Daniel Wild Discussing IPA Polling on Worker Shortages and Immigration on 3AW Mornings
On May 2, IPA Deputy Executive Director Daniel Wild discussed IPA polling on Australia’s worker shortage crisis and the increase in immigration on 3AW Mornings with Neil Mitchell.
Below is a transcript of the interview.
Neil Mitchell:
I mentioned this new poll showing about 60% of Australians are not happy with the idea of a migration surge, and we are looking in real figures of about 400,000 a year. Interesting point also made in this poll, rather than bring in outside workers, encourage our own. How long have I been rattling on about this? Allowing pensioners to work extra hours without losing their pension and effectively paying extra tax. On the line is Daniel Wild, Deputy Executive Director of the Institute of Public Affairs, that’s produced the research. Daniel Wild, good morning.
Daniel Wild:
Good morning, Neil.
Neil Mitchell:
Should this ring alarm bells for government that people don’t want it?
Daniel Wild:
Oh absolutely it should Neil, this is a sleeper issue in the community where people are very concerned about our infrastructure and our ability to cope with never-ending population growth. Melbourne is one of the world’s most welcoming and tolerant cities, but there is a limit as to how many more people can come into the city and the state without having more schools, roads, hospitals, and transport. For example, the rent across Melbourne now is $500 a week. We’ve got a serious housing shortage. Yet the federal government is saying they want to bring in, as you say, about 400,000 more migrants into Australia over the next year. So, we’re simply not prepared for this massive surge in population growth.
Neil Mitchell:
Okay. Let’s go through the research, your poll, what does it say?
Daniel Wild:
Look, one of the key parts of the poll, Neil, as you mentioned is about seven in 10 Australians have said, look, we want to get our own people into jobs first, pensioners, veterans and students. Let’s get the rules right so they can get into the jobs before we start looking abroad. You’re one of the key commentators and analysts who’s been talking about this for a long time. If you are a pensioner and you earn more than $226 a week, you then lose 50 cents in the dollar in your lost welfare payments, plus going through all of the bureaucratic red tape. That is why only about 3 out of 100 pensioners across the nation currently work compared to about one quarter in New Zealand. And if we look at the job vacancies across Victoria, there’s around 110,000 vacancies, that’s double pre COVID. But we’ve got 120,000 pensioners who have said that they want to get back into work. So we’ve got more pensioners and students who want to work than there are job vacancies. So what we need is for governments to set the rules right to get our people in jobs first, and then you can look abroad if there are still shortages.
Neil Mitchell:
Yeah, I’m baffled as to why the government won’t, they sort of nibbled around the edges but won’t get serious about it. Now, it also shows that 60% of people or I think 62% of Victorians want migration paused, stopped.
Daniel Wild:
Yeah. That’s right. Look, it’s a huge issue. We want to have a pause so we can get the infrastructure settings. At the moment…
Neil Mitchell:
But that could take years. That could take years.
Daniel Wild:
Well, it could take years, and this has been a problem that’s been many, many years in the development. At the moment we’ve got both the federal and state governments that are pushing the break on infrastructure, at the same time as they’re hitting the accelerator or more migration. We’ve just had news out recently that $120 billion of infrastructure is on the chopping block at the federal level. Here in Victoria Daniel Andrews has run out of money, he’s begging the federal government for a bailout. There are key infrastructure projects like the airport link that are being canceled. Some of the projects which are underway, for example, the West Gate Tunnel, is massively over budget, it’s massively delayed and there’s no end in sight. So what we need to do is get the settings right. We need to have a pause, a breather to make sure that we can accommodate this influx of population growth, because Melbourne is very rapidly becoming unlivable.
Neil Mitchell:
Well, okay, if you’ve done any modeling had, look what happens if we continue at the 400,000 figure, although the government said it’s about 200,000. What happens if we continue at these rates?
Daniel Wild:
Well, unfortunately, it’s very bleak, Neil., It’s a very bleak future for Melbournians. According to the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation, now this is a federal government body, based on their figures we’ve established that there’ll be a housing shortage of around 213,000. So that means 213,000 families over coming years would not be able to find a home based on current construction rates if we increase our migration intake by the volume that’s being experienced. And what we also know is, look, Saturday mornings are now basically the new Monday morning for parents. It’s not just getting kids to school and getting to work, it’s about getting kids to sport. Basically every single day of the week there’s a backlog bumper to bumper. If you’re a tradie driving around right now trying to get to a job site around Melbourne, even if you’re only three or four suburbs away it can take you 45 minutes, quite easily to get to a job site.
Neil Mitchell:
But there is economic benefit to migration is there not, do you accept that?
Daniel Wild:
Well, there is to a point, but we’ve gone beyond that point. We know that migration generates a bigger economy overall because if you have more people, there’s more people spending money-
Neil Mitchell:
Paying tax.
Daniel Wild:
… Paying tax, the overall size of the pie gets bigger. But here’s the issue. On a per capita basis, it doesn’t kick the ball forward. We’ve had massive growth through our economy, putting aside COVID about 3 to 3.5% a year. Yet on a per capita basis it didn’t go forward. So the lived experience of the average person is not getting better even though the headline economic figures are getting better. So there’s a disconnect between what you’ll hear from Treasury and the economist and what people experience on the ground.
Neil Mitchell:
Thank you very much for your time, Daniel Wild, Deputy Executive Director Institute of Public Affairs.
