[Theme Music Starts]

DANIEL:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Daniel James. This is 7am.

Peter Dutton says he’ll cut migrant numbers by 100,000 people a year as soon as he gets into government.

He says it’s part of his plan to free up housing for Australians, but it could also impact the workforce needed to build new homes.

Dutton is putting a number to his plans just days after immigration dominated the first leaders’ debate.

Audio Excerpt - Debate Questioner:

“Mr. Dutton, how will cutting migration affect industries like healthcare and construction and what will you do to ensure migration discussions remain respectful and avoid demonising migrants?”

Abul Rizvi was a senior official in the Department of Immigration from the early 90s to 2007, when he left as deputy secretary. He says the conversation we're having now ignores the need for a long-term population plan, addressing how big our country should be – and why.

Today, Abul Rizvi on the politics of population growth and the real impact of immigration on the housing crisis.

It’s Saturday, April 12.

[Theme Music Ends]

DANIEL:

Abul, thanks for speaking with me again. Peter Dutton said he wants to see 100,000 fewer new migrants come to Australia each year. In the debate on Tuesday night he said that every 44 seconds a new migrant is entering Australia.

Audio Excerpt - Peter Dutton:

“And a person is coming in every 44 seconds into our country and we haven't got the housing to accommodate that.”

DANIEL:

What do you make of this goal?

ABUL:

It depends on what he is referring to, and I assume he's referring to net overseas migration, which is the arrival of permanent and long-term entrance to Australia irrespective of visa category or citizenship and the departure of people similarly long-term or permanent. In 2024-2025, the government is forecasting net overseas migration at 335,000. It is forecasting net overseas migration in 2025-2026 at 260,000. If Mr Dutton is saying he can deliver in 2025-2026 net overseas migration of 100,000 less than the government's forecast, well I think it is just about impossible to deliver that.

DANIEL:

Why’s that?

ABUL:

There are three reasons he won't do that. One, the labour market is likely to still be relatively strong. That's certainly what Treasury is forecasting or, subject to whatever Mr. Trump does, things may change. Two, the legislative and regulatory changes Mr. Dutton would need to make would probably take the whole of the financial year before he could make them. The third reason, he will encounter massive opposition to the cuts he wants to make. Firstly from the National Party, and they've made it clear there are a range of visas they think are off limits. And secondly, a range of lobby groups in the business community. I would be very surprised if Mr. Dutton is prepared to have a fight with both of those.

DANIEL:

So what type of changes would he need to make to get anywhere near that target?

ABUL:

So one, he has suggested he wants to cap student visas or the number of students. In terms of net overseas migration, in 2023-2024 just under 50% of net overseas migrants were students. So if someone wants to reduce the level of net oversees migration, if you're not talking about students, you're not really in the game.

Audio Excerpt - News Reporter:

“Despite their presence being worth $50 billion per year to the economy, the federal government now wants to legislate student caps from 2025. If the legislation passes…”

ABUL:

Late last year the Labor Party introduced legislation to give government the power to cap visas. Separately, it’s introduced or announced where it would set those caps. They were two separate actions. One is get the power, second is to use the power. Mr Dutton denied the government that power and so, if he does win the election, the first thing he's going to have to do is go back to parliament and say, by the way you know that power I thought was really, really, really hopeless and I opposed it? Could I have it now please?

DANIEL:

Can you see him doing that?

ABUL:

I'm sure he'll word it perhaps differently, but fundamentally that's what he's gonna have to do.

DANIEL:

So speaking of international students, we've heard a lot about how they are supposedly having an impact on the housing crisis, with Peter Dutton saying that the reason he wants to cut international student numbers is so that young Australians can realise the dream of owning their own home.

Audio Excerpt - Peter Dutton:

“I want desperately to make sure that we get an opportunity for young people to believe in and achieve again the dream of home ownership. There are about 42 international students coming into our country for every one student accommodation unit that's been approved. And that has had a big impact...”

DANIEL:

What's your view on the impact international students are having on the housing crisis?

ABUL:

Well, the first thing to be said here is very few students actually buy houses. They generally don't have the money to afford to buy a house. So what they'll impact is the rental market. That's true. But the rental market they will impact will tend to be that market very close to our universities which tend to be in the central business districts of our cities. Very few students live out in the outer suburbs and commute into the middle of the city to study. That's not where they are concentrated.

DANIEL:

What in your view has prompted this debate on international students?

ABUL:

Well, there's a few things worth saying here about what's happened to student numbers. Firstly, we did have a steady rise in student numbers leading up to COVID. We had something over 650,000 students in Australia prior to COVID, plus students who had applied onshore and were in what's known as the bridging visa backlog. So that's about the numbers before COVID. When COVID started, Mr. Morrison famously said, we'd like you to go home, please.

Audio Excerpt - Scott Morrison:

“If they're not in a position to be able to support themselves, then there is the alternative for them to return to their home countries.”

ABUL:

And many did. So the number of students in Australia fell sharply during COVID. Towards the end of COVID, governments were very worried that students wouldn't come back. So the Coalition government introduced a range of policies to encourage students to come back, such as unrestricted work rights, work as long as you like wherever you like, fee-free applications. As a result of those changes, combined with a really, really strong labour market during 2022, we had a massive boom in the number of students and by 2023 both sides of politics were worried about the huge explosion in the numbers of students.

It's worth saying though, that at the end or towards the second half of 2022, Mr Dutton was saying the government needs to increase migration and needs to do it quickly but he wasn't confident how quickly the Labor government could increase migration. Nine months later, he was saying the Labor Government has lost control of migration, its increased migration much too quickly.

DANIEL:

Coming up after the break, how big should Australia be?

[Advertisement]

DANIEL:

Our population is coming up on 27 million now. We're projected to double that in the next 80 years. So how have past governments approached population planning? Is this growth by design?

ABUL:

No. Most governments have shied away from talking about population. They did that right through the 90s, even though there were parliamentary committees recommending the need for a population policy, they avoided it. They didn't want to talk about population. Mr Rudd famously, in 2007-08, said he believed in a big Australia.

Audio Excerpt - Kevin Rudd:

“I actually believe in a big Australia. I make no apology for that.”

ABUL:

Everyone jumped all over it.

Audio Excerpt - News Reporter 2:

“That was the Big Australia movement's biggest moment. Its founder was dislodged. His idea sent packing.”

Audio Excerpt - Julia Gillard:

“I don't believe in simply hurtling down a track to a 36 million or 40 million population.”

ABUL:

Ever since then, no government has been keen to talk about population. Having said that, in 2019, Mr Morrison introduced a very grandly titled document called The Future of Australia's Population. The problem with the document is it not once mentioned what he thought the future of Australia's population should be. He not once mention what future net overseas migration should be. He never once discussed what the fertility rate would be or life expectancy would be. How he was talking about the future of the population without mentioning any of those things is an absolute mystery to me.

DANIEL:

Seems like a bit of an oversight.

ABUL:

Well, I think it was a marketing exercise.

DANIEL:

What were you expecting out of that document before you read it, Abul?

ABUL:

I was hoping for a population policy. Something that talked about our future population, but we didn't talk about the future population in that document at all. In fact, two months later, Mr. Frydenberg issued his budget papers in which you had to go to budget paper number three, appendix A, page about eight or nine, before you got to what Mr. Frydenberg was forecasting was gonna be our population and net overseas migration for the next four years. He was in fact forecasting in that document, over a four year period, the largest level of absolute population growth since a period in the 1960s. It's beyond me how two months ago, in March 2019, Mr Morrison was talking about a population plan with no mention about population, and Mr Frydenberg was talking about a back-in-black budget with massive increases in population forecast, but in appendix 3 of budget paper 3.

DANIEL:

What you've been laying out, Abul, is that politicians love talking about cutting immigration, while at the same time forecasting massive population growth in budget papers to boost the economic outlook. We saw that with the Coalition, so once Labor got in what was their approach?

ABUL:

I was disappointed that the Labor government did not, when it commissioned the Parkinson review, the review of Australia's migration system, deliberately left out the question of immigration levels. It essentially said to Mr Parkinson, we'd like you to talk about everything about migration, but just don't tell us the level. We don't want to know about the level, we'll work that out ourselves. Frankly, it is impossible to design a migration system unless you start with the level, because if you don't have a level in mind, then you're basically just making up numbers and policies as you go along and you don't care about what they add up to. Governments think the moment you start talking about a population plan, you will be tarred with the big Australia brush irrespective of whatever number you forecast, you'll be saying, oh, you're big Australia, I'm not. And politicians love pointing at people and saying, I don't believe in big Australia, you do. And therefore you are bad, I am good.

DANIEL:

Well, let's say hypothetically a government wanted to do this properly, to have a well-thought-out population and migration policy. What would that look like in your view?

ABUL:

A useful thing to understand in this context is that immigration, mainly because it targets young people, tends to slow the rate at which we age. We age more slowly. But the second thing that is often not understood is if you've moved to a situation of zero net migration, within the next 10-15 years we would experience a situation where deaths exceeded births for the first time in our history. Now, I'm not saying we can avoid the point in the future where deaths exceed births, but I would not be recommending to a government let's head towards that as fast as we can. And you want to use the migration program to fill skill gaps that you can't in the medium to long-term fill. So for example, there is no chance we will have enough nurses over the next 10-20 years for all of us, including me, baby boomers who are gonna be desperately needing health and aged care support. There is no chance we will have enough construction tradies over the decade, that's carpenters, plumbers. bricklayers, etc. So you've got to take that into account. The second would be, what are the speed limits from an infrastructure, service delivery, housing, etc, perspective for net overseas migration? And that boils down to, okay, what is the rate at which we can develop infrastructure and housing, etc, and service delivery? And there are speed limits to those things, and we should understand those speed limits. You also need to take into account family migration, you need to take into account our various free trade agreements and you need take into whatever we're going to do from a humanitarian and refugee perspective. You've got to bring all of that together into a sensible plan.

DANIEL:

And without a plan, does that leave the question of migrations susceptible to politics?

ABUL:

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And in many ways, the lack of a population plan has contributed to the polarisation, it's not the only thing, but it has contributed to the polarisation of debate on immigration, not just in Australia but in other places.

DANIEL:

And finally, Abul, you spent more time than probably anyone thinking about Australia's migration program. You've dedicated your life to these questions about the makeup of this country. So in your view, how big should Australia be?

ABUL:

That's a good question and I'm not sure we can ever assume that we can reach a level of population and then stabilise at that level forever. I doubt whether it's gonna look like that. It's more likely to look like a curve. If you think back to your high school days, think of a parabola. So the question is where does it peak before it starts to decline? Because the period 1950 to 2050 will be a unique period in human history.

That is, the human race just exploded in that 100 years. We've never had population increase like that on the planet, and after 2050 we'll never have it again. Because steadily, the fertility rate of all countries around the world is falling and is projected to keep falling.

DANIEL:

Abul, thank you so much for your time.

ABUL:

You're most welcome, Daniel.

[Advertisement]

[Theme Music Starts]

DANIEL:

7am is a daily show from Schwartz Media and The Saturday Paper.

It’s made by Atticus Bastow, Cheyne Anderson, Chris Dengate, Erik Jensen, Ruby Jones, Sarah McVeigh, Travis Evans, Zoltan Fecso, and me, Daniel James.

Our theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of Envelope Audio.

Thanks for listening to 7am. If you like the show, find your favourite episode from the week and send it to someone you haven’t spoken to in a really long time. Then, see what happens!

[Theme Music Ends]

[Advertisement]