April 30, 2018

How Treasury Dept. found that immigrants make Australia money

This is an old chestnut that in typical Leftist style ignores the main issue.  Immigration overall has always be known as a  positive.  The receiving country gets new workers without the expense of bringing them up from babyhood.

The big issue, however, is WHICH migrants do we take in.  Most countries have categories of migrants that they take or do not take.  Requiring at least a High School graduation in an intending migrant is a common stipulation.  So categorization of migrants is nothing new.

The problem arises when normal filters are bypassed for some reason -- usually for humanitarian reasons.  And what happens when those filters are bypassed strongly validates the wisdom of the filters.

Australia bypasses most of its filters to admit refugees.  And refugees are rarely like other migrants.  Where selected migrants soon get a job and put little strain on the social security system, refugees tend to be heavily welfare dependant.

Additionally, black and Muslim refugees are more violent.  Africans everywhere are very prone to crime and violence and Muslim refugees subscribe to a religion that both forbids  assimilation and encourages "jihad" against the host nation.

So the article below is a red herring.  the issue is not WHETHER migration but WHICH migrants.  Readers are supposed to infer that ALL migrants are beneficial, which is not at all the case.

Immigrants consume less in government services than they pay in tax, making the federal government billions over their lifetimes, a landmark Treasury analysis has found, even when their expensive final years of life are taken into account

But the research, published by Treasury and the Department of Home Affairs, has come under fire from some population experts who believe it glosses over the link between migration and higher home prices, congestion, and strain on the environment.

The landmark study found in total, permanent skilled migrants deliver the federal government a profit of $6.9 billion over their lifetimes, temporary skilled migrants a profit of $3.9 billion, and family stream migrants $1.6 billion.

Treasurer Scott Morrison and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton have had the report for some time. Fairfax Media unsuccessfully tried to get a copy under freedom of information rules late last year.

Although the report was prepared by officials from Treasury and Home Affairs, it was Mr Morrison who decided to release it on Tuesday amid debate inside the Coalition over whether Australia's permanent and temporary migration program should be cut.

The government is expected to maintain migration of 190,000 per year in the May budget, despite the internal push for a reduction.

Australian National University demographer Liz Allen said the report makes it "very, very clear that migrants are not to blame" for infrastructure failures.

"Migrants make a net contribution to the Australian economy," she said. "If we are concerned about the failings of infrastructure such as those in the road network and rail network and housing, the issue is not migrants. The issue is the way that infrastructure funding and policy have failed to keep up with what is necessary, even to meet the population growth we would have had without migrants."

While concerns were often expressed about population-induced infrastructure pressure in cities where immigrants settled, the Treasury and Home Affairs study said there were benefits to population growth occurring in capital cities rather than regions. It said a higher population in the same geographical space increased the number of people that would benefit from a project, and could make a previously unprofitable infrastructure project viable.

University of Queensland emeritus professor Martin Bell said the report presented the “conventional conservative Treasury view,” focusing on the economic benefits of growth while paying less attention to the potentially negative effects.

“It’s important to give attention to the negative impacts as well, and the public perceptions of people in their 20s and 30s who are attempting to bid for houses,” he said.

“The report focuses on what Treasury thinks ‘might’ happen in the long term. The experience for a certain segment of the community right now is that there are negative redistributional effects as a result of high levels of migration.”

Scott Morrison has shut down suggestions from Tony Abbott, that the government should lower its immigration levels.

“There also seems to be faith in immigration as a solution to multiple issues. We are told that it generates the financial resources to meet the long-term demands for infrastructure and for the needs of an aging population. It's not going to do both.”

Mr Morrison on Tuesday said Australia’s natural population increase of around 150,000 a year had been falling as a proportion of the total. Permanent immigration was little changed. It was the rise in temporary migration that had fuelled population growth.

“You’ve got to understand what's driving the population pressures, but in addition to that you have to plan for the growth, which is what our budget is doing," he said.

The report found humanitarian migrants cost the budget $2.7 billion, with one third the result of resettlement in the first five years, including the cost of education, and the other two thirds the effect on the budget of earnings and tax too low to cover the cost of the services they consume.

Around 11 per cent of working age migrants earn no income, compared to just over 7 per cent of the working age population.

The Treasury said the higher figure most likely reflects the time it takes to acclimatise to a new country and labour market. The income of migrants grows after additional time in Australia, with substantial improvements over the first three years of roughly four times the average annual wage increase.

SOURCE






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