If Australia wants to lower migration it needs more productivity
The article argues that Australia's political focus on reducing migration to address economic dissatisfaction is misguided, suggesting that low productivity is the true cause of declining living standards. It critiques the major political parties for using anti-immigration rhetoric to mask deeper economic failures.
Why it matters
It challenges the prevailing political narrative in Australia regarding population growth and provides an economic perspective on the root causes of public unhappiness.
Australia's three key political parties have all offered strategies to lower population growth. ( AAP: Dean Lewins )
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Everyone now understands that growing the economy only by increasing the number of people, while individuals feel worse off, is a recipe for unhappiness and dissent.
Aggregate growth is a statistic, but individual decline is a vote. The political solution? Fewer people.
That's because those in focus groups and answering polling questions complain about how many people they can see, rather than the reason they are worse off: weak productivity, which they can't see.
As a result, we now have three significant political parties instead of the usual two.
The third newcomer, One Nation, is an anti-immigration party harvesting unhappiness and dissent. The other two have put on some anti-immigration clothes and have got on the grievance catwalk as well.
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