A NEW GOVERNMENT – BUT WILL ANYTHING IMPROVE?

            The federal election in May saw a victory for Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Party. The Coalition lost a number of seats, not all of them picked up by Labor. A feature of the election results was the large number of seats that went to independent candidates. Of the 151 seats in the House of Representatives the results are:

            Australian Labor Party                77

            Liberal / National Coalition         58

            Centre Alliance                           1

            Katters Australia Party                  1

            The Greens                                 4

            Independents                             10

            No doubt the Greens will support Labor. (1) So what can we expect from the new government – anything radical and useful or much of the same we had under the Coalition government? Unfortunately in many things it will be the same. Immigration was largely ignored in the election campaigning and it looks like we will soon go back to the excessively large immigration numbers we had up to the arrival of Covid-19.

            The economic argument for mass immigration doesn’t stack up. As discussed previously, in the years 2015-2019 we had, relative to population, one of the largest immigration intakes in the developed world with population growth over this period averaging about 1.57% but economic growth only about 2.44%. Our foreign debt grew substantially, growing by about 3.96% in 2018 and 7.44% in 2017. (2) And what happened with Covid-19?

            In 2020, with the lockdowns due to the disease, the economy slowed and in fact went backwards by 1.1%. Population in 2021 tended to grow less than average, in fact by only 0.5% for the year. We actually lost people due to migration being negative by 3,600. People however kept having children and the natural increase was 138,500, resulting in a net increase of 0.5%. (3) The economy rebounded and grew by 4.2%, not the 3.4% we inadvertently said in or last issue. (4) This was despite, or because of, negative immigration and foreign debt growing at a much slower rate.

            Not only does the Labor government appear to be keen to encourage migrants but wants to take in more from Pacific nations. Apart from easier temporary visas for these people to work here they plan a ballot or lottery to give 3,000 people the right to settle here. (5) We already have a problem with migrants from Samoa and Tonga who are more likely to be in prison than people born in Australia. (6) The crime in some Pacific nations is at a pretty horrific level with the homicide rate in New Guinea being worse than in the United States. (7) We can look forward to more crime – especially violent crime like murder.

            One of the first acts of the Albanese government was to let the Murugappan family to settle in the town of Biloela in Queensland. The family claimed they would be persecuted if returned to Sri Lanka. (8) The new government will maintain the policy of boat turn backs of illegals but plans to get rid of temporary protection visas. Will the Albanese government make as big a mess of the refugee issue as the Rudd/Gilliard government did? Hopefully not.

            And it looks like the new parliament will have eight senators and three members of the House of Representatives identifying as Indigenous, a greater proportion than in Australia’s population. (9)

(1) Australian Electoral Commission https://tallyroom.aec.gov.au

(2) Averages derived from Australian Bureau of Statistics website.

(3) Australian Bureau of Statistics

(4) https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/national-accounts/australi... 2/03/2022             

(5) https://alp.org.au/policies/labors-plan-to-build-a-stronger-pacific-family

(6) Australian Bureau of Statistics, 45170DO002_2021 Prisoners in Australia, 2021

(7) https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/murder-rates-by-country.htmls

(8) Peta Credlin, “Labor Just Started the Boats”, Sunday Telegraph, 12June 2022

(9) Parliamentary Education Office, https://peo.gov.au/