Progressives should support lower immigration

The far-right obviously hijacked the recent Marches for Australia in an attempt to garner support for a sinister racist and anti-progressive agenda on other things such as climate change, guns, employment, gender policies and so on.

But equally, the selfish property-retail-employer group seized on the threat from the far right to beguile progressives into thinking that the only way to counter the racism and the far-right agenda is to support high immigration. 

And the progressive left fell for it, falling in line with the illogical idea that supporting high immigration is a progressive, non-racist thing to do.

Estimates vary, but about a net 1.8 million people have emigrated to Australia in the past four years.

Views about this vary: valuable people are coming to do high-skilled jobs that Australia cannot train for; people are coming in to do the shitty jobs that Australians do not want to do; the Christian white culture of Australia is being destroyed; our jobs are being stolen; people are contributing to valuable cultural diversity; and so on.

All of them are mostly wrong or misguided.

We do not need to bring in 400,000 plus people a year to snare a few rocket scientists or even nurses – besides, what right so we have to steal other nations’ talents, particularly nurses from the Third World? As to shitty jobs, if pay rates are right, people already here will do them. As to Christian repression, we have religious freedom in Australia; white Christians should have no fear. As to stolen jobs, there are plenty of jobs; none are being “stolen”. And we already have cultural diversity.

We have to look at this differently. The 1.8 million recent immigrants are here as permanent residents soon to be Australian citizens. The far-right US-inspired agenda of vilification is utterly abhorrent.

Looked at properly, we have a duty to these 1.8 million people. The duty is to ensure proper housing, health care, and education for them and their children.

High immigration adversely impacts recent migrants more than nearly any other group in Australia. Recent migrants are queueing up for housing, health care, education, and services in general more than nearly any other group. And every subsequent year of high immigration makes those goals less attainable for existing migrants.

We should not invite people in for a gourmet dinner and give them half a cold sausage and leftover mash and make them sit outside.

If you want to support migrants, as I do, you should support lower immigration.

Also, “progressives” should wake up to the con job of the high-immigration retail-property set and look at the position of Indigenous Australians. Since 1788, more and more land, sacred places, and Indigenous culture and memory has been consumed. It is about time progressive Australia realises that supporting high immigration is racist, not anti-racist. High immigration is in fact Continuous Invasion. 

Intelligent, sensitive progressives should damn high immigration in the name of Indigenous Australians and recently arrived migrants. Until we can satisfactorily deal with their legitimate concerns, we should not be rapidly increasing our population.

Then there is the economic argument. Too many voodoo economists jiggle figures to argue that high immigration is good for “the economy”.

One recent example is KPMG’s argument that cutting immigration so Australia had near zero population growth would mean a 2.4 percent lower GDP after 10 years.

KPMG’s modelling shows that with lower immigration, after 10 years, the population would be 29 million with 2.4 per cent lower GDP. With high immigration the population would be 31.4 million with 2.4 higher GDP.

Well, let’s take KPMG at its word. Rounding the figures to illustrate the point let’s take an economy of $2000 billion. At, say, 2 per cent growth, in 10 years it would be $2536 billion spread among 31.4 million people. With lower immigration, on KPMG’s figures, the growth would be 2.4 per cent lower, with an economy of $2475 billion but spread among only 29 million.

Well, well, in the high-immigration scenario the 31.4 million people sharing $2536 billion would get $80,764 each. In the low immigration scenario, the 29 million would get $85,345 each.

I would rather live in an Australia with 29 million people on an average income of $85,345 than in an Australia of 31.4 million with an average income of $80,764, and who cares less about the total GDP.

Economists are so obsessed with total GDP that they miss the point. KPMG’s calculations to support high immigration actually prove the opposite.

We are better off with lower immigration. I would much rather have a higher income in a smaller economy than a lower income in a larger economy – especially as it would come with lower congestion, lower infrastructure stress, and less environmental destruction.

That is, of course, unless you are in the top bracket who cream off the greater share of any increased income in a more unequal higher total economy.

Going back to the marches, people are rightly fed up with the stresses on health, education, housing, infrastructure and the congestion and environmental degradation that high immigration brings.

It is vital that the Albanese Government does not allow the far right to exploit this resentment to jeopardise good government in Australia. One Nation is up 4 percentage points in the Resolve latest poll. Half say immigration is too high; more than half say it is mismanaged; only a quarter say it is about right. 

In Britain, high immigration has eroded Labour’s support from the mid-30s at the last election to low 20s now – causing Nigel Farage’s far-right Reform Party to salivate. In Australia, Labor can only stop that rot by a steady racially neutral reduction in immigration.

If you support migrants, Indigenous people, the environment, the preservation of agricultural land, greater labour productivity through capital investment and oppose labour exploitation, and the manipulation of racism as a trojan horse to get egregious support for right-wing causes, you should support a reduction in immigration.

Endless growth is madness. Europeans arrived in Australia 237 years ago. Population growth recently has been just over 2 per cent a year. If that rate continues for the next 237 years, Australia’s population will be . . .  wait for it . . .  35 billion – more than four times the present world population. It is Year 10 maths.

Clearly, the present population growth has to stop some time lest we all starve. The only question is when. Any informed person sensitive to the environment and human economic prosperity would say, very soon if not right now.

This article first appeared in The Canberra Times and other Australian media on 16 September 2025.