Boom pressures PM to boost migration

Friday, 6th May 2011

THE government is under pressure to lift the annual migration target in next week’s budget, despite Julia Gillard’s pre-election promise to abandon her predecessor’s commitment to a “big Australia”.

A collapse in net overseas migration levels follows Treasury concern that the resources boom will demand a greater intake of foreign skilled workers.
Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott yesterday said the permanent migration intake, which is set in the budget, had an important role in addressing skills shortages.

“We believe at least two-thirds of the program should be skills-based so that people who come into the country have the skills we need for a stronger, increasingly diverse economy,” Ms Westacott said.

The BCA has called for the government to commit to net migration of at least 180,000 a year.

However, forecasts by the Immigration Department suggest it dropped to 179,600 last year, down more than 40 per cent from the 315,000 peak reached in 2008.
The incoming government briefs prepared by the Treasury Department for Labor and the Coalition before last year’s election said rapid population growth was sustainable and inevitable.

The brief prepared in the event of a Coalition victory was sharp in its assessment of its election policy to cut net migration to no more than 170,000.
It said this would require policy changes to migration and warned “it will be important to ensure that flexibility in the economy is not significantly inhibited”.
While Treasury has almost certainly pressed for an increase in the permanent migration program, the issue is politically fraught.

High levels of migration were a favourite subject for conservative talkback hosts throughout last year and Ms Gillard sought to silence it as an issue for Labor immediately after her overthrow of Kevin Rudd..

“I don’t believe in a big Australia,” she said in her first television interview as Prime Minister.

In last year’s budget, the government held the permanent immigration target steady at 168,700, although there was an increase in the number of skilled workers and a cut in the number of family reunions.

If Australia stopped all migration, its population would still grow by 1.1 million over the next 10 years from natural growth, but the numbers of working age would rise by only 21,000. In contrast, the numbers aged 65 and over would rise by 944,000.

Source: www.theaustralian.com.au