Simply a " Bad Idea " !

Former prime minister Tony Abbott has dropped the cat amongst the pigeons with a demand that our immigration numbers be reduced from the present 190,000 annually to a new level of 110,000.  He suggests that this will miraculously cure the ever rising price of homes and force pay levels to at least match inflation.

That might be a comforting thought if we were not the last underdeveloped land mass on planet earth and our world was not heading to a population explosion that will test the food supply.  Our present population of over twenty-four million people is miniscule by world standards and we already look understocked in comparison with our neighbours.

Remember that maxim of " Populate - or Perish " that became the catch-cry after the end of the second world war ?  Before that war we had looked to Britain to defend this country.  When it became obvious that was beyond them, we looked to America.  At wars end we opened our doors to the dispossessed of Europe and we experienced a growth rate that has ever since powered our economy.

Along with the rest of the world we are experiencing an unprecedented bubble in house prices and stagnant wage levels.  The finger has been pointed at African gang warfare in Melbourne.  Every culture that has landed on our shores has brought their internal crime culture with them and we remember the Mafia and the Triads which our security forces eventually tamed.

The thought of eighty thousand fewer people coming to Australia each year would be a cause for consternation in economic circles.    The Australian economy is built around that expectation and the hit to the budget would be around $4 to $5 billion over the next four years.  The statisticians point out that despite the belief that migrants absorb welfare and give little back, in reality they are more entrepreneurial than most other people and quickly engorge the money flow with a host of new activities.  They are very much contributors to the Australian economy.

There is something defeatist about a plan to block the migrant intake in the hope that it reduces demand for houses and somehow causes a worker shortage that pushes up wages.   Do we really want to descend into a rut where little changes and the economy coasts along in neutral ?

Unfortunately, we seem in the grip of a sort of " business inertia ".   A lot of businesses are making healthy profits, but seem more interested in buying out competitors and reducing competition than expanding into new profit lines.   That will not benefit if the migrant flow ebbs to a trickle and the market for goods slows accordingly.

That old maxim of " Populate or Perish " is as valid today as it was after the end of the second world war.   We live in an ever expanding and dangerous world.   If the pundits are right and this world is heading into a food shortage, envious eyes will be looking at this vast great land mass - and assessing the capability of its defences.

This is indeed a numbers game !