SBD wrote: ↑Mon Nov 13, 2023 12:41 pm
rev wrote: ↑Mon Nov 13, 2023 10:59 am
We're in an urgent rush now to build infrastructure because our governments have had a policy of mass migration with record numbers for the better part of this century so far. We reached near record numbers in the last financial year.
While on top of that largely neglecting our infrastructure particularly outside of Sydney and Melbourne and anything that wasn't a big ticket item in the populous eastern states that was geared towards winning votes by whichever party was in government at the time.
We've had the worst income decline in the developed world in the previous financial year too, 5.1% per household. At a time when inflation is up.
And they're solution is to now stop spending on infrastructure? So basically they'll make an already shit situation into an even bigger shit show.
How about they stop mass migration for a few years, which will help ease inflation (government handouts for resettlement wont be getting splashed about 7 days a week in that time), there wont be as much downward pressure on wages, and rather then trying to improve our infrastructure with tens of thousands of more vehicles being added to our roads every year they can actually focus on improving our infrastructure properly instead of the half arsed band aid jobs they do most of the time.
And anyone who says we need hundreds of thousands of migrants a year to grow the economy should look at the last quarter where despite near record levels of migration the economy didn't even grow by half a percent, 0.4% in fact.
This country is governed by a circus troupe.
This should probably go over to the Pub...
What classes of immigrant are entitled to Australian or South Australian government resettlement handouts?
How about if the immigrants bring the skills we are short of to the areas where they are needed?
We seem to have announcements about training people to build submarine factories and then submarines. We also have announcements about aged care needing more registered nurses, but no big announcements about training nurses, rural doctors or the various trades needed to build more houses. If we import those skills, then perhaps the crisis will be over sooner.
I think there is some misunderstanding here about the way the migration system operates in Australia, and the tools available to slow migration.
Firstly, it is important to recognise the difference between the permanent migration intake and the net migration figure.
The permanent migration intake is carefully planned, and is capped at a pre-determined number. The number of permanent migrants has not risen substantially - in actual fact in recent years it has decreased relative to the increased size of the population. These days, most permanent migrants are not actually new migrants to Australia, because most have already been in Australia for years prior to the date that they get their visas allowing them technically to “migrate” to Australia. This is because most permanent migrants are recruited from other temporary migrant streams, like the one for international students. They are mostly people who are already in Australia, and so cutting permanent migration, which was most recently done by the Morrison government, might result in political gains for politicians, but really has very little effect on the actual number of people in Australia.
On the other hand, you have net migration, which is just the total number of people (including Australians) coming into the country minus the total number of people (including Australians) leaving the country. Net migration is the figure that best shows the impact of migration on the size of the population. Net migration figure is not capped, and would be quite difficult to cap. It includes a whole range of temporary and short-term arrivals, including tourists and international students. Australia does not currently cap the numbers of these kinds of short term visas, and doing so would in most cases be pretty impractical. Imagine if we set a quota for the number of tourist visas we issued in a year – we might get to, say, August and if the quota is filled, no tourists would be allowed to visit Australia until the end of the year. Temporary migration is what has been driving Australia's population higher since the end of the pandemic, and so there is really not much that can be done to slow this down other than introducing quotas on the temporary visas.
The permanent migration intake is highly focused around skills. There is a list of occupations for which the government has determined there are shortages, and migrants wishing to stay in Australia permanently are assessed against whether or not they have those skills. It is very difficult to get permanent residency if you don’t have an in-demand skill.
Except for refugees, who are a tiny proportion of the migrant intake, there is no such thing as “Australian or South Australian government resettlement handouts”. Other than refugees, all migrants to Australia pay their own way. Most migrants actually pay the Australian government quite large sums of money in so-called “visa processing fees”. At the high end, if you want to bring a parent to Australia, you can expect to pay the government around $50k in fees. Even for basic long-term visas, migrants pay thousands of dollars. There is certainly no such thing as a ten-pound-Pom these days.
