TREASURY briefings to Population Minister Tony Burke advocate a high migration rate being used to offset the impact of Australia’s ageing population and help maintain economic growth.
But Treasury remains concerned the states are unprepared for a population boom, with housing shortages and infrastructure bottlenecks across the nation.
The April briefs for Mr Burke, obtained by The Australian using Freedom of Information laws, give a frank assessment of population trends and future challenges. Net Overseas Migration — permanent migrants and long-term temporary migrants — is a key driver of population growth and within 10 years is expected to equal the natural increase.
While Treasury forecasts NOM nonetheless falling to 180,000 by 2020, before plateauing, it warns a further fall to 100,000 and lower fertility would be enough to slow growth to 2.3 per cent, and slash gross domestic product by 17 per cent by 2050.
“Population growth ameliorates the ageing of the population,” the ministerial brief states.
“Migrants tend to be younger on average than the resident population, boosting the labour force.”
With Australia’s population expected to surpass 29 million within 20 years, Mr Burke has been told NSW, Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory have no population policies. Queensland — which will accommodate more new residents in regional centres, compared with mainly capital city increases in other states — also lacked reliable population projections but was still “attempting to plan for current and future needs”.
Mr Burke, who was given the portfolio specifically to develop an overarching population strategy, said yesterday the forecast NOM reduction was “simply a projection; not a target . . . not a policy”.
“Much of the public discussion on population is about total national figures and ignores the different needs of different parts of Australia,” he said. “The truth is, if Australia only contained 10 million people, we would still be overcrowded if they lived in Sydney.
“What the debate needs now is to look materially at the differences between those parts of the country where infrastructure and carrying capacity is being stretched and those areas that are crying out for more workers.”
Aakifah Suleman, 21, migrated from Zimbabwe with her family in 1989, her parents expecting their children to benefit from an Australian education and then return home. But they enjoyed their experience so much they stayed, with Ms Suleman recently graduating as an occupational therapist and working with the Multicultural Development Association in Brisbane.
“When people come from other countries, they bring so many different skills and elements of their own culture and it makes Australian culture much richer,” she said.
The permanent skilled migration program, the government’s main policy lever to influence NOM, is reviewed annually within a budgetary context. The government has set a preferred band of 150,000 to 230,000.
Immigration Minister Chris Evans last week heralded a 20 per cent drop in NOM,saying it would hit between 230,000 and 250,000 by the end of 2009-10.
via Treasury push for big migration boost to offset population ageing | The Australian.
