BIG AUSTRALIA IS ON THE AGENDA

For close to a decade, Australia’s politicians both the LNP and Labor, have wilfully facilitated the whims of big and specialized medium-sized businesses to ramp up immigration intakes.

This reached a zenith in the four years between 2015 and 2018 when the average intake of immigrants (either permanent or temporary categories) reached a whopping 530,000. In the 72-months between January 2014 and January 2020, Australia’s population, that is those deemed to be citizens, increased by 1.7 million people. Of that number 1.2 million were immigrants who were granted citizenship. However, there were another 2.1 million temp-immigrants here too, of whom 230,000 had been granted permanent residency status. This means, that so long as they adhere to visa requirements or don’t commit a criminal offence, they would be granted citizenship after 26 months of being granted PR status.

In December 2019, a major part of temp-visa holders entailed the 950,000 international students.  But, all praise to COVID 19 emerging in January-February 2020, which culminated with the borders being closed, delivered a great providence for Australia. It reduced the number of these interlopers to about 800,000 (many were ‘stuck’ overseas). As indeed, it has also inhibited, at least 550,000 more interlopers (about half on temp-visas) from swarming into Australia.

Now that COVID has passed its most dangerous phase, politicians like Dominic Perrottet, Josh Frydenberg and Alex Hawke are calling for Australia to double the annual intake of immigrants from 200,000 per year to 400,000 per year for a five-year duration: such that Australia can catch up with the numbers we have ‘lost’ during the pandemic.

This is rather bizarre arithmetic this catch up on the lost numbers. The lost number of permanent immigrants that haven’t arrived since the borders were closed is at the very top, 600,000. Thus, if the immigrant intakes were doubled from 200,000 to 400,000 over 5 years it means that at the end of this time frame we would receive at least 1 million people. from non-Anglo-Celtic-European countries. They will gravitate to the suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne compounding the cultural insularity of these growing colonies.

Over the past two weeks Perrottet, Frydenberg and Hawke have been relentlessly championing the Big Australia Agenda, much of which has focused on skilled migrants. An article in The Australian, October 21, by Patrick Commins titled: Hawke flags skilled worker boost’ – is very helpful.

Hawke is quoted as saying: “What is most important is not just the number and the quality, but the composition of the program.”

Well, the composition of the program is the migration visa combo, a real canasta pack to deal with. For instance, there are parent-visas – mainly in the 804 and 846 subclasses. With regards to those two categories, between June 2014 and June 2019, 37,000 elderly immigrants were granted residency in Australia. The average age of these immigrants was 66 years of age. However, amongst them were hundreds in their mid to late 70s. But the most outrageous part of the parent-visa classes is how 3,200 were granted permanent housing accommodations in Department of Public Housing properties in Sydney and Melbourne. Moreover, they get pensions and other benefits paid in full.

Apropos to this category, in 2016 a former economics writer for The Australian (David Uren) conveyed the findings of the Productivity Commission from 2014-15 exposing how immigrants in Australia on parent-visas cost the public purse $1.3bn dollars to sustain. Thus, now in 2021, immigrants in Australia on parent-visas have bled the public purse of around $10bn, all for the privilege of having them here. Conversely, what a total disgrace it is that elderly immigrants could be fast-tracked into public housing within 6 months of arriving in Australia, but people who were born in the country and indeed, worked and paid taxes, were on waiting lists of between 3 to 7 years? Without a doubt, this is a total disgrace. However, it is just one aspect of many things that occur with Australia’s immigration program that burden society both economically and sociologically.

Commins also quotes the former premier of Victoria, Jeff Kennett:

“… getting foreign students back into the country was integral to a post-Covid economic rebound.”

Kennett wants this to occur because a good number of foreign students are cheap labour sources. However, the rather bizarre contradiction to consider with “getting foreign students back into the country for a post-covid economic rebound” is that there are still about 800,000 in the country now, so why or, more to the point, why are the 150,000 odd ISs who are not in the country so important to the economy? Does it relate to the 110,000 rich Chinese variety of IS who couldn’t get back into Australia from their holidays in China in 2020? Thus, it meant that the tens of thousands of units/apartments that these interlopers were renting have gone empty. A whack of about 10,000 of these is in the CBD of Melbourne, Carlton, South Melbourne, or out at Caulfield! Harry Triguboff must have been furious.

Anyone familiar with the CBD of Melbourne and nearby precincts is aware that they are culturally-insular colonies. The champions of the sector like to pretend they are vibrant cultural spheres that are enriching Australia. In truth, the international student sector is the major part of the $9-11bn black economy, whereby ISs are paid cash-in-the-hand for working illegally. This entailed at least 600,000 of the 950,000 here in 2019 who, because their visas only permitted them to work 20 hours per week during semesters about 42 weeks of the year – meant they worked illegally to survive.

The Big Australia Agenda is something Australians are coming to reject. But for the pollies, it is as alive as ever. It is about cheap labour, exploitation and displacement. Be warned!