Greeks are similar cultures to us.
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u/mrducky78a 17h ago
Nah if you followed Pauline Hansons whinging you'll find 30 years ago complaints about the Vietnamese and Chinese which are different cultures and political systems. We have been bringing in different migrants from different cultures for decades and like I said, it is baked into the Australian identity.
One nation rhetoric is a broken record 30 years long. It was clown behaviour then and it is clown behaviour now
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u/Disastrous-Bet757 20h ago
Oh I thought the problem with the economy was productivity! How does immigration help that.
I thought the housing crisis was a supply issue and the cost of building materials increases! How does immigration help that.
So apart from making the national accounts look good, how does high immigration help the states and people survive when we have high inflation and a infrastructure deficit that is decades behind because of a lack of funding in the past and the massive increase in population over 20 years.
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u/iftlatlw 19h ago
Been to hospital lately, champ? Do you understand that from farm to your plate, immigrant workers are keeping us going?
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u/Disastrous-Bet757 19h ago
Yes champ I do understand but I also understand that it’s just kicking the can down the road.
How about you try to be one of the adults in the room and make the hard decisions and accept the short term pain for the long term structure change we need.
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u/iftlatlw 19h ago
Boomers leaving the workforce create jobs vacuum. Stop being a sad little racist and look at reality.
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u/Inevitable-Idea-4169 15h ago
Healthcare workers are 40% overseas born, 1/3 people here are too. It is barely above immigration rates and are not being immigrated in appropriately. If anything it's gotten worse while mass immigration has been happening in the last 5 years. At the same time 5000 software engineers are on the skilled visa list while having an industry that is not taking on students, same with IT. It is a broken system that needs fixing. 79% of people believe it too high and it is in the wrong areas.
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u/WastedOwl65 20h ago
Too many words in the article for you to read, I thought!
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u/Disastrous-Bet757 19h ago
Thank you for time it must have taken for you to deeply think about this subject matter and then share your thoughts with us.
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u/-Calcifer_ 18h ago
More lety bullshit!!
They just love hiring the 3rd world to do modern day slavery like uber, doordash and the rest of the shit jobs.
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u/PJozi 15h ago
Are you going to do that?
Or pick fruit & vegies nurse the elderly in aged care?
They're not desirable jobs but they're paid pretty well.
Certainly not slave labour rates
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u/Fun-Cat-2132 13h ago
We seemed to do OK before Uber. Maybe all the Uber drivers can become aged care workers. Fruit pickers can be brought in, and moved out seasonally and have accommodation set aside for them, or farmers can invest in machines and technology to pick many things these days.
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u/-Calcifer_ 11h ago
We seemed to do OK before Uber. Maybe all the Uber drivers can become aged care workers. Fruit pickers can be brought in, and moved out seasonally and have accommodation set aside for them, or farmers can invest in machines and technology to pick many things these days.
Nailed it!!
The irony that the party of equality and anti-colonization are perfectly fine to support internationals getting paid modern-day slavery rates while bagging on about human rights 😂 the most clueless and oblivious useful idiots in our society.
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u/-Calcifer_ 11h ago
Are you going to do that? Im sure plenty will when they pay people a decent wage.
Or pick fruit & vegies nurse the elderly in aged care? They're not desirable jobs but they're paid pretty well.
Lol.. you don't have a clue what you are talking about. Those jobs are not paid well and that's exactly why they get internationals to do them.
They cram into a share house, work under ABN and when they leave the country with no desire yo return they dont pay tax.
Certainly not slave labour rates
They are when they get paid a shit wage and push out better rates for residence who otherwise can't live off the shit rates internationals put up with.
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u/BarryTheBinChicken 19h ago
I love how the Lefto Argument around migration is to group all migration together and then proclaim it will devastate the economy if reduced.
Migration, including the refugee / asylum system operates on a spectrum.
Australia does not have a shortage of Content Creators.
We have plenty of young citizens who can be trained to fill these roles.
The whole occupation list and system needs a good going over.
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u/andalady 18h ago
High immigration is a right wing policy designed to lower the cost of labour to the benefit of employers and owners.
Labor and liberal have run a pretty extreme right wing immigration policy since Howard.
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u/PjT7994 17h ago
And yet only left wing people will argue that the immigration numbers are fine
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u/sfigone 14h ago
Nope.
The left get caught arguing that immigrants are not bad people.
That can be (is) true yet mass immigration can still be bad. It is not great that our economy is so dependent on importing skills and desperation from the 3rd world.
But reducing immigration is not a panacea. The primary issue is inequality and the rich getting richer. People would be less anti immigrant if they felt secure in their jobs, income and wealth.
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u/Neo_Athrotaxis 16h ago
Left wing voters plus corporate lobbyists. It's extraordinary how successfully the latter has co-opted the former, given they are hardly natural allies.
I am convinced corporations and their puppets push cultural leftism as a distraction from economic leftism.
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u/PjT7994 16h ago
Yep, Reddit’s favourite enemy is billionaires, but they’re being good little soldiers for the billionaires fighting for immigration
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u/necrosteve028 14h ago
What soldier does that make you? I’m left wing and think our numbers are too high. I just won’t vote for a party that would make things 100x worse
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u/andalady 17h ago
Did you not see the hotel association ad begging for cheap foreign labour? Or Shorten at the uni begging for customers? Or the chamber of commerce slamming Liberals announcement about lower immigration?
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u/PJozi 15h ago
It's not about cheap labour.
They're not advocating for lowering pay rates. That's protected by law.
They're asking for enough people to fill the positions
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u/burnt-gonads 15h ago
lower the cost of labour? Well it has not worked in Australia as our labour costs are near the worlds highest. Probably the highest in the world once you factor in the cost of employee entitlements.
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u/vladesch 17h ago
then why is it the right and far right opposing immigration? we see it all over europe.
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u/GovernmentStandard67 15h ago
Because traditionalists and nationalists are to the right of neoliberals who are running the west into the ground.
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u/Fun-Cat-2132 13h ago
Yeah I would say high migration has been used by both left and right with weak arguments to say why it's good for us at the levels it is.
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u/burnt-gonads 15h ago
Bonnie Blue could come here, she is a content creator. A good strong female role model for school girls..
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u/LachrymarumLibertas 12h ago
You’re saying two things that aren’t related.
Australia can have a shortage and we can also train young people.
To meet the skills requirement for that you need the qualifications and 1+ year experience working in the role after that.If it is an entry level role then great, hire and train someone, if not then we can’t expect businesses who want a professional to just wait around and hope locals do the right courses.
These are also employer sponsored visas, every person brought in under them is because there was a job they were hired for and their skills were so in demand the company was willing to pay for the visa for it.
There is also a minimum salary which is about $80k so it isn’t a dodgy way to get people in and just pay cash or whatever.
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u/mrducky78a 18h ago
It's looking at One Nation's proposed net negative migration policy that would require pretty much all migration, together, to be axed. If it seems infeasible and outright damaging to Australia, well that is about for par for One Nation policy.
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u/Fun-Cat-2132 13h ago
I reckon better to start with the stance of zero or negative migration and then slowly adapt and add as needed. Rather than start with migration that is too high and then try and reduce it.
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u/mrducky78a 13h ago
Yeah but current systems are built around current migration. We don't even really know the true impact zero or negative migration would entail, especially knock on impacts.
A controlled systematic reduction in migration makes more sense as you can see systems adapt and pivot to lowering numbers. The alternative is the entire aussie economy thrown into the deep end brexit style with minimal plan or understanding of effects.
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u/Fun-Cat-2132 13h ago
A controlled reduction of migration is super difficult as all business "need" cheap labour. They will argue and heavily lobby that they need lots of x workers because that drives their costs down.
The point is, I don't think it will be possible to reduce migration to negative or nothing. But starting from that proposition will be much closer to getting to the actual number of migrants needed. Rather than starting from too much and trying to reduce.
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u/mrducky78a 13h ago
I think difficult is better to tackle than uncertain economic downturn. We have done difficult things before.
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u/Fun-Cat-2132 13h ago
How do you know if migrants are needed in x? The businesses tell you they need them. But you don't know for sure because the only way to know is to see what happens if they don't have them.
I think what you say sounds good if business are honest. But they are first and foremost about making as much profit as possible. So they will tell you the figure which is most profitable
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u/mrducky78a 13h ago
So the only way to find out is for the industry to collapse? And we aren't talking a single industry. When you drag to zero or negative it's all industries affected.
You are essentially arguing for a great depression. Damage that might not be repaired in decades or generations. Because you will only find out after the industry is broken
Surely you can see how that is a hard sell.
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u/Fun-Cat-2132 10h ago
Not actually collapse. Just feel pain.
The sooner we get used to stable population the better
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u/mrducky78a 10h ago
How do you know? Your plan itself admittedly doesn't know what it takes harm or not harm the industry? And remember if it's a national policy it's affecting all industries at the same time.
You'll only know if it causes a bit of harm, no harm or total collapse after the fact and all you can do is hope. That's no way to run a country.
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u/Electrical_Story5356 18h ago
The "lefto" argument?
You're just straight making shit up.
It's the right that got us into this position and now you're projecting their reasoning onto the people who were actually against what has happened and are in fact trying to fix it without crashing the economy.
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u/Rolf_Loudly 17h ago edited 16h ago
Yes this sub is full of accusations about what ‘lefty’s’ say and do. I rarely see anyone making the arguments they describe so I can only assume that the left they’re describing is a figment of their imagination.
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u/WalkOnHomeBoy1 20h ago
Tax our resources like Norway. Problem solved.
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u/Nath280 20h ago
Ffs every fucking thread some misinformed muppet sprouts this bullshit.
Norway doesn’t tax their resources more, they partner with private companies and share the profits but also share the risk.
This means they spend more on exploration, extraction and run the risk of setting up mines and missing.
Could you imagine the fucking complaining people like yourself would do of a labor government spent billions setting up a mine for it to fail to produce?
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u/WalkOnHomeBoy1 19h ago
Norway’s model works because the government acts as a business partner. The state pays for 78% of exploration costs but takes 78% of the profit.
Australia shields private corporations from state intervention, absorbing no exploration risk but missing out on the massive structural windfalls that built Norway's trillion-dollar sovereign wealth fund.
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u/Nath280 19h ago
That’s exactly what I said.
They spend billions to make trillions.
I’m not saying Norways way is worse, because it’s not, but comparing how the two countries gain wealth of their resources is disingenuous.
Norway doesn’t tax companies more, they spend the money to partner with private companies and reap the profit when it’s applicable.
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u/aaron_dresden 19h ago
Yeah you’re right, to reap those benefits now, we would have to pay huge sums of money to buy into those projects, to become a partner and would likely reap no return because of the costs. That’s because we sold off the rights and the risk for one off money up front.
We can agree generally as a country the current model doesn’t work well for us in the long term, but we can’t just pull a Norway after the fact. It has to be intentional from the beginning with projects.
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u/dirtyesspeakers 18h ago
They also produce 5x the amount of oil and gas per capita than us.
Less money to go around. Just let the tree grow, let some of the fruit drop (not be taxed to shit) and grow more trees.
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u/Euphoric_Peak_3914 19h ago
The government already spends heavily on exploration and extraction. That's our whole economy. We don't do anything else.
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u/Nath280 19h ago
We spend money on “mapping” which basically shows what’s in the ground, but the real exploration is at the expense of the company and so is the risk if they miss.
We also spend a shitload of cleanup when the mine goes “bankrupt”.
I’m not saying there isn’t a better alternative, I’m just sick of people comparing us to Norway when they are completely different systems.
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u/Tyranabolicsaurus 20h ago
You think One Nation will do this? The party with direct ties to Gina?
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u/Euphoric_Peak_3914 19h ago edited 19h ago
People look to ON because we know Labor will do nothing. And I vote Labor because there is no viable alternative which is deeply disenfranchising. They can't even grow a backbone on child gambling. Our politics are in a dire state.
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u/iftlatlw 19h ago
Better dire than disaster. Trump Nation is disaster. Choose wisely .
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u/Sneedcope82 15h ago
Whats specifically a disaster?
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u/iftlatlw 14h ago
Unfunded vague promises and utter devotion to billionaires rather than us. Economic collapse basically
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u/Tyranabolicsaurus 19h ago
People look to ON to tax our resources similar to Scandinavian countries? Do they have a policy about that specific topic, which is what we’re discussing here? I haven’t seen one but I’m happy to be proven wrong.
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u/Euphoric_Peak_3914 19h ago
You said 'You think One Nation will do this?' I made the point that people are only considering ON because no other political parties will. No, I don't think ON will tax our resources. Labor could easily do it and slash immigration and win mass support, but they're showing they have no spine.
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u/Sneedcope82 15h ago
So I should vote for Labor to continue NOT taxing our resources?
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u/Tyranabolicsaurus 15h ago
If you want to tax resources then you should vote for a party where that is part of their platform. I never said anything about voting Labour.
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u/Sneedcope82 15h ago
Labour
Jog on mate
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u/Tyranabolicsaurus 15h ago edited 15h ago
Forgive me for having auto correct on my phone. How about you respond to my points?
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u/SuspiciouslyBulky 19h ago
Do you think Labor or Liberals will do it either? ON are a basket case but the current government is dogshit and the libs are as well. I don’t hope ON win government, but I sure as hell hope they scare the current system into change. Currently we have zero options for voting. The libs can’t form government even if they wanted to and Labor are doing whatever the fuck they want cause they know they cant lose. ON disrupts that. If that’s all they do then that’s fine. The current system sucks tho.
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u/Tyranabolicsaurus 19h ago
I don’t think labour or liberal will do it, which is part of why I don’t vote for them. In fact, there isn’t a party in Australia that aligns with my political views 1:1, so I’m left voting for the closest approximation.
To be blunt: I don’t think One Nation represents any meaningful disruption of the political-economic system. If anything, its rise is a consequence of that system. Decades of neoliberalism have produced growing inequality, economic insecurity and political disillusionment. One Nation channels that frustration towards immigration, minorities and cultural grievances rather than fundamentally challenging the structures of economic power. There is even academic writing on this specifically about One Nation, albeit could be updated with recent developments now.
This also aligns with Stuart Hall’s concept of authoritarian populism and Wendy Brown’s critique of neoliberalism’s relationship with the right. The argument is that economic insecurity can be redirected into nationalism, social conservatism and increasingly authoritarian politics. One Nation might disrupt the established parties, but that’s very different from disrupting the underlying economic system. What it potentially does instead is shift the Overton window further right, normalising positions that were previously considered politically extreme.
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u/SuspiciouslyBulky 19h ago
I think we’re agreeing here. When I say disruption of the current political system I mean current party dynamics. I think they will steal sufficient votes to ensure that Labor wins again and that the Liberals/ON will need to form a coalition to win government. This may not precipitate change this coming election but I suspect it will cause a landslide in the next
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u/iftlatlw 19h ago
Complex issues are rarely easy to solve, nor quick. Labor are doing very well.
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u/WalkOnHomeBoy1 19h ago
Really? What are they doing well
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u/mrducky78a 18h ago
Despite a global oil crisis. We are weathering it well enough. It is supposed to get worse soon with a proper oil shock coming
I'm a home owner but even I recognise housing is absolutely bonkers. The recent cgt and negative gearing changes are just straight healthier than subsidising investment property and keeping housing unobtainable for so many Australians.
Here in Vic, they have built significant major infrastructure projects. Level crossings have been an incredible boon not just for the public transport but also for cars stuck at boom gates and causing accidents costing lives. Crime has also dropped 3.8% despite the headlines.
Immigration dropping to reasonable levels without relying on unaustralian PHON rhetoric. Latest housing and renting costs are dropping. Renewables and battery storage growing.
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u/Wuntunamera 16h ago
Reasonable levels where? Tony Burke tried to introduce meaningful cuts back in august and was blocked by Albo and other party members and made to water them down.
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u/mrducky78a 15h ago
220k is projected next year and dropping year on year since Labor took over from the visa count and levels that were approved by the previous coalition government. It's projected to keep dropping as well.
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u/Electrical_Story5356 18h ago
Slowly and carefully reversing the damaging changes made by majority coalition governments since Howard got in 30 years ago that got us to this point without crashing the economy and turning us into an absolute basket case country.
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u/idrktbh6 15h ago
Why not just import a million a year and see what happens, fuck it. Could use a few more delivery dri... I mean 'skilled migrants' I reckon
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u/Neo_Athrotaxis 20h ago
Imagine writing an entire article about an analysis without citing who did the analysis, who funded it, what their assumptions were...
Very poor journalism.
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u/bobsmissingdesire 20h ago
It's in the second paragraph " 10-year analysis of lower migration scenarios using Parliamentary Budget Office tools ..."
Later they provide more details, "The budget office’s “build your own budget” calculator is one tool that enables users to compare policy initiatives, including cuts to net overseas migration, and their impact on the federal budget and population growth over time."
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u/Neo_Athrotaxis 20h ago
It does not say by whom or with whose funding, or what the embedded assumptions are.
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u/Throwawaydeathgrips 19h ago
PBO is independent cooker
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19h ago
[deleted]
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u/Electrical_Story5356 18h ago
Classic response from those who are exactly as they have been described.
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u/CheeeseBurgerAu 19h ago
Not convinced with the modelling. It doesn't factor in reduced spend properly and it doesn't account for the amount of money leaving the country, being sent back to their home countries, every year, amoung other things. I don't care about businesses who run models dependent on cheap labour to drive down wages while creating burden on public services. 820,000 more jobs available for Australians sounds like a great thing. We can get rid of the jobs that aren't productive and don't pay well. Start with the public sector so it isn't tax dollars paying people's wages.
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u/Altruistic-Pop-8172 20h ago
Just like all 'drastically reduce migration' arguments. What is the alternative economic plan? Because migration has been used to build this service and consumerist economy. So you take out large migration as an economic stimulus, what's the alternative economic plan.
Crickets.
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u/Euphoric_Peak_3914 19h ago
We need to accept that migration has to drastically come down and have it be an open discussion and host a national forum brainstorming alternative economic plans. Or we can go fuck ourselves and stop resisting and have all our cities resemble Birmingham. I don't know why people are so resistant to Australia being self-sufficient.
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u/mrducky78a 15h ago
Because changing first without a working plan in place is how you get a shit show like brexit that makes vast over reaching assumptions that get populist support but even in just a few years reveal how flawed and broken those assumptions are.
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u/Neo_Athrotaxis 19h ago
Migration is not 'stimulus'. It just inflates GDP (because there's more people). At the per capita level it improves nothing at all.
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u/Throwawaydeathgrips 19h ago
Per capita doesnt measure how a person experiences an economy though, dumb argument.
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u/Neo_Athrotaxis 19h ago
It's far from perfect but it's certainly a better metric than total GDP.
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u/Throwawaydeathgrips 19h ago
No its not
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u/Neo_Athrotaxis 19h ago
Ok. I guess Indians experience a better economy than Norwegians do, because their total GDP is bigger.
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u/Throwawaydeathgrips 19h ago
Qatar has a bigger gdp per capita than aus. Do they experience a better economy?
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u/Neo_Athrotaxis 19h ago
Absolutely, Qatari citizens live a fantastic life, largely tax free incomes and lavish welfare. Because they didn't flog off their assets and resources and they don't hand out citizenship and benefits to foreign workers.
You seem to have an old fashioned Orientalist view that all middle easterners are poor?
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u/SameElephant2255 19h ago
We had a stronger, more diverse economy before mass migration. The policy created the economic dependency on migration, now that very dependency is given as the reason we can’t change the policy.
The self licking ice cream that gave us economic diabetes.
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u/Altranite- 16h ago
there were not examples of economic models that effectively combined the impact of migration on federal budgets, state budgets and the complex issue of housing
So it’s all just made up guess work designed to scare us into supporting mass immigration forever. Who could have guessed. Vote ON✊
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u/Ordinary-Resource382 20h ago
But debt doesn’t matter when it’s government debt so who cares?
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u/aaron_dresden 19h ago
Unfortunately you deleted your comment, but it’s a good point - a lot of people do act like Government debt doesn’t matter.
Governments can run up debt and maintain persistent debt balances, they can run debt numbers that can seem crazy high to regular people and it can be okay. So that general view when debt is well managed and times are good is true.
But there are conditions and certain thresholds relative to the size of the economy where it does matter. A lot of the States are stretched at the moment, and the days of cheap debt are looking like they’re behind us. So we will see more restraint and hard choices in the future I reckon.
You can look at Greece, France, Argentina, Sri Lanka, and to a lesser extent the UK for examples where the debt or perceived debt pushes too high and market forces enforce hard decisions on the government.
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u/aaron_dresden 19h ago
It definitely matters, we aren’t a reserve currency for the world.
If the government needs money, sure it can issue debt but it has to get people to buy it, and the cost will keep rising if they fear the government won’t be able to pay it back over the lifetime of the debt or if the government can’t manage inflation.
Yes they can print money, but that tends to reduce the perceived value of money over time causing the prices of everything to go up, and gets a populous that will kick you out.
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u/exidy 10h ago
The PBO tool is completely unsuitable for modelling these types of changes because it doesn't model costs due for increased migration. In their own words:
The PBO has not attempted to quantify second round effects of reduced migration, including but not limited to: • the impact on the composition of the labour market, wages, births, the demand for infrastructure and the housing market
In other words, it only counts the additional tax revenue and visas fees etc, but doesn't price in building roads, hospitals, schools, power plants, etc etc. Nor does it model any impact for lower wage growth or increase in cost of living due to higher rents or house prices. Any decent journalism would have highlighted this.
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u/International_Bag_12 7h ago
I agree that One Nation's approach looks economically reckless, but I don't think the only options are their cuts or keeping migration high indefinitely.
I'm sympathetic to Sustainable Australia Party's argument for lower migration.
We can't keep adding people without considering whether we've got the housing, infrastructure and services to support them. But I'm not arguing for negative migration either, and pretending there are no economic costs to cutting it would be just as silly.
The PBO figures are worth taking seriously, but they're modelling lower numbers under existing migration settings. They don't tell us what would happen under every possible migration policy.
I'd rather see something along the lines of David Pocock's proposal for a long-term population plan, including a ten-year approach to housing and infrastructure, rather than having politicians pull migration targets out of the air every election. Migration settings should be reviewed against housing supply, infrastructure, wages, productivity, environmental limits and genuine skill shortages, with the reasoning made public.
And GDP isn't the same thing as living standards. More people can mean more workers and tax revenue, but it also means more demand for housing and infrastructure. I'd like to see more focus on GDP per person and whether ordinary Australians are actually better off.
I'm happy to acknowledge that lower migration could mean less tax revenue and put more pressure on an ageing population. But that doesn't automatically mean current levels are right. I'd rather have an honest discussion about the trade-offs than pretend either mass cuts or continually growing the population are the only options.
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u/petergaskin814 16h ago
Wouldn't a reduction in migration reduce state governments costs?
What would be the net impact of reduced immigration on total governments debt?
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u/mrducky78a 15h ago
You'll need to get someone to actually do a study and actually model the impact. Because immigrants typically come at working age and contribute straight to tax revenue without needing government costs associated with child rearing like education. Or elderly like health.
You could end up with more debt. Kinda like how austerity can sometimes backfire resulting in reduced revenue that actually increases the debt
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u/SeaDivide1751 12h ago
If lower immigration will “drive up debt” the government should reduce spending.
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u/OkBackground8670 15h ago
but rent, house prices, fuel, groceries will go down.
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u/karamurp 15h ago
An economic shock like that would create a recession similar to the 1890s depression
During that time, instead of apple pie people used to make water pie
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u/OkBackground8670 15h ago
nahhhh. ill take my chances.
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u/karamurp 14h ago edited 14h ago
Rather than cutting off the economic blood flow of Australia, we need to transition the economic dependence away from migration
If we cut off the migration, the greatest cosmic joke will play out:
The economy will be devastated, forcing one nation voters in the regions to migrate to the cities to clean the toilets of the public servants that they hate so much
Fortunately the government is investing in Australian manufacturing, which will lower our economic reliance migration via the Future Made in Australia policy
Voting to get rid of migrants to improve your life, only to displace yourself and become an economic migrant cleaning the shit of people you despise
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u/Sepoy2023 11h ago
It’s likely you can keep all of the “high-skilled young adult migrants delivered the most positive budget and economic impact”
But still massively reduce the supply of low income low productivity migrants which are permanently altering the demographic composition
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u/Sufficient_Tower_366 16h ago
Is it just ever so slightly possible that if we ease immigration, calm housing prices and inflation, that Aussies won’t continue to contract as a population but rather enter a period of sustainability where having a family becomes affordable?
And stop with this bullshit about needing endless migration to support an ageing population, robotics in health and aged care will be a reality within a generation.