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| Tonight is the last night for the season at Franko 's Street Eats in Hobart* |
Because our elections are tomorrow and several parties are campaigning on an anti -immigration platform, I am going to dive right in and look at some popular arguments against immigration which are being used to gather support against immigration and fuelling unfair discrimination.
Although this post may be too late to change peoples' mind before the election, it is worthwhile knowing the facts, especially as other countries are facing similar issues and similar anti - immigrant sentiment. here are some of the main arguments.
1. Migrants are bad for the economy
2. Are migrants taking our jobs?
3. If immigration is so good why are so many people complaining or falling for the siren song that migrants are to blame for so many of our ills?
4. Migrants are to blame for our housing crisis
5. Are we being swamped by Muslims?
6. Are we being outbred?
7. Do Migrants commit more crime
1. Economic Impact of Migration
Apart from Luxemburg, Australia
has the highest proportion of migrants in the OECD countries. A recent study
conducted jointly by the Australian Centre for Population and the OECD, found that migration
was highly profitable and is expected to contribute approximately $1.6 Trillion
to Australia’s economy by 2050, which is why successive governments have become
addicted to it.
2. Are Migrants taking our jobs?
Among its findings were that regions
which had a higher proportion of migrants also had higher productivity and
greater levels of innovation. Far from taking Australian jobs, the presence of
migrants in an area creates jobs for all Australians at all skill levels, ages
and genders.
It also fills workplace skill
shortages, particularly in industries such as aged care and agriculture which do not attract enough Australians. We have skill shortages because Australia closed its trade schools and forgot to train sufficient of its own citizens. Some economic genius somewhere thought it was cheaper to import already trained labour rather than training our own, especially if it could be paid lower wages and even though it meant tossing thousands of young and middle aged workers on the scrapheap.
3. If Immigration is so good why are so many people complaining or falling for the siren song that migrants are to blame for so many of our ills?
One problem is that due to border closures during the pandemic, there was a large backlog of migrants wanting to come to Australia which had to be accommodated. Another is that the people who are benefiting most from migration – large companies using it to keep wages down, people such as aged care providers, farmers and property speculators, migration agents and tertiary education establishments for example, are most likely not the ones putting up with crowding, congestion, long waits in hospitals and difficulty obtaining homes to rent or buy.
4. So, are Migrants to blame for our Housing Crisis?
This is partly true, especially in the short term, as the number of affordable dwellings especially for young people, students and people on low wages has continued to decline. [It was hard enough in the 1980s. As a student in Hobart then I and others lived in a condemned house and later in one that probably should have been].
More people seeking accommodation does push up prices. However, the fault lies not so much with migrants or immigration but with poor planning and poor policy decisions such as the following.
· Housing supply failing to keep up with demand or population growth – no affordable housing was built during the 9-year tenure of the previous government
· Policy settings such as negative gearing which have allowed property ownership to become a vehicle for acquiring wealth and subject to massive price increases, have not changed – Australians voted against this at a previous election
· Allowing foreign ownership of real estate
· The rise of Air B&B which means less property available for long term rental
· Not releasing sufficient land for development and not insisting that new developments include affordable housing
· Not improving roads and infrastructure such as hospitals in line with population growth
· Not making sure that the existing population is adequately housed before admitting many more people.
Post pandemic budgetary restraints have prevented much action until now. However, the incumbent government is seeking to address many of these issues –
e.g. it has pledged to build 1.2 million homes over the next five years of which 100,000 are to be for first home buyers. [Guess where much of the the skilled labour for this will be coming from]? It has also built 87 urgent care clinics, to take pressure off our hospitals. By continuing to allow work from home, pressure on roads and public transport should be reduced.
There are also a number of Cost of-Living relief measures in place e.g. Wages have already risen slightly, there have been some tax cuts and power price relief measures along with subsidised childcare and falling interest rates, which should all help, as will reducing the number of migrants and students, as most major parties have pledged to do.
5. Are we being ‘swamped by Muslims?
According to the 2021 Census 3.2% of Australia's population identifies as Muslim, 2.4% as Buddhist and 2.7% as Hindu, while the vast majority identifies as Christian 43.9% and those with no – religion 38.9%.
However, just like Christians, even the few Muslims in Australia are not a monolithic group. As we’ve seen in the previous post, many have fled Muslim countries such as Lebanon or Malaysia to escape from religious persecution and extremism there. Some such as Shi’ites are persecuted in predominantly Sunni countries and vice versa, and the vast majority just want to live their lives in peace, so this claim is also false. There is a very well researched 2016 article about this in The Conversation if you need more convincing.
6. The same article also puts to rest the Myth that Muslims or others are ‘outbreeding’ us
7. Do Immigrants commit more crime?
In the USA, they blame Mexican immigrants for crime. In France it’s the Africans and Muslims. In the UK they blame everybody else. In Australia they blame Muslims and African crime gangs. However, international studies show that despite the fact that our newspapers sensationalise any crime by an immigrant, there is no evidence linking crime to particular ethnic groups, whether here, in Europe, in The USA or elsewhere. There are however links between crime and poverty and social disorganisation.
In the Australian Institute of Criminology study Ethnicity and crime which looked at the reports from 30 countries, there was little consistency in reporting with migrants, ethnicity, origin and race often poorly distinguished. Still, it found that crime correlates less with country of origin than with poverty, lack of education, lack of opportunity and in some cases discrimination in things like employment.
It also found evidence of some bias against minority groups in their contacts with the criminal justice system and that while crimes by migrant groups were given high publicity, criminal offences and discrimination against the same groups were given little.
The question here is rather why is there so much focus on crime by a small number of miscreants? Do you see a pattern here? During the Great Depression which affected Germany even more because of the high cost of reparations demanded by the Allies after World War I, the same sort of scapegoating of ‘foreigners’ and others occurred during Hitler’s rise to power. Then it was about demonising the Jews, homosexuals, intellectuals, communists, those with disabilities and of course, anyone who protested against what was happening. Do not be like those people. Look deeper for the source of your economic woes and don’t believe the slogans.
What is not widely known now is that the Jews were specifically singled out then, because the same factors which had led to mass immigration to Australia in the early C20th – namely the Russian Revolution and the takeover of Asia Minor by the Ottoman Empire, had also driven large numbers of Jewish migrants into Germany.
8. Are we in danger of losing our identity?
It is certainly true that some suburbs and regions become magnets for particular groups, partly due to chain migration and family connections and because people who’ve come from other countries will naturally gravitate towards places which are more like home – familiar food, language and ease of communication. We do it a lot as tourists too.
For older folk who look back with rose coloured glasses at the White Australia era, this may well be alarming. Old certainties are gone, both in terms of the economy and what they have come to expect. There is a sea of new faces to contend with, as well as strange dress – veils and burqas for example, and strange customs. The less people have travelled – and it was rare in those days, the stranger it will seem to have a mosque or Buddhist temple or a kebab bar in our midst, where once the only churches were Catholic or Anglican and the most exotic food was fish and chips.
The
newer migrants are skilled professionals who are not content to remain a
permanent underclass whose culture is permanently erased, but Australia is very
much enriched by their presence, whether it’s street café’s and wine bars
instead of pubs and six o’clock swill, great food or simply ideas.
I think of North Hobart for example – now one of the liveliest suburbs in town with its selection of café’s, bookshops, galleries, florists and produce, as well as the oldest cinema in Australia. It was the same with Fitzroy – a suburb of Melbourne, in the 1960s. It was a run down slum area until Italians, Greeks and students came, who couldn’t afford accommodation anywhere else, and transformed it into the vibrant upmarket place it is today.
I also think of people like Gustav Weindorfer or Peter Dombroskis who have opened our eyes to the amazing world we live in, instead of seeing nature as merely a resource or an obstruction to be done away with as soon as possible. Perhaps some 'identities' are worth losing?
Yes,
there are some rumblings and no -one anywhere is doing as well as they were,
but stop looking for scapegoats and start fixing the real issues. It’s early
days yet and it will take a while before we have absorbed the current bulge of
immigrants too, but they too will enrich our society in ways we never dreamed
possible.
I had hoped to include some tips here on making this transition easier, but this will have to wait for another day.
*I’m at Franko’s Street Eats tonight in Franklin Square. It’s the last night of the
season for this eclectic collection of food stalls and music which is held weekly
on Friday nights throughout the warmer months
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