The simmering, underlying bias in media reports continued this month on three major subject matters. Events which were described as Bad Things were really Good Things. And events described as Good Things were really Bad Things.
I refer to population growth; property prices; and private-school fees.
When Treasury’s Centre for Population published its third annual Population Statement this month the reportage generally talked about how Covid meant that Australia had “lost 1.2 million people”, how that without high immigration our tax bills would be higher; how Australia is “smaller, older, and sicker”; how the “ageing population” and the “skills shortage” could only be fixed with higher immigration.
The facts are different, of course. As the population has aged, workforce participation has increased, not decreased. Since 1980 the average age rose nine years to 39. In that time participation rose from 61 per cent to 65 per cent. This is because more people over 65 are staying in the workforce.
If anything, the pressure on the workforce is not from older Australians leaving the workforce, but from younger people not entering it. Full-time employment has plummeted among 15- to 19-year-olds. And so it should, because they are getting educated.
High immigration does not solve the dependency problem of an ageing population. Indeed, it makes it worse. Young people are more dependent for longer. And immigrants are younger and bring in children or have children here.
The answer lies in more action on age discrimination and more career incentives and help for women in the workforce.
Further, the drop to near zero immigration during Covid resulted in a magnificent reduction in the unemployment rate and a general improvement in the prospects for people getting work and better pay.
Australia should be rejoicing that two years of low immigration has resulted in 1.2 million fewer inhabitants with their pressure on the environment and existing infrastructure, not bemoaning it.
The post-Covid ramping up of immigration is just a scheme to create a larger, more compliant labour force and a pool of exploited consumers. At least this Government is doing more on the training front, but it has fallen completely for the false propaganda of developers, retailers and big business generally, to the detriment of the rest of the population which struggles to get access to health and education and suffers from poor infrastructure.
Worse, in the year of the Voice, there is a lot of hypocrisy here. The Treasury population report says: “In the spirit of reconciliation Treasury acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community.”
But surely, it has been continued immigration from 1788 on that has caused Indigenous dispossession and continues to make it worse.
Yet, even if the Voice referendum is passed (and I hope it is) it will be completely powerless to do anything about it. This is because the Voice is only a Voice to Parliament, and Parliament does not set immigration quotas. That is set by Ministers in the Executive without any public input or debate from anyone, least of all Indigenous people who are arguably most affected.
Now to private-school fees. Every January we get reports that private school fees are going up. Oh woe, the cry goes up. Middle-class people will be shut out of private education. The fees in some Sydney schools are $45,000 a year. Canberra’s private school fees are nudging $30,000. What a Bad Thing, the cry goes up.
But really it is a Good Thing. Shutting middle-class people out of private education will mean they will have to go to public schools. That will improve public schools.
The Federal Government should slowly unwind the skewed funding model begun with the Howard Government which pumped federal money into private schools, so much so that it costs the Federal Government more if a child goes to a private school than if the child goes to a public school.
Australia should wean itself of the idea that it is some sort of right that the middle classes send their children to private schools. Private schools should be exactly that – totally private with no government money.
Funding private schools is a waste of precious public money. It adds no better educational outcome for schools that are doing well on that front anyway.
The private schools do not need the money. The top 20 Sydney private schools raked in $370 million in donations over the past six years.
Public money should be spent on education not on schools that pay their principals CEO salaries and provide lavish extra-curricular facilities on their students.
Now to property prices. Oh woe. Property prices are falling. What a Bad Thing, most reportage says. But surely it is a Good Thing. Politicians always wring their hands with concern about “housing affordability”. These are weasel words. How can housing become more “affordable” without property prices falling.
The housing crisis should not be. And it is a crisis when a country as rich as Australia has people, including employed people, living in cars and tents or living under near-impossible rent and mortgage stress.
The crisis can only be solved by reducing demand and increasing supply.
Demand can be cut by reducing immigration and eliminating tax perks for property investors so they take their money elsewhere, opening the way for owner-occupiers.
Supply can be increased. But not by axing development regulation and allowing the white shoe brigade to convert koala habitat into crammed up, heat boxes with little or no public infrastructure. Rather it can be done by in-sourcing.
I hope the word “in-sourcing” becomes more widely used to describe a way of reversing some of the over-zealous privatisations since the mid-1980s. Some were successful, but others were destructive, particularly with housing policy under which home-ownership has declined and massive wealth shifted to the already wealthy.
Governments should build up a replenishing stock of public housing for renters and for those renters to buy later. It should be energy efficient and contribute to a more even spread of transport and other public facilities. By increasing supply, prices overall would fall. In the long run that would be a Good Thing because you can’t have “affordable housing” without it.
Crispin Hull
This article first appeared in The Canberra Times and other Australian media on 17 January 2023.
I appreciate that “absolutely spot on” has had a healthy airing about your latest (CT 17 Jan), but it says it precisely. These principles can never get too much of an airing.
Congratulations.
We have various groups claiming that because house prices continued to go up during the last couple of years of reduced immigration that immigration could not be the cause. What they fail to acknowledge is that Australians returning home more than compensated for reduced immigration. In fact in 2019-2020 we had a net inflow of 675,000 people and in 2022-2023 up to September we had 230,000. These people have to live somewhere and I suspect many would have evicted renters from their houses.
You have identified two issues close to my heart, Quentin, and against which I have also been canvassing. The Bad News is Good News campaign was never quite as calculatedly brazen as Koziol’s opinion piece in last weekend’s SMH. Filled with claims and assertions on the merit of our immigration-fed forever-growth economic model that could not – and did not – withstand even the most cursory analysis, Koziol received a well-earned drubbing in the opinion columns for the nonsense he was peddling . But the question arises, how did such a partisan and inaccurate piece of journalism pass muster? The least the editors might have done was identify it as a ‘Paid Promotion’!
Then we have the issue of a VOICE for our First Nation’s people. This, I believe, is predicated on their indigenous status and a view that they have a special awareness of, and concern for, the Australian landscape and Environment. Reasons enough, I think, to let their VOICE be heard. My anxiety lies with the absence of any sentiments being expressed by any FN’ advocate along these latter lines. How will the VOICE translate into the protection of the Australian Environment, the concern for which extends well beyond their own?
Moreover, the championing of the cause by Labor is deeply suspect and disconcerting. After all, and as you have pointed out, there is nothing quite as destructive to indigenous Culture and Country — than 234 years of immigration-fed population growth! Yet, under Labor, and despite all the abundant evidence that Australians are opposed to such growth, Labor has ramped it up as never before — with all its attendant consequences.
So, my views on the VOICE are mixed. I hope our First Nation’s people will show us all that they have these issues in hand and that their VOICE will be applied to good purpose.
One useful and painless step for increasing housing affordability would be requiring residency or citizenship for home ownership. NZ, and probably many other jurisdictions, require it, I understand
Thank you MrHull , completly agree ,about the ponzy immigration con job by those who finacially benefit ,and disgusting buying of votes by wastefully funding private elitist schools. How much does airbandb contribution to the housing crisis ?It is very sad that vote buying handouts are hard to wind back by the next govt in power, ie negative gearing and tax writeoffs. Keep up the good work.
I’m down the back of the class. But there’s no escaping the Costello-Chalmers bromance. Never mind your Murdoch. Or Guardian/ABC. It is Papa Costello media, leading the propaganda charge. Browbeating reluctant citizens, with Population Statement porkies.
“Big Australia? Dream on” (Koziol), “Pandemic to punch a Canberra-sized hole in the population” (Foley) and “After the great delay, Australia’s sliding-doors moment has arrived” (Griffin).