Immigration benefits 'wildly overstated'

From The Telegraph in the UK:

Immigration benefits 'wildly overstated' say Lords

By Tom Whitehead
The Telegraph

The Government's economic arguments for its open door policy were torn apart in the Lords, as they concluded record levels of immigration have left any benefits "small or close to zero".

Members of an influential committee of peers, including two former Chancellors and several former Cabinet ministers, said ministers must set an "explicit target range" for immigration and make rules to keep within that limit.

The attack came in a debate over a scathing report recently published by the Lords Economic Affairs Committee which, step by step, demolished the Government's economic arguments.

Tory former Cabinet Minister Lord Wakeham, who chaired the committee, rejected the Government's claim that immigration is needed to prevent labour shortages as "fundamentally flawed". He told peers yesterday the Government had said immigrants brought large economic benefits to the UK in boosting economic growth, filling job vacancies that Britons could not or would not do and paying more tax than British-born workers.

But there was no evidence of such benefits, which had been "wildly overstated" by ministers.

He added: "The committee found no evidence of these large economic benefits.

"What we did find was serious flaws in the Government's arguments and we concluded that on average the economic benefits of immigration were small and close to zero."

*snip*

The report found certain groups in Britain - the low-paid, some ethnic minorities and some young people looking for a foot on the job ladder - may have suffered because of competition from immigrants.

It said immigrants themselves were often the "biggest winners" of the current policy and dismissed claims that migrants are needed to fill jobs and support the growing demand for pensions. Migrants now account for 12 per cent - or one in eight - of the total workforce.

The peers raised the prospect of cutting the number of partners and other family members allowed to settle in Britain because a relative is already here.

They also warned that the much-trumpeted new points-based immigration system carried a "clear danger of inconsistencies and overlap".

The Government's decision to use GDP as the main measure of immigration's economic contribution was "irrelevant and misleading".

Full article

Once again, we see that immigration has no significant positive impact on the economic welfare of the receiving country's host population.

Sudanese crime wave in South Australia

From Adelaide Now:

Sudanese crime rate double the general SA rate

November 14, 2008
Adelaide Now

Deputy Police Commissioner Gary Burns yesterday said police were concerned by rising levels of violence in the Sudanese community. In the past 16 months, Sudanese people had been involved in 450 offences, resulting in 258 arrests. "This is double the level of offending for the population of the state," he said.

"They come from a culture which has had serious warfare, some have been child soldiers, and they don't have the conflict-resolution skills that others who have grown up in Australia have, and as a result we have seen an increase in crime."

Full article

Columnist Andrew Bolt comments:

What? One on 16 Sudanese immigrants in Adelaide - man, woman and child - commit, on average, an offence every three months?

Was it smart to import so many people who clearly have trouble fitting in? Was it fair on those who are the victims of their crimes?

Quick question: What is there preventing the victims of immigrant crime from suing the federal immigration department for culpable negligence?

Hat tip: New South Wails

Rudd dodges population questions

From CanDoBetter.org:

Rudd dodges hard questions at a Community cabinet

Story by Catherine Case:

With the Community Cabinet due to take place in the city of Launceston where I live, I thought what better opportunity to ask a question of the Prime Minister about the government's obsessive focus on economic growth and their apparent blindness to the realities of ecological limits? I also wanted to try and ascertain whether they had any long term plan whatsoever to deal with projected population growth in Australia. Would they even acknowledge it as an issue? No one in the mainstream media ever asks these questions, the paradigm of "perpetual growth" goes unchallenged. It seems so blindingly obvious to me that endless growth is an impossibility. Why isn't someone - anyone - in the government facing up to reality?

Launceston community cabinet
On Wednesday 5 November 2008, I attended the community cabinet at Launceston, where I got to ask a question I had prepared in front of 400 people. Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, looked at me with total disdain and completely avoided (and in the most patronizing way) answering my question, which was:

"For me one of the most disappointing aspects of the Labor government has been the relentless focus and almost obsession with "growing the economy". It's as if every member has sworn to repeat this mantra as often and as loudly as possible on every occasion, as we've already heard here tonight.

Isn't about time that we stopped pretending that mindlessly chasing unending economic growth is even remotely compatible with sustainability?

Because underlying this whole issue is the unspeakable and forbidden P word - POPULATION

The Australian Bureau of Statistics recently projected that Australia's population could increase to 42 million people in a little over 40 years with Melbourne and Sydney both reaching nearly 7 million people each.

Is that sensible, desirable or sustainable?

Aren't we as a country already seriously struggling with water supply, energy independence, food production, depleted fisheries, overloaded infrastructure and severe environmental degradation?

When will the government show real leadership on this issue and start to address the elephant in the living room that is population?

When will the government take the brave step of articulating a national population policy - one that recognizes REALITY and dispenses with the cozy fantasy that is the economic mirage of never-ending population growth?

Will this government have the courage to articulate a policy that, as recommended in a recent CSIRO publication, aims to stabilize the population of Australia to 25-27 million people by 2050?

And if not, why not?"

Prime minister Rudd responds obliquely
First off Rudd said that he and his government wouldn't apologize for wanting every "able bodied" person to have employment… the importance of strong economy, jobs etc.

Then he rattled off something about buying back water entitlements. Some more guff about signing the Kyoto Protocol. Some other far-fetched rhetoric about "sustainable development".

He said how important it is for Australians to address climate change and how the government is doing just that.

The only thing that even got close to addressing the question was something about immigration rates and how the government adjusted those in accordance with economic conditions. And Rudd cursorily mentioned "natural" population increase as if the government had no hand in promoting and encouraging it and was powerless to do anything about it.

And even though I'd addressed the question to him and the Minister for the Environment, Peter Garrett, Rudd quickly pointed at the next person in the audience with their hand up and didn't pass the mike on to Peter Garrett, even though he did with all the other questions to various ministers.

He struck me as a shifty, slippery piece of work. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. But I would have liked to heard Garrett's response, and I hope to follow up on this.

General problems with conduct of the Community Forum
As well as the frustration of having the Prime Minister fudge my question, I found the way the community forum was conducted disappointing. At the beginning of the forum, which was already running about 20 minutes behind, after numerous welcomes and thank you's, everyone had to listen to Rudd for about another 15 minutes telling us about all the wonderful election promises that he has kept - in some detail mind you - and all the wonderful things still to come.

Yet the Prime Minister and his entourage were supposed to be there to listen to US! It was like an election speech, anyone would think the guy is still trying to get elected. Even his ministers were looking uncomfortable and bored. I let one of his advisors know in no uncertain terms that I thought it was rude and inappropriate that he went on so much. It was pretty obvious the whole thing is a PR exercise pure and simple.

By the way, I did get quite a bit of applause after my question, so lots of people were in agreement.

Follow-up with Peter Garrett
Peter Garrett just happened to be making an announcement right next to where I work yesterday. I was able to bail him up after he'd finished his official stuff and after he had spent some time placating pulp mill protesters with his reassuring words of how diligently he would be assessing the project against the extremely narrow commonwealth guidelines and how after all, It was Malcolm Turnbull who had approved it - not him! I had heard this before. At least he made the effort to go and talk to them which I have to give him credit for....

It was quite funny because the protesters have taken well known songs and changed the words to become pulp mill protest songs and halfway through Garrett's speech they started singing them very loudly, practically drowning him out.

Anyway, I got round to saying to Garrett that I was the person who had asked the question the night before about population and that I had been disappointed that he didn't get a chance to answer it.

"Well," he said, "I'm in complete agreement with the Prime Minister."

Population was not a problem!! It was more important to address issues like environmental impacts and other things.

"But" I said, "Surely you have to take population into account, it's a major factor?" Did he really think that Australia having 42 million people was a good idea given the already existing environmental problems?

My recollection is that he said that he was not going to "talk numbers", that it was "not about the numbers". He reminded me that he had been President of the ACF for a number of years, arguing that this had acquainted him well about population as an issue, but it's not "the problem".

He disagreed with my "opinion" about population.

I said, "Well it's not just my 'opinion'; what about the CSIRO? They're recommending that this be addressed."

My impression was that he totally dismissed this point, and that he walked away from me, still pronouncing what sounded to me like platitudes about consumption, sustainable industries, etc etc.

Oh well....

My next thing is to fill in the form that they gave out at the forum and send it to him with some more specific questions. I want to see what he says when he has to put something in writing.

Original article

The case for zero net immigration

From Online Opinion:

Zero immigration and sustainable populations

By Eric Claus
Wednesday, 5 November 2008

In April 2006 the Australian Government Productivity Commission published a report entitled Economic Impacts of Migration and Population Growth. The study included economic modelling of an increase in skilled migration of an extra 50,000 migrants per year, for 20 years, compared to the skilled migration numbers in 2004-05. Some of the conclusions were:

• economic gains accrue mostly to skilled migrants and capital owners (page 151);
• hourly wages will drop slightly under high immigration (page 161);
• the incomes of existing resident workers grows more slowly than would otherwise be the case (page 151);
• these results are consistent with research both in Australia and overseas (page 161); and
• environmental impacts are likely to impose a drag on productivity and living standards, but the details are "too hard" to quantify (page 122).

This is not a report by some racist group that wants to limit immigration to keep Australia white. This is not a report by some deep green environmental group that wants everybody to live in communes and wear jute shirts. This is the Productivity Commission. The Productivity Commission - primarily an economic research organisation.

If the economic case only benefits the capital owners and makes the average citizen worse off economically, without even considering environmental and sustainability impacts, why is it being done?

The obvious answer seems to be that the capital owners are running the show for their own benefit, at the expense of the average Australian. And why shouldn’t they. Their goal is to maximise profits and high immigration helps them do that. High immigration increases the supply of workers. Increased supply of labour, lowers the cost of labour. Lower labour costs means an increase in profits.

High immigration also increases the supply of consumers. Increased demand means higher prices. Higher prices mean increased profits. It’s a double bonus. Higher profits from lower labour costs and higher demand. Whoopee.

But something that obvious would be quickly exposed by the ever diligent media. Or perhaps they have other incentives. On October 28, the Sydney Morning Herald ran an editorial entitled “Keep the doors open”. The sales pitch is that Australia needs high immigration to have solid economic growth and then the implication is that this economic growth will benefit every Australian. But it just isn’t so. The editorial writer’s trick is to say that “the 2006-07 migrant intake benefited the economy by $516 million in the first year” and then we are supposed to think that we got some of that $516 million. The SMH is smart enough to make sure they don’t mention that the average Australian gets none of that massive $25 per person.

With a significant part of newspaper profits coming from real estate advertising, it is not hard to understand why newspapers pump up the housing market, but how far can their logic be stretched. They admit that there is a housing shortage, rents are too high and finance is hard to get in the current climate, so the answer is … wait for it … bring in a lot more people to increase the demand for housing. That will make housing harder to obtain, rents will become higher and finance harder to get, but it will increase profits for the housing industry. At least we know who comes out ahead.

Another angle we hear is that we need immigration because we have a skills shortage. What that really means is: we have a skills shortage at the salaries we are willing to pay. We never have a skills shortage for investment bankers. We always have plenty of them, because they get paid a motza. We have a shortage of qualified tradesmen because it is a really tough job that doesn’t pay very well. If the pay was increased, there wouldn’t be a shortage of qualified tradesmen, but that would reduce the profits of the construction companies and factory owners. The easier solution, for business, is to call for increased skilled immigration to keep wages down and profits up.

The skills shortage is a major change from the usual “can do” attitude of business. For example:

• ask business what we should do about climate change and they respond, “Business can sort that out - use market forces with a carbon trading scheme and use geosequestration in coal fired power plants”;
• ask business what we should do about water shortages and they respond, “Business can sort that out - build new desalination plants, dams and pipelines”;
• ask business what we should do about Fossil Fuel depletion and they respond, “Business can sort that out - replacements for petroleum will be found as soon as the price gets high enough”;
• ask business what we should do about depletion of farmland and they respond, “Business can sort that out - market forces from higher food prices will give farmers incentives to repair their land”; then
• ask business what we should do about the skills shortage and they respond “Oh, nothing we can do. Government needs to bring in lots more skilled migrants or the Australian economy will fall apart.”

Another issue sometimes associated with immigration is the ageing population. Most commentators know that increased immigration doesn’t significantly slow the ageing of the population, because the average age of migrants is only a little less than the average age of the overall population and migrants age, just like existing residents. Not everybody is clear about that, though.

A few years ago, Louise Markus, Federal Liberal Member in the seat of Greenway, rang me in response to a letter I wrote her regarding the negative environmental impacts of increased population. She said something like “But Eric, we need increased immigration to battle the effects of our ageing population.” I said immigration doesn’t do anything for the ageing population and the phone went quiet for a few seconds. She then said “Well I don’t think most of the people in Greenway agree with you on population.” Game, set and match.

What really mattered to her, and to all politicians, is what the majority of voters think. Politicians don’t need to clutter their minds with logical arguments, as long as they are on the same page as the electorate.

It would be easy to blame business for lowering our standard of living and politicians for being their accomplices, but that is wrong. It is NOT up to business to make Australia sustainable (although it would happen more quickly if they led the way). It is up to the citizens of Australia to vote in the politicians who will best serve their interests. Both major parties now serve the interests of big business.

We have given business the goal of making profits for themselves and they have done that very well, and provided us with the goods and services that make Australia one of the best places on earth to live. When business is given limitations and guidelines, they adapt to those guidelines and continue to produce the high quality goods and services that make Sydney such a great place to live.

If Australia adopted net zero immigration and made efforts to become more sustainable, business would adapt and smart businessmen would continue to make millions and billions, because the changes would not be that great. It is also likely that the average Australian would be better off and the average Australian’s children and grandchildren will be better off in the future.

Eric Claus has worked in civil and environmental engineering for over 20 years.

Original article