Premier Bob Carr has been roundly criticised for saying that Sydney’s growth should be curtailed by somehow reducing the number of migrants who settle there. His comments have been seen as migrant-bashing and have raised the ire of the ethnic community organisations. He pointed out that Sydney takes 40 per cent of Australia’s migrants although the city has only 22 per cent of Australia’s population. Others have pointed out that there is a lot of on-migration to other states and that as a result NSW has a lower population growth than most other states. Mr Carr’s statements raise several unrelated issues. Perhaps the most minor is a worrying trend by Mr Carr to appeal to the prejudices of the unthinking. His participation in the ugly auction with former Premier John Fahey over crime before the election was the first example. This pandering to anti-migrant sentiment is the second _ though this time it was less brazen. He wants fewer migrants in Sydney.
This is to be done by giving preference to migrants would want to settle outside Sydney and encouraging migrants to settle elsewhere _ presumably there is no plan to target migrants already in Sydney to move. The trouble with these ideas is: how does one keep migrants out of Sydney once they are in Australia _ perhaps having told immigration officials they intend settling in Bourke? Is there to be some obnoxious directive about where people might live. Clearly not. Australia must continue with freedom of movement. And once a migrant is a resident of Australia he or she must be treated the same as everyone else. If Mr Carr is worried about the growth of Sydney it must be dealt with in a more general context.
Mr Carr asked, “”Why should Sydney take all the burden of Australia’s population growth?” The more important question is: “”Why have excessive population growth, or population growth at all, if it is a burden?” In short, Australia should develop a population policy. It does not have one, and it should have. In developing that policy, we should look at the quality of life in the large cities; economic affect of extra consumption; the cost of infrastructure and loss of agricultural land; and the affects on the environment such as air pollution, species retention and so on. It may well be that up to a point extra population results in a more cared-for environment and a more productive economy through bigger markets. However, it is likely that more people will be more consumptive both economically and environmentally.
The essential point is that we do not know. In particular, we do not know the effect of immigration on these things. All we have to go on is the research by the recently renamed Bureau of Immigration, Multicultural and Population Research which rarely if ever concludes that immigration is anything other than a good thing. The other point about Mr Carr’s comments is that immigration is a touchy subject _ so touchy indeed that no-one can question it without facing a severe, rote criticism from ethnic groups, which can be especially damaging for a politician. In a way that can be self-injuring. The broad acceptance of a multi-cultural society, with all of its great values, can be undermined if governments attempt to run immigration at levels that are seen as unsustainable or too costly. It is time the Federal Government engaged in some serious discussion about a population policy.