Over the weekend Federal Opposition immigration spokeswoman Sharman Stone came out strongly to call for a cut in immigration levels by 25%, back to 2005-2006 levels. She was interviewed on ABC Newsradio on Sunday morning after 9AM (26th October 2008).
Mainstream media mumble muffles Stone's proposal
On the morning of Monday 27th October 2008. ABC's Radio National Breakfast program featured two stories in response to Stone's call. The first was on the segment featuring commentary of federal politics with Michelle Grattan
(Read the transcript or listen to the MP3 audio).
During this segment Grattan made several unsubstantiated assertions regarding immigration policy. Grattan is the senior political journalist for The Age.
Grattan obfuscates
The section of interest starts at the 2 minute mark of the MP3. She said the "government would be unwise to jump too quickly", i.e. it should not respond to the opposition's calls. She then goes on to say "our program is very much targeted to skills and these skills are really necessary if the Australian economy is to grow and labor shortages are not to cause a problem, now that's really important, now just as it was in better times. There is always pressure calls to cut back migration but there are a lot of positives in immigration and I think the government should be just wary of anything that's too knee-jerk"
Much Touted 'Targeted program' fails to target
I will not go into details here, but the idea that Australia's skilled immigration program is targeted is not born out by the fact that there is a very broad range of categories that will allow a person to come to Australia. I don't have an antonym to "targeted", but that is a much closer description of Australia's immigration program.
That old 'growth' argument again (groan)
Grattan then says that immigration is necessary for growth, but even the Productivity Commission that did a study on this found that immigrants have very marginal benefits on the economy. Whatever specific labor shortages Australia may have had, they are now quickly disappearing and I don't see how Grattan can argue that Australia's immigration program should go full steam ahead during bad economic times just so we will not have mythical labor shortages when things turn around. Lastly she briefly mentions there are "lot of positives in immigration " without bothering to mention any. Another useless argument, in any debate about immigration there can be many arguments that are just as valid against immigration.
Predictable Fairfax media pro-immigration line
Sadly Grattan is an employee of Fairfax. A predominantly print-media company that made most of its money out of classifieds, mainly in real-estate, jobs adverts and car sales. The print classifieds are losing market share to the internet, where dedicated web-companies have come in to all 3 of these categories and are eating into Fairfax's income. The Age which is the broadsheet newspaper of Melbourne has as far as I know always propagated a pro-immigration line so in this case Grattan is simply parroting the company line. Really she should be a commentator of federal political events and not a mouthpiece for a particular point of view.
'Our' ABC also touting growth (again)
A few minutes after Grattan's opinions were given, the Breakfast program ran another pro-immigration segment, headed "Global financial crisis impact on Australian immigration". The audio file is here.
ACTU National Secretary defends immigrant worker flood
As is all too common on the ABC these days, it presented only one side of the argument. It started with Sam Wong, a pharmacist and skilled migrant from the 1970's who extolled the virtues of immigration, telling us how they have created more wealth for the Australian economy. Surprisingly, they had the ACTU National Secretary Jeff Lawrence, someone who you would think would want to protect the right of workers, said the government should wait for a serious slowdown before making changes. Not surprisingly, Peter Anderson CEO, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, also urged caution. He used a nice weasel word phrase "As we move into more difficult economic times the levels of demand in the labor force will progressively change" - i.e. unemployment is now going to jump significantly.
But he wants labour force to be "properly resourced" - a code word for employers to maintain low wages.
'Targeted' Immigration Program more like Blind Man's Buff
The immigration minister Chris Evans then gets his say. He says the skilled immigration program needs to be "better targeted", focusing on doctors nurses and the mining industry. Despite the collapse in commodity prices he still thinks that the mining industry is an area of serious skills shortage. He then says it "might be the economic boost that these migrants provide be important for maintaining strength in the economy and provide jobs for other Australians".
Peter Anderson - a conservative sermon
At the end Peter Anderson makes the point that "a political stoush over immigration levels is the last thing the economy needs. What we must avoid is creating a political process and a political bidding war around the reduction in skilled migration that would ultimately weaken the Australian economy and make it more difficult to come out these global challenges with our economy in a stronger position."
So in this last sentence Peter Anderson sounds very much like Michelle Grattan. Readers of The Age may think that it is has a progressive and occasionally left-of-centre viewpoint but in serious matters such as the immigration program, they are completely aligned with the right-wing business groups.
Why does the ABC depart from usual process on population growth?
Normally when the ABC has such segments, they say they sort out the politician who represents the opposite viewpoint, stating that such-an-such was unavailable for comment for this report. In this case they didn't even bother seeking an alternative. Except for the ABC NewsRadio interview on Sunday morning (26th Oct 2008), I cannot find any mention on the ABC web-site of opposition immigration spokeswoman Sharman Stone's call except for this very brief item. "Australia in no rush to reduce migrant intake" (http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stories/200810/s2401501.htm)
Let's see if the ABC can correct this situation and examine viewpoints that support Sharman Stone.
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