Great article. I listened to that podcast—it was extremely interesting and horrifying; a peek directly into the brain of one of the unelected mandarins who has destroyed our country and is proud of it.
The most illuminating bit you have highlighted but not mentioned the full conversation:
Audience member: would Australians have voted for [mass immigration]?
Rivzi: No
(Pause)
(Laughter)
Rivzi: luckily they were distracted by Tampa!
(Raucous laughter)
Walker: it was regulatory!
Rivzi: yes regulatory!
(More laughter)
Says it all really.
I wonder how Howard allowed himself to be conned by this charlatan. And then how Howard and every other politician got behind it? Why?
The point you make—that we could have been Norway—is the key. Why did we choose to be a mass immigration nothing country which is importing (!!!) gas despite being one of worlds biggest exporters when we could have chosen the Scandinavian model??
Great article. Thanks for drawing attention to this. I listened to the interview was shocked by Rizvi's frankness in revealing that this program which enjoys ironclad bipartisan support is in fact a creation of bureaucrats who view it as their right to simultaneously manage Australians as if we were cattle while manipulating politicians to avoid being forced to deal with difficult problems.
I was also horrified by Rizvi's apparent attitude that is is the right of bureaucrats rather than elected representatives to shape the creation and enforcement of politically significant policies. I found his suggestion to give a free pass to the ~80K over stayers particularly galling. He seems to think that it's simultaneously his right to push new policies on politicians, and then ignore policies that he finds inconvenient!
I was disappointed with the interviewer. I think he missed several opportunities to probe Rizvi and shed light on the origins of the big Australia policy. Rizvi says that the main reason for the policy was to slow the aging of the population to make it easier to adjust. An obvious follow-up question is "Since the migration policy was changed, what policies have been enacted to adjust to an aging population, and how successful have they been?". I think the answer to this will reveal that program was just a lazy way to delay the problem (recall that Rizvi finds even the deportation of overstayers too hard!)
Rizvi mentions that businesses would find it difficult to adjust to aging population. Was one of the goals of the policy to prevent the increase in the power of labour that would otherwise be caused by a declining workforce?
Rizvi says "The program was hard for many ministers, I might even say prime ministers, it was difficult for them to swallow". I think some digging here would have shown that the program was the brainchild of bureaucrats and forced on politicians.
Something I think you missed is the contempt that Rizvi and his interviewer have for any dissenting opinions, and the laziness with which they dismiss negative consequences of the program.
The interviewer claims that sentiment against migration policy stems from people "scapegoating" migrants due to high housing costs. And Rizvi replies with "they [students] have an impact near universities ... Working holiday makers have an impact on backpacker hostel accommodation, but they have very little impact in suburban Australia", and they go on to agree that because international students can't afford to buy homes, they couldn't possibly affect prices. They both seem to miss the aparments packed with working holidaymakers in Bondi, and the fact that students pushing up rents near the CBD push young professionals into the suburbs.
One is left with the impression that Rizvi is insulated from the consequences of his own policy. He don't live in Harris Park, Hurtsville, or one of the dismal new developments on the outside of Sydney. he isn't tens of thousands of dollars in debt for a degree whose value is being inflated away. He doesn't have family members who are struggling to find even an entry level job (when Sydney's supermarkets seem to be exclusively staffed by one ethnicity, and bartending job ads are posted in foreign languages). He doesn't have family working in areas like aged care whose wages have stagnated for years (notwithstanding the recent increase) because the sector is mostly staffed with immigrants who will gladly accept worse conditions than locals. He isn't paying through the nose for an education which is degraded by classmates who can barely speak the language (I would very much like to know if Rizvi accepted a stipend while working on his PhD). He hasn't noticed homeless Australians sleeping on Sydney's streets just metres from buildings devoted to housing foreign students.
I went out west to Geelong in the summer. 80% of people were brown, and initially I felt sorry for white Australians ( I long haven't felt sorry for myself, for my heart is in the East), who are being replaced against their will. But then I realised that few of them have kids - they've mostly done it to themselves. So I don't really blame the Rizvi's of this world. At least not too much.
An aside to your description of the fall of the Church as akin to the Tower of Babel - Rabbi S.R. Hirsch explains that sin of the builders of the Tower was that they didn't listen to G-d. In the aftermath of the Deluge, he commanded Noah's sons (i.e. all of humanity) to expand the frontier and civilise the world - but they did not listen, instead building a city with a large central temple (the Tower) and keeping everything local. The punishment was the imposition of various languages and cultures, which forced them to separate and conquer new lands.
So the lesson still applies today - have kids, be fruitful and multiply, and go conquer new lands. But Aussies (and the West at large) don't listen, they're happy staying local and just vegetating, so it seems G-d (via agents like Rizvi) imposes foreign languages and cultures upon them.
Great article and excellent insight. The technocratic mindset of these sorts of bureaucrats is nauseating.
One point though i want to challenge you on. You said:
"In 2021 when the ABS took its final census on ethnic background (why did they stop?)"
This is incorrect. The ABS Census question is about ancestry and has been asked in 1986 then again in 2001 to 2021. For the upcoming 2026 Census the ABS did test adding an ethnicity question into the Census. However, despite testing multiple concepts around ethnic identity, including “ethnic group/s”, “cultural background”, “ethnic and cultural heritage” and “the culture you belong to”, there were significant issues. Most notably, the testing showed that the public is unlikely to have a consistent understanding of what ethnic identity is, or the difference between ethnic identity and ancestry. The ABS determined that due to these complexities collecting both ethnic identity and ancestry on the same form is not feasible for the 2026 Census. Due to the strong support for the retention of the Ancestry topic, the topic of Ethnic identity will not proceed further in the development and testing stage.
Regardless, ancestry will still continue to be asked on the 2026 Census and will be expanded so people can select up to 4 ancestries where previously you could only select two. So if you are comparing 2021 to 2026, there will be no loss of ancestry data.
Hope that helps clear up the ethnicity being "removed" issue. I see it floating around a fair bit and its just not true. Ethnicity was never asked before, ancestry was, and will continue to be asked.
Great article thanks. This is the kind of thinking that has got us where we are. The role of money in driving this is not to be underestimated and unis love cash. My one subject at Sydney Uni was a waste because no one in my tutorial could voice their view confidently in English.
First, looking at your graph of population increase it is actually striking how smooth it is. When discussing things online in relation to the housing and immigration it's been pointed out to me that our per capita rate of immigration peaked in the late 1960s early 1970s when housing was still affordable.
Also, it's great that you looked up McDonald's paper on population. He says 'at least 80K' not specifically 80K though.
Finally, have you seen Pierre Poilievre's proposed immigration policy for Canada? He proposes that immigration be tied to housing completions which seems very sensible. Given he is very likely to be their next PM it seems that policy will be tested. Perhaps Australia will then copy Canada as we did with the points system.
The shortsightedness reminds me of the debate about denser cities to house more people.
Denser cities means available land is even more expensive with less land per person, and the only solution to that for future generations is... even denser cities with less land per person ad infinitum.
There's a perverse breakpoint to this cycle, though: fertility rates seem to drop precipitously with increasing density!
This is indeed the proximate cause of the mass immigration and Big Australia farrago. In a wider sense it was made possible by the confluence of two global ideological projects (globalisation and social justice) that would strongly interact.
But the local problem has always been a decay in Australian democracy where, through bipartisan accord, an elite has been allowed to operate the population levers at the behest of the vested interest who profit from a ‘people market’ enabled by the misuse of sovereign powers (migration and citizenship powers).
It is a misuse of power, because the Australian people have never been provided an opportunity to vote on or endorse any of it.
Hence, the problem is not economic, scientific or ‘demographic' - but 100% democratic and political. It is about what goes on in our so called ‘democratic institutions’ and who is ultimately sovereign; the people, the bureaucrats or a political class?
Many well-meaning people who oppose Big Australia, have nevertheless sought not to sully themselves with the politics of democratic decay. But they are fooling themselves. As this issue is 100% political. It is the story of how relatively few bureaucrats and shrills appointed themselves as Australia’s population engineers as the political class found their way around the electorate to create a new mass migration ‘market’ - one that would mint new Australians through the university system.
Like Misha Saul has done, it is totally appropriate to scrutinise Abul Risvi, yet there is a much larger cabal - Peter McDonald, Liz Allen, Innes Willox etc. For these are the machine men and women in a coup of sorts - and are far from independent actors.
Their’s was a coup to subvert and overthrow democratic decision making about the nature of Australia and to paint those citizens who rejected mass migration and a Big Australia as bigots and luddites. For this is the way of state-sponsored propaganda, that must be turned back on itself.
As once the very few people who delivered on a Big Australia, and the means by which they did so, are exposed, mass immigration will be seen for the scam it is. Only then will it become politically impossible to maintain. As to do otherwise means that the Australian political class would be imagined to listen to likes Abul Rizvi and not the Australian electorate. That is the stuff that revolutions are made from. And it is high time that Australia had a revolution, of one type or another, to re-assert the sovereignty of its people.
But we need not imagine that people like Abul Rizvi represent the power, the lobbying and money behind the venture of Big Australia - this was more the the Scanlon Institute, the "Think Tanks" and big vested interests who are far too smart to leave their fingerprints on the levels that the likes of Abul will pull on their behalf.
Abul Rizvi was a public servant who, among others, decided to invent a new public. True though, he is an authoritarian population engineer and administrator with no commitment to democracy or the Australian public that he notionally served. He's a character from an Orwellian present who imagines himself to be an intellectual force, not a minion and facilitator of plans hatched by a monied elite. Like most Australians, he will never gain a membership to the old boy's clubs and circles he has actually worked for and advanced. And something tells me that Abul already knows this and will take it to the grave. I doubt that Abul Rizvi sleeps well at night. He must know that he has more in common with the average Australian who he has betrayed, than the masters he served.
However, his dissonance, that comes across in spades in the recent interview, is nothing less than repugnant. It reveals a belief that it was his ideology and grand scheme, and not the will of the Australian people, that mattered. It is boastful of the elite project to use population engineering, whether the Australian people wanted it or not. But these were neither his ideas nor did he have the authority he imagines he had. He's the fall guy, the patsy, the low level functionary, boastful yet not smart enough to know that he placed the rubber stamp, pulled the levers and jumped through the hoops.
In some ways, he is everything that is wrong with the culture of the half-smart Australian elite who hate the very people who pay their salary and will do almost anything not to consult them about the destiny of their own nation.
There are a few dozen Abul Rizvis, but hiding behind them is the large Uluru-sized boil growing on our democracy. Australians need to roll up their sleeves, grab something sharp and collectively drive the lance home.
It makes sense for Howard (and the business lobby) to support the importation of cheap labor, as well as the left due to its obvious antipathy to Australian culture. Large scale immigration was more the path of least resistance than bureaucratic overreach/conspiracy - although you're right in saying we're a bureaucracy infested country
Respectfully, I think your piece has a blind spot:
Funding the budget, and the lavish spending the entire country of recipients want.
Here is how I frame my perspective:
You casually said the Japanese are doing ok. I looked at the state pension Japanese retirees receive: it’s about AUD $300 a month.
Aussie pensioners receive $1100, nearly four times as much.
If Japanese pensioners don’t have a working family to live with and look after them, they essentially live in poverty.
This problem is only going to exacerbate if you look at the shape of their population pyramid.
Australia is primarily funded by income taxes. Not forgetting consumption taxes and transaction taxes like stamp duty. We pay for our lavish welfare programs by strip-mining the pockets of everybody who would give up 40% of their income to live and work here.
How much of our spending mechanically grows each year as a new cohort of retirees hit 67 and every program indexed to inflation is repriced?
Aussies expect their welfare and expect it to keep up with inflation.
We’re spoiled. Are bureaucrats responsible for this culture?
You yourself rail against the NDIS and I applaud that. But how many harebrained new lavish spending schemes do the left want?
How many ordinary Aussies are happy to willingly take advantage of new spending schemes?
The problem starts with the Aussie culture which birthed to these bureaucrat: one that expects the government to provide.
Denmark and the Netherlands have great data on the budget impact of their recent immigrants. It's net negative. Any reason to suspect that Australia would be different?
Who exactly immigrates matters a lot for budget impact
Interesting take Misha, but it feels like your essay gives Rizvi too much credit in shaping Australia’s immigration policy in the early 2000s - almost as if his ideas were the sole driving force behind immigration policy. (Note: I have not listened to the interview yet).
Is that even true? It does feels like a bit of a stretch—policy decisions are rarely that straightforward and are usually shaped by political agendas, economic realities, and public sentiment. Not just one ‘technocrat’ working in the Department of Immigration.
Also, I feel your piece leans heavily on the downsides of immigration without really acknowledging any positives, like economic growth and cultural diversity. Broadly, I’d say multiculturalism has resulted in a far more interesting Australia - even just in terms of cuisine alone!
You've pointed out countries which historically have had low immigration numbers, but ignored others which have extremely high relative levels of immigration and have traditionally benefitted over the long run (e.g. the USA). I guess what I'm saying is there doesn't seem to be a one size fits all rule on migration.
Though, one area where you quote Rizvi where I think Rizvi is dead wrong is “And any society does not want to have, I think, a permanent underclass of exploited people. That’s not Australia”.
I think this is wrong - it is Australia right now. There is a great book by Peter Mares “Not Quite Australia” which discusses at length the issues with temporary migration, which I think is well worth a read.
Great article. I listened to that podcast—it was extremely interesting and horrifying; a peek directly into the brain of one of the unelected mandarins who has destroyed our country and is proud of it.
The most illuminating bit you have highlighted but not mentioned the full conversation:
Audience member: would Australians have voted for [mass immigration]?
Rivzi: No
(Pause)
(Laughter)
Rivzi: luckily they were distracted by Tampa!
(Raucous laughter)
Walker: it was regulatory!
Rivzi: yes regulatory!
(More laughter)
Says it all really.
I wonder how Howard allowed himself to be conned by this charlatan. And then how Howard and every other politician got behind it? Why?
The point you make—that we could have been Norway—is the key. Why did we choose to be a mass immigration nothing country which is importing (!!!) gas despite being one of worlds biggest exporters when we could have chosen the Scandinavian model??
Really great article.
Great article. Thanks for drawing attention to this. I listened to the interview was shocked by Rizvi's frankness in revealing that this program which enjoys ironclad bipartisan support is in fact a creation of bureaucrats who view it as their right to simultaneously manage Australians as if we were cattle while manipulating politicians to avoid being forced to deal with difficult problems.
I was also horrified by Rizvi's apparent attitude that is is the right of bureaucrats rather than elected representatives to shape the creation and enforcement of politically significant policies. I found his suggestion to give a free pass to the ~80K over stayers particularly galling. He seems to think that it's simultaneously his right to push new policies on politicians, and then ignore policies that he finds inconvenient!
I was disappointed with the interviewer. I think he missed several opportunities to probe Rizvi and shed light on the origins of the big Australia policy. Rizvi says that the main reason for the policy was to slow the aging of the population to make it easier to adjust. An obvious follow-up question is "Since the migration policy was changed, what policies have been enacted to adjust to an aging population, and how successful have they been?". I think the answer to this will reveal that program was just a lazy way to delay the problem (recall that Rizvi finds even the deportation of overstayers too hard!)
Rizvi mentions that businesses would find it difficult to adjust to aging population. Was one of the goals of the policy to prevent the increase in the power of labour that would otherwise be caused by a declining workforce?
Rizvi says "The program was hard for many ministers, I might even say prime ministers, it was difficult for them to swallow". I think some digging here would have shown that the program was the brainchild of bureaucrats and forced on politicians.
Something I think you missed is the contempt that Rizvi and his interviewer have for any dissenting opinions, and the laziness with which they dismiss negative consequences of the program.
The interviewer claims that sentiment against migration policy stems from people "scapegoating" migrants due to high housing costs. And Rizvi replies with "they [students] have an impact near universities ... Working holiday makers have an impact on backpacker hostel accommodation, but they have very little impact in suburban Australia", and they go on to agree that because international students can't afford to buy homes, they couldn't possibly affect prices. They both seem to miss the aparments packed with working holidaymakers in Bondi, and the fact that students pushing up rents near the CBD push young professionals into the suburbs.
One is left with the impression that Rizvi is insulated from the consequences of his own policy. He don't live in Harris Park, Hurtsville, or one of the dismal new developments on the outside of Sydney. he isn't tens of thousands of dollars in debt for a degree whose value is being inflated away. He doesn't have family members who are struggling to find even an entry level job (when Sydney's supermarkets seem to be exclusively staffed by one ethnicity, and bartending job ads are posted in foreign languages). He doesn't have family working in areas like aged care whose wages have stagnated for years (notwithstanding the recent increase) because the sector is mostly staffed with immigrants who will gladly accept worse conditions than locals. He isn't paying through the nose for an education which is degraded by classmates who can barely speak the language (I would very much like to know if Rizvi accepted a stipend while working on his PhD). He hasn't noticed homeless Australians sleeping on Sydney's streets just metres from buildings devoted to housing foreign students.
Excellent piece !
It’s absolutely hilarious that he thinks China is about to copy his scheme
I went out west to Geelong in the summer. 80% of people were brown, and initially I felt sorry for white Australians ( I long haven't felt sorry for myself, for my heart is in the East), who are being replaced against their will. But then I realised that few of them have kids - they've mostly done it to themselves. So I don't really blame the Rizvi's of this world. At least not too much.
An aside to your description of the fall of the Church as akin to the Tower of Babel - Rabbi S.R. Hirsch explains that sin of the builders of the Tower was that they didn't listen to G-d. In the aftermath of the Deluge, he commanded Noah's sons (i.e. all of humanity) to expand the frontier and civilise the world - but they did not listen, instead building a city with a large central temple (the Tower) and keeping everything local. The punishment was the imposition of various languages and cultures, which forced them to separate and conquer new lands.
So the lesson still applies today - have kids, be fruitful and multiply, and go conquer new lands. But Aussies (and the West at large) don't listen, they're happy staying local and just vegetating, so it seems G-d (via agents like Rizvi) imposes foreign languages and cultures upon them.
Great article and excellent insight. The technocratic mindset of these sorts of bureaucrats is nauseating.
One point though i want to challenge you on. You said:
"In 2021 when the ABS took its final census on ethnic background (why did they stop?)"
This is incorrect. The ABS Census question is about ancestry and has been asked in 1986 then again in 2001 to 2021. For the upcoming 2026 Census the ABS did test adding an ethnicity question into the Census. However, despite testing multiple concepts around ethnic identity, including “ethnic group/s”, “cultural background”, “ethnic and cultural heritage” and “the culture you belong to”, there were significant issues. Most notably, the testing showed that the public is unlikely to have a consistent understanding of what ethnic identity is, or the difference between ethnic identity and ancestry. The ABS determined that due to these complexities collecting both ethnic identity and ancestry on the same form is not feasible for the 2026 Census. Due to the strong support for the retention of the Ancestry topic, the topic of Ethnic identity will not proceed further in the development and testing stage.
Regardless, ancestry will still continue to be asked on the 2026 Census and will be expanded so people can select up to 4 ancestries where previously you could only select two. So if you are comparing 2021 to 2026, there will be no loss of ancestry data.
Hope that helps clear up the ethnicity being "removed" issue. I see it floating around a fair bit and its just not true. Ethnicity was never asked before, ancestry was, and will continue to be asked.
Great article thanks. This is the kind of thinking that has got us where we are. The role of money in driving this is not to be underestimated and unis love cash. My one subject at Sydney Uni was a waste because no one in my tutorial could voice their view confidently in English.
This is an excellent bit of writing.
A few things.
First, looking at your graph of population increase it is actually striking how smooth it is. When discussing things online in relation to the housing and immigration it's been pointed out to me that our per capita rate of immigration peaked in the late 1960s early 1970s when housing was still affordable.
Also, it's great that you looked up McDonald's paper on population. He says 'at least 80K' not specifically 80K though.
Finally, have you seen Pierre Poilievre's proposed immigration policy for Canada? He proposes that immigration be tied to housing completions which seems very sensible. Given he is very likely to be their next PM it seems that policy will be tested. Perhaps Australia will then copy Canada as we did with the points system.
Excellent article Misha
Three cheers!
The shortsightedness reminds me of the debate about denser cities to house more people.
Denser cities means available land is even more expensive with less land per person, and the only solution to that for future generations is... even denser cities with less land per person ad infinitum.
There's a perverse breakpoint to this cycle, though: fertility rates seem to drop precipitously with increasing density!
When you control for demographics (age + marriage status), the relationship between density and fertility is very weak across the last 100 years.
Living situation (eg living with your parents?) does matter, but thats only recently become associated with density
AKA Townhomes and duplexes don't hurt fertility
The relationship between density and fertility has been strong for millennia.
Cities are bad for fertility; dense cities even worse.
https://www.lorenzofromoz.net/p/collapsing-fertility-is-not-so-mysterious
This is indeed the proximate cause of the mass immigration and Big Australia farrago. In a wider sense it was made possible by the confluence of two global ideological projects (globalisation and social justice) that would strongly interact.
But the local problem has always been a decay in Australian democracy where, through bipartisan accord, an elite has been allowed to operate the population levers at the behest of the vested interest who profit from a ‘people market’ enabled by the misuse of sovereign powers (migration and citizenship powers).
It is a misuse of power, because the Australian people have never been provided an opportunity to vote on or endorse any of it.
Hence, the problem is not economic, scientific or ‘demographic' - but 100% democratic and political. It is about what goes on in our so called ‘democratic institutions’ and who is ultimately sovereign; the people, the bureaucrats or a political class?
Many well-meaning people who oppose Big Australia, have nevertheless sought not to sully themselves with the politics of democratic decay. But they are fooling themselves. As this issue is 100% political. It is the story of how relatively few bureaucrats and shrills appointed themselves as Australia’s population engineers as the political class found their way around the electorate to create a new mass migration ‘market’ - one that would mint new Australians through the university system.
Like Misha Saul has done, it is totally appropriate to scrutinise Abul Risvi, yet there is a much larger cabal - Peter McDonald, Liz Allen, Innes Willox etc. For these are the machine men and women in a coup of sorts - and are far from independent actors.
Their’s was a coup to subvert and overthrow democratic decision making about the nature of Australia and to paint those citizens who rejected mass migration and a Big Australia as bigots and luddites. For this is the way of state-sponsored propaganda, that must be turned back on itself.
As once the very few people who delivered on a Big Australia, and the means by which they did so, are exposed, mass immigration will be seen for the scam it is. Only then will it become politically impossible to maintain. As to do otherwise means that the Australian political class would be imagined to listen to likes Abul Rizvi and not the Australian electorate. That is the stuff that revolutions are made from. And it is high time that Australia had a revolution, of one type or another, to re-assert the sovereignty of its people.
But we need not imagine that people like Abul Rizvi represent the power, the lobbying and money behind the venture of Big Australia - this was more the the Scanlon Institute, the "Think Tanks" and big vested interests who are far too smart to leave their fingerprints on the levels that the likes of Abul will pull on their behalf.
Abul Rizvi was a public servant who, among others, decided to invent a new public. True though, he is an authoritarian population engineer and administrator with no commitment to democracy or the Australian public that he notionally served. He's a character from an Orwellian present who imagines himself to be an intellectual force, not a minion and facilitator of plans hatched by a monied elite. Like most Australians, he will never gain a membership to the old boy's clubs and circles he has actually worked for and advanced. And something tells me that Abul already knows this and will take it to the grave. I doubt that Abul Rizvi sleeps well at night. He must know that he has more in common with the average Australian who he has betrayed, than the masters he served.
However, his dissonance, that comes across in spades in the recent interview, is nothing less than repugnant. It reveals a belief that it was his ideology and grand scheme, and not the will of the Australian people, that mattered. It is boastful of the elite project to use population engineering, whether the Australian people wanted it or not. But these were neither his ideas nor did he have the authority he imagines he had. He's the fall guy, the patsy, the low level functionary, boastful yet not smart enough to know that he placed the rubber stamp, pulled the levers and jumped through the hoops.
In some ways, he is everything that is wrong with the culture of the half-smart Australian elite who hate the very people who pay their salary and will do almost anything not to consult them about the destiny of their own nation.
There are a few dozen Abul Rizvis, but hiding behind them is the large Uluru-sized boil growing on our democracy. Australians need to roll up their sleeves, grab something sharp and collectively drive the lance home.
It makes sense for Howard (and the business lobby) to support the importation of cheap labor, as well as the left due to its obvious antipathy to Australian culture. Large scale immigration was more the path of least resistance than bureaucratic overreach/conspiracy - although you're right in saying we're a bureaucracy infested country
It's sad to see that unelected bureaucrats are powerful in Australia too. What do you think what could be good solutions to restrict them?
Respectfully, I think your piece has a blind spot:
Funding the budget, and the lavish spending the entire country of recipients want.
Here is how I frame my perspective:
You casually said the Japanese are doing ok. I looked at the state pension Japanese retirees receive: it’s about AUD $300 a month.
Aussie pensioners receive $1100, nearly four times as much.
If Japanese pensioners don’t have a working family to live with and look after them, they essentially live in poverty.
This problem is only going to exacerbate if you look at the shape of their population pyramid.
Australia is primarily funded by income taxes. Not forgetting consumption taxes and transaction taxes like stamp duty. We pay for our lavish welfare programs by strip-mining the pockets of everybody who would give up 40% of their income to live and work here.
How much of our spending mechanically grows each year as a new cohort of retirees hit 67 and every program indexed to inflation is repriced?
Aussies expect their welfare and expect it to keep up with inflation.
We’re spoiled. Are bureaucrats responsible for this culture?
You yourself rail against the NDIS and I applaud that. But how many harebrained new lavish spending schemes do the left want?
How many ordinary Aussies are happy to willingly take advantage of new spending schemes?
The problem starts with the Aussie culture which birthed to these bureaucrat: one that expects the government to provide.
Denmark and the Netherlands have great data on the budget impact of their recent immigrants. It's net negative. Any reason to suspect that Australia would be different?
Who exactly immigrates matters a lot for budget impact
Interesting take Misha, but it feels like your essay gives Rizvi too much credit in shaping Australia’s immigration policy in the early 2000s - almost as if his ideas were the sole driving force behind immigration policy. (Note: I have not listened to the interview yet).
Is that even true? It does feels like a bit of a stretch—policy decisions are rarely that straightforward and are usually shaped by political agendas, economic realities, and public sentiment. Not just one ‘technocrat’ working in the Department of Immigration.
Also, I feel your piece leans heavily on the downsides of immigration without really acknowledging any positives, like economic growth and cultural diversity. Broadly, I’d say multiculturalism has resulted in a far more interesting Australia - even just in terms of cuisine alone!
You've pointed out countries which historically have had low immigration numbers, but ignored others which have extremely high relative levels of immigration and have traditionally benefitted over the long run (e.g. the USA). I guess what I'm saying is there doesn't seem to be a one size fits all rule on migration.
Though, one area where you quote Rizvi where I think Rizvi is dead wrong is “And any society does not want to have, I think, a permanent underclass of exploited people. That’s not Australia”.
I think this is wrong - it is Australia right now. There is a great book by Peter Mares “Not Quite Australia” which discusses at length the issues with temporary migration, which I think is well worth a read.
Yep. Very good point.
Any of the PMs from Howard onward could change the policy.
Pretending there is no choice is duplicitous.
Good analysis, very thoughtful.
One point: "It basically took WWI to dissolve American Germany communities that barely spoke English"
Out of all Euro immigrants -> USA Germans were the ones who learned English most readily*. You're referring to Italians.
* I'm from the US city with the oldest German immigrant population.