Michael Duffy: What sort of population increase is Australia looking at at current levels of immigration by the year 2050?
Bob Birrell: Yes, Michael, we did a projection of what would happen if current rates maintain. There currently are about 180,000 per year, that's net migration from overseas, and the Rudd government has given a strong indication that this is the kind of setting it wants to sustain. Should this hold over the next 40 years or so and should fertility in Australia maintain at about 1.7 (that is an estimate of the number of births each woman would have over her childbearing life, that's below replacement) we'd get to from around about 21 million now to 31.6 million by the year 2050, and of that increase nearly 10 million would be attributable to the net movement of migrants. So there's only about a million left of natural increase because fertility is below replacement level in Australia. So, almost all of the anticipated population growth will be from net overseas migration.
Michael Duffy: Yes, 180,000 a year. Where does that stand in historical terms? That's fairly high, isn't it?
Bob Birrell: Yes, it is very, very high. We're about double where we were in the year 2000. The coalition gave it a nudge before they lost power, and then in a very striking decision at the time of the May budget the government added another 37,500 a year to the migration program to push it up near 200,000 a year.
Michael Duffy: Would I be right in thinking that this has happened largely without much public discussion? I remember back in the 80s people used to debate immigration more, it seems to me. Papers used to be produced and reported and so on, but this just seems to have happened in the last few years. Many people I talk to aren't even aware of it.
Bob Birrell: Yes, I've had the same experience. Even people who are following the news quite closely are unaware of the magnitude of the recent increases. I must say I was very surprised and disappointed that Labor took this action because there's been a lot of noise before the election that they would be considering a population policy and that they would consider not just the employment implications and the economic growth implications but also urban quality of life issues, cost of housing, rental, a well as climate change. But the announcement was made without any public discussion or justification at all. When I enquired of the minister's office 'where did you get this information from?' I was told 'we've been around the country talking about next year's program'. Who did you talk to? Well, primarily the big end of town and of course they're very enthusiastic about extra numbers, and essentially that's where it came from, although I think behind the scenes the government is concerned about inflation and it's been moved to push up the numbers, in part to just keep the lid on wages.
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