https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/12524183691705016…
Trump is signing executive order to suspend immigration to US..I'm not sure it's large scale implications…open for discussion..
Trump Suspends Immigration Temporarily
pyramid on 21/04/2020 - 13:04
Last edited 21/04/2020 - 13:05
Last edited 21/04/2020 - 13:05
Comments
Haven't we suspended it anyway by closing borders..
No because citizens and permanent residents can still return. Problem is finding a flight. Trust me, I know first hand being stuck without a flight.
"citizens and permanent residents returning" isn't called immigration. I don't think Trump is referring to that.
@virhlpool: I wasn't responding to what Trump was saying, I was responding to what pyramid was saying in the post inline above not his original post (there's a reason replies are indented).
"Haven't we suspended it anyway by closing borders"
We have suspended just the entry of foreigners (who are not citizens or permanent residents of Aus) for time being. However, ongoing 'immigration' process of the concerned department is a different aspect all together - it means accepting and processing of temporary and permanent visa applications, permanent resident applications, etc. I could be wrong but I don't think this has been suspended here. The US seems to have done it.
shoulda done it mid Jan. Might have prevented 60 odd deaths and kept the economy running. Virgin would have gone into administration either way.
Imagine if the federal government shut our borders in mid January. This was when Wuhan was reporting a few hundred cases of coronavirus, very few official deaths, with few cases elsewhere in China and a handful of alleged cases in Europe.
What do you think the response would be from the Australian public?
WHO was jumping up and down and calling us Xenophobic for doing it when we did….. And they wonder why everyone thinks they are a joke now.
@stringbean402: by everyone you mean you trump lovers? every nation leader was condemning him for halting us funding of it
@johnwinkle: The US is investing $890m in the WHO. They have every right to know how is pulling the strings and how the funds are spent.
People would not have accepted it then. It's easy to look at this in hindsight. We have done a remarkable job with the number of infections either way, one of the lowest rates in the world. If you take out the number of people that have now recovered, the number of current people infected nationwide is extremely low.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing..
This makes no sense… if we closed it earlier, we'd still be in lockdown most likely, and more businesses would have failed/been affected…
shoulda done it mid Jan.
China didn't even admit the virus was transmitting person to person until January 20.
we closed the borders to china in Feb and the stats on govt health website shows almost all infection causes are from Europe, America and cruise ships.
That makes sense. They can't come so they can't cause infection.
There's still 10,000+ returning Australian citizens/residents from China. Some have even returned from Wuhan directly on special flights
@Thrawn: Who will be placed in hotel quarantine, so they won't be passing it on to anyone if they have it. We've definitely got this well under control now and most Australians and residents have been doing a great job at social distancing.
if they had close the borders to USA, Europe and quarantined all cruise passengers, they'd probably be just 100 cases or so
@[Deactivated]: Many thousands of our cases are from overseas, after we closed the borders to all countries. They're returning citizens/residents…
So unless you banned those as well, we'd still be on thousands.
And quarantining cruise ships doesn't make any difference. They're still already infected and once tested, is still counted. Diamond Princess is an obvious example. You have to stop the the ship from departing in the first place.
@Thrawn: Our cases started in January and jumped in late January when Chinese New Year finished. At the time, we were concerned about putting out the fires and the low water dam levels to even think about testing people coming into the country. Scomo was publically saying he was taking the advice of the CMO but he was telling the CMO what to say ("keep the economy/airlines/tourism running - it's safe") and following what Trump/Boris were doing (nothing).
Australia left the backpackers and holidayers who departed early March against their better judgement to fend for themselves. Same with the people who took cruises. If anything, the returning citizens should have been quarantined for 14 days with a test at 7 days and another at 14 and allowed back into the community if both tests were negative.
If we had taken the hit up front, the stats would have been much lower without locking down the country.
@skid: You're talking with the benefit of hindsight. I doubt it would be so easy to make such widesweeping decisions in early and mid January (with respect to border closures).
@Thrawn: true. i reckon we'd still have much less cases from cluster infections if we quarantined returnees/cruise passengers earlier
@[Deactivated]: Yes, we'll have less cases from cluster infections. But we still fared pretty well overall.
Out of 6,645 cases:
- 4,252 are acquired overseas
- 1,681 are known contacts of existing cases
- 664 are untraced contactsSo the "cluster infections" are much less than half… despite the lack of strict quarantines on various arrivals. The lock-down helped here. Also a big fraction of that known contacts is from people self isolating with their family. Unless you force them to separate, that would still happen.
The great majority of our cases are acquired overseas, mostly by returning citizens/residents. If we banned departures earlier, that would help .. but a lot of returnees are long term residents/backpackers overseas as well.
Personally I feel that our stance in the future should be that if you're overseas on a pandemic, you're stuck there. Everyone should have that understanding.
Should we start spitting on white people now?
Username checks out…
I have a very genuine question: When obama was president, people use to wear T-Shirts saying "My president is black". What is your opinion on wearing one saying "My president is white"? (I am talking about someone in USA)
P.S. - I am no mood of starting name calling or silly argument war or even being KB warrior. I just want to know what you think of that idea.
Accept my apologies in advance.
@try2bhelpful: lol.
I am interested in knowing more about people's idea about racism and reverse racism vs privilege.
@Ash SA: There has been one black President; therefore he was unusual. He is, also, a hopeful example to people who,170 years ago could be traded as slaves and who, 70 years ago, were subjected to segregation. Having a white, male, President is unremarkable so why would you make a fuss about it?
@Ash SA: No such thing as reverse racism. It's just racism.
Unfortunately by the PC definition you can't be racist if you're Black and you can't be a victim if you're White. All this is to apparently help fight racism…
@maxdba: funny to see how racism can be a 1 way street. Media/Entertainment industry in US, you as a prime example, happy to call trump orange or as others have portrayed him as an orangutan and instead of "black face" its orange face.. thats all good hey, but would you do the same with Obama, reference him as black or portray him as a monkey? apparently racism only applies to non whites..
@PappaLuigi: a lot of hard work from those deflecting trump's disinfectant solution with this diversion.
since Obama forms part of trumpy's re-election plan its pretty pathetic.
apparently racism only applies to non whites..
Lol, what? Orange is not a race. Being orange is a choice , a choice that Trump is making everyday. If only he would stop tweeting crazy stuff like this:
Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart.
and start listening to the experts, in this case his makeup artists, he wouldn't be orange.
@[Deactivated]: You do realise that Trump wouldn't be Orange if he was racially Black? The orange is a pigmentation effect of his age, make-up, and other personal genetics blending with the colour of his original skin.
So no, the orange isn't necessarily a choice. It's a result of having White skin at birth. They're making fun of him for how his body has reacted to his original skin colour.
You do realise that Trump wouldn't be Orange if he was racially Black? The orange is a pigmentation effect of his age, make-up, and other personal genetics blending with the colour of his original skin.
Name me someone else who always looks orange on TV. Drawing a blank?
Trump's makeup artist came out a few years ago to deny all responsibility in the way he looks. She said that he dictates what colour of foundation to use rather than the most appropriate one. He thinks orange = healthy glow.@[Deactivated]: Orange is a fairly common colour among celebrities. It's usually the result of tanning and make-up blending with their WHITE skin.
https://www.snakkle.com/galleries/before-they-were-famous-st…
If those people did the exact same make-up regimen but had BLACK skin originally, they wouldn't be orange.
The same thing occurs with Black celebrities. A lot of them develop very unique skin tones due to their make-up and age mixing with their original Black skin. Of course, it would be racist to call them Eggplants or Chocolate. But poking fun of a White person's abnormal skin tone seems totally fine according to these delusional Leftie racists.
@SlavOz: Here's the advice from dermatologists and makeup artists, rather than the dodgy, click-baity website that you've linked to,:
If you’re the tanning type, there are easy ways to avoid the Oompa Loompa look. Choose a colour that better matches your natural skin colour, remember to exfoliate your skin to dull the orange, and always go to a professional.
Or stop applying artificial tan altogether and show people your true self.
@[Deactivated]: Uggh, you're still not getting it. Why should Trump have to change his life just so his skin looks the way you or anyone else wants it to look? If he wants to use a certain brand or type of make-up, that's his prerogative. You wouldn't make fun of a woman for wearing a specific type of make-up, so why do you think its OK to make fun of a man?
Trump may have allergies to certain cosmetic products. Maybe he's got personal beliefs against certain brands. Maybe he's self conscious about his skin colour. Maybe he's got an illness that exemplifies the orange tone. People have all sorts of reasons for looking the way they do, making fun of their skin colour is about as low as the human condition gets. Black people can also avoid looking like melted chocolate but that's not the point. If that's the way their skin reacts to their lifestyle choices it's completely unacceptable to make fun of them for it.
We all know you and the media wouldn't dare pull this ludicrous justification to make fun of a black person's skin tone so just cut the crap.
Uggh, you're still not getting it.
You're the one who doesn't get it.
Why should Trump have to change his life just so his skin looks the way you or anyone else wants it to look?
If you go back and read what I've said, instead of trolling , you'd see that I was correcting someone who was insinuating that calling Trump orange was racist. It's not. Orange is not a race, it is a choice. His choice.
You need to stop being argumentative for the sake of being argumentative or you're going to get sin-binned for trolling again.
If you go back and read what I've said, instead of trolling , you'd see that I was correcting someone who was insinuating that calling Trump orange was racist. It's not. Orange is not a race, it is a choice. His choice.
Right so just to be clear, you think it's OK to make fun of someone based on the colour of their skin, as long as it's done on the right grounds. Cool.
So perhaps the next time a Black person tries to get a tan or do their make-up and they come out looking like a funny brownish poop colour, it would be OK to call them poop face, according to you, because that exact colour is the result of their own choices?
Ye, I don't think you're the type of person I want to associate with. But I'm sure Trump is the racist here.
@[Deactivated]: Now you've reminded me of some other spectacular orange-utangs: Christine Laguarde, Valentino, and Karl Lagerfeld. And, yeo, it was/is all fake tan and make-up.
@slavoz there is make-up for dark and other skin colours, and you can find all the colours of the rainbow. Never watched a carnival parade? There's nothing racist about it.
Interesting facts : if you eat quantities of carrots, you will start to take on a yellowy hue.
We shouldn't be spitting on anyone unless you want to be a poor and embarrassing example of a human. Jokes aside :)
They were very late in banning travel from Italy and updating travel advice.
White privilege still exists
@KozieSeller: As sad as this is, it's true and I'm ashamed to say that as a white man. We need to educate ourselves because it only makes us look stupid.
The problem with banning travel from Italy is that you would have to ban travel from the entire EU to be effective, and they didn't want to do that
@greatlamp: they didn't want to stop the Melbourne grand prix to be precise - see google for infected F1 teams
Why?
Only if you're short-sighted…
Overseas investors may still buy property via proxies. Australia need more investors not less.
I personally doubt this.
An amazing amount of "investment" goes on speculation and not on producing anything of value. Especially since we don't produce much.
We have an amazing amount of $ invested in Super - which is not investing in Australia per say (very limited funds for startups), but rather investing in the ASX - mainly the ASX50.
Why not have restrictions on how many children we have too then? Obviously with all the people already in the country, they'll just dilute the wealth further. As you've pointed out, a growing population can only hurt the economy.
We could also ship out unproductive members of our society.
If we do some very superficial calculations and look at just "unproductive members of society- there would be about 1.3 million* working aged Australians shipped out. That doesn't even take into account children and seniors!
*Based on the population of Australia being 25 million and the lower end of unemployment rate being 5.2% precovid days.
Besides, how many people here can honestly say their family hasn't benefited from immigration? This country has been built on immigration. Guess what- unless you're from a 100% indigenous/aboriginal family line- you're from an immigrant family! You have only become Australian by virtue of a family member migrating at some point or another.
Australia has a large landmass (even if you remove what some may deem as uninhabitable areas), the issue isn't that there isn't enough space unlike let's say Hong Kong or Singapore. It's the fact that there haven't been enough initiatives and infrastructure expenditure to encourage the population to spread out away from the major cities.
Considering that the latest birth stats suggest 1.74 babies per woman, our wealth would be much less diluted (with every generation!).
I mean its already under replacement and the lowest it's ever been.Immigration is thing that is diluting our wealth.
How you got 24 upvotes is baffling to me (but are we that surprised) because the statistics don't even agree with your suggestion. But hey - Congrats!
@Other: If we are using the 2017 figure of 1.74 births per WOMAN (which is an important word in that figure as it negates the male counterpart) it actually means the population figure will decline. Generally the accepted figure to at the very least maintain a population is 2.1 per WOMAN, as you need one child to replace the father and one to replace the mother.
There is no guarantee that a SHRINKING population will lead to higher wealth. Remember at the most basic level, it means there is less is in taxes and therefore less in government expenditure on infrastructure, programs, etc. It also means means that with each generation that retires, there will be less working aged people to support those retiring.
There will come a point (unless there is some plan on how to increase the birth rate within Australia), the population will become too small to be efficient or compete on a global scale.
That would be a big blow to our economy. Oz gets a lot of skilled immigrants are very young (in late 20s) who contribute so much in taxes and not just keep the economy running but also contribute to critical systems like education and medicare. Countries like US and Aus are strong for a lot of reasons and one of them is the immigration policies they have.
The immigration pyramid scheme. What could go wrong?
@[Deactivated]: Well first of all, it's not a pyramid scheme as it lacks it the correct shape.
Let's look at some figures for skilled migration (I'm focusing on that because that is the part Dr-StrangeLove has mentioned). To be clear I am only focusing on permanent residency because temporary visa holders are ineligible for things like medicare, access to superannuation upon retirement and have no rights to stay indefinitely. They are also unlikely to be property owners.
According to the government's migration statistics in the 2018-2019 year there were 160,323 migrants. Of that 109,713 were deemed to be in the skilled stream, so already it's clear that about 1/3 of the number come from family, partners and other categories.
Comparatively, according to the ABS in 2018, there were 158,49 deaths.
As a very rough comparison, permanent migration (pre Scott Morrison cutting the numbers down) matches very closely to the death rate.
@thefinalproblems: This ignores a lot of people.
It ignores the we have close to 800,000 students in Australia (Im guessing its over number), with many having the (correct) expectation of it leading to permanent residency or citizenship being granted.
Often they will get a Post Study Work Visa or Temporary Graduate Visa Subclass (which enables them to stay in Australia for 2 years further) and/or Skilled Independent Visa.
Many will just keep doing courses to stay and earn $ (I think that its after 3 Diplomas in unrelated fields before the Australian Government starts getting suspicious).How many on Student visas, 485 visas or 189 visas?
(please note I could be wrong with the Visas, the Gov. of the day seems to be always 'reforming' the system which somehow never seems to lead to less people coming but rather people just ending up on new or different visas).
@Other: It does ignore international students for a reason. The current figure for 2020 is 625,219 which is spread out through secondary, tertiary and English language (https://internationaleducation.gov.au/research/International…).
The reason for that is that it is important to distinguish between permanent and temporary migration. 500 Student Visas are in the temporary category, as are the 485 Temporary Graduate Visas. On the other hand 189 Skilled Independent and 190 State Nominated are in the permanent category. There are a whole host of other visas that have not been mentioned. As the category name suggests, one group has no right to stay, access to medicare, welfare, etc and has very, very limited pathways to becoming a permanent resident, which in turn could lead to citizenship. The other has most of the rights of Australians, but can still be forced to leave due to things like high health costs deemed a burden to the health care system, criminal convictions, etc. and can eventually apply for citizenship.
The 485 Temporary Graduate Visa is split into two streams the Graduate Work and The Post Study Work stream. The former allows one to stay for 18 months, but must have studied for at least two years in an occupation based on the Medium Term Skilled Occupation List (which has been complied by the government based on shortage areas) and the latter is for at least 2 years based on the fact that one has studied at a degree level or above. Either way this is an expensive way to stay in the country for a finite period of time. While studying, remember there are tuition fees, insurance, rent, food, etc. that are all going into the Australian economy. For example, someone on the Post Study Work Visa who is able to do the bare minimum will spend at least $52,000 in tuition alone (the number of universities that will charge less than the minimum of $26,000 per year will be extremely rare and in fact most will charge far more). This is basically in exchange for a 2 year visa. If that graduate takes an entry level job and makes $50,000/per year, their net gain is going to be minimal if anything after tax, paying for rent, food, etc. and accounting for what they spent to be able to stay. The real winner is the Australian economy.
However, if one was to go onto a student visa, was eligible for temporary graduate visa, there still is only a slim chance to stay indefinitely. The 189 Skilled Independent visa you are talking about requires applicants to meet (and in reality far exceed) a points threshold and be positively assessed for an occupation on the Medium Term Skilled Occupation List. There is also an annual quota of 16,652, which is actually open to overseas applicants as well. All the expensive study and graduate visa gives is a slight edge over those applying offshore.
The reason I ignored temporary visa holders is that by definition "IMMIGRATION" refers to those coming to live PERMANENTLY, which in the 2018-2019 year there were 160,323 migrants (of which about a third come from family, partner,etc steams). Again this number closely matches the death rates. Admittedly, it is negating Australian births and the figures Australians emigrating elsewhere.
@Dr-StrangeLove Would it? Would it really?
I seriously doubt it. Because here is Zero requirement to providing citizenship to those with skills we want.
Plus they will stay pay taxes, just like they do if they don't get citizenship, because they know that even net of taxes they will make more here than back home.To demonstrate I could simply point you to the example of Saudi Arabia employing Westerners (nurses, and other skilled positions).
There they obviously earn money (hence the number of Western born & trained nurses, etc going there) but somehow not ending up with citizenship and coming back home.
(the main shortage of medical staff (Drs) is because Saudi Arabia pays so much in Gov jobs/benefits there is no point in spending X years to become a Dr. Their nurse shortage could probably be overcome just by letting woman work).When we STEAL the citizens of other countries and give them citizenship due to the training that has been often paid for by that country's taxpayer, we are depriving that country not only of the money it has spent training people to meets its severely under resourced needs, but of its skilled people Permanently. As per the latest report - "It is widely agreed that the international migration of health workers exacerbates crisis and contributes to the widening global (health) inequality."
Australia now has has one of the highest ratios of Doctors per population in the world, but does anyone really think that our Medical system has suddenly got much better from all the overseas Doctors we have brought to AUstralia? Nobody does, even just looking at the basic statistics - errors and mistakes with serious impact are increasing!
To say the US and Aus is strong because of its immigrations policies is just wrong. How could you ascribe it to that?
Perhaps more fittingly its our (and the US) low levels of corruption (or even the fact we pay taxes).Is China (the fastest growing economy of the WOrld) strong because of its immigration policies?
@Other: You are correct in implying that China's strength is not based on immigration. However consider the following:
-China already had a population of 300 million in the 1800's. By 1980 it was already near the billion mark
-Throughout much of its history it has had sheer numbers on its side. However, politically it has largely remained communist and had a largely unskilled population. What is really accelerating its growth is the move towards more capitalistic behaviours like trading internationally and upskilling its population. In essence it is undergoing something similar to the industrial revolution that happened in the UK during the latter half of the 18th century. Just on a MASSIVE scale and at a much later time than most "developed" countries.
-When looking strictly at fastest growing economies, you'll find most of them are from "developing" nations (https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/the-5-fastest-growing-econom…) like Guyana, Ethophia, Rwanda simply because their economies were so poor to start off with. Like losing weight, the difference is easiest to achieve at the beginning with each progressive step becoming slower and harder.
-It's also important to factor in GDP per capita as instead of trying to compare total output of a country of 1.4 billion to 25 million. It's only $9770 per capita and has a lot of room to grow still
-In terms of the US, there is a major concern that is being overlooked. There is a massive wealth disparity and that divide is growing. This is skewing numbers when looking on the surface. If we applied the same idea of the top 10% holding 70% of household wealth to Australia, it is likely that most people here would make up the 90% of the population holding 30% of the country's household wealth This means that most would actually be significantly worse off than they are at this moment. So it's not as simple as perceived low level of corruption and tax rates. Besides, there are plenty of examples of corruption in both the US and Australia.
well they wouldn't be English which makes up 25% of immigrants because of the appalling levels of education there …
that would work if the country has manufacturing and is highly productive (eg. Germany, Japan). at the moment, the economy relies on migration as one of the key pillars of economic growth. without manufacturing and high productivity, cutting off migration now will kill the economy
The Key pillar.
So is the only option we must keep importing people in there thousands upon thousands upon thousands, never ending?
Meanwhile productive per person keeps falling (and therefore the wealth per person also falls).How about we reduce migration and have policies which increase productivity (a much better way to increase growth).
@Other: Immigration means population growth and that means economic growth and in paper measures of the economy.
15% youth unemployment should be doing all the great jobs that even immigrants don't want, like driving 6 hours to pick fruits at $30 a pallet.
@Other: i was stating an observation, not endorsing the approach. again, until manufacturing capabilities are there and high productivity is maintained, shutting off migration now will just cause a whole lot of hurt. at the very least start having policies to encourage manufacturing/productivity. shutting off migration as is and hope that manufacturing/productivity increases is not wise.
@Other: What would be more efficient is taking the 1.3 million unemployed Australian precovid days and removing them. Relative wealth would be instantly increased, productivity per person would spike and more housing would be immediately available.
I get that migration policies should align with long term strategic goals. However, precovid there was 5.2% of the population taking from the system and not putting into it. Seems to me like that should be a focus point too by addressing how to really support those people to make the move from unemployed to employed. I can tell you that I personally know people who are likely to spend a lifetime on jobseeker allowance because they can and it's not hard to remain on it indefinitely. Of course there are genuine cases that need long term support, so I am focusing on those that perhaps, dare I say, fit into the unmotivated category.
I do agree with you on increasing productivity. It surprises me so many people are focusing on manufacturing only. Countries that mainly rely on that don't tend to do that well per person. When we look at countries like Germany, the more important factor is their innovation and capital investment. This would be the same for places like Silicon Valley which was purposefully built as an innovation hub and look what is coming out of that area. I don't mean to sound ignorant, but I actually can't think of the last big invention or innovation that came out of Australia that has made a splash on a global scale AND made a major contribution to the economy.
Also genuine question, why are people on jobseeker getting basically double their original entitlement? What has changed for the them that requires that much extra support? Seems like long-term 'jobseekers" are reaping the most benefits from this. Don't get me wrong, I understand why people who have lost their jobs as a result of Covid get what they do.
why are people on jobseeker getting basically double their original entitlement?
Because we have to keep the untitled , yet unproductive members of society, happy . Otherwise they'll protest and loot , which then becomes a law and order problem. Easier to just throw money at them.
We need more people to replace the aging farming workforce. Australians simply do not want to work in agriculture for whatever dumb reasons but immigrants are generally more than happy to put up their hand.
You think housing is expensive? How expensive do you think food will get when we don't have the population to farm it?
We need more people.Ugh…. Incorrect.
As per the stats - of August 2019, 318,600 people were employed in agriculture, forestry and fisheries which accounted for around 2.5% of the national workforce.
So in just half a year of just student immigration alone we could replace every farmer AND worker in agriculture, forestry and fisheries (so not just farming).
Also this forgets the fact that if we cut immigration we would also need less food (also ignores the fact that many 'Workers' will in fact inherit the farm - because many are the sons/daughters of farmers). Also ignores technology (inc crop improvements). I mean cows now produce double the milk they used to produce 50 years ago.
We don't need more people at all to replace farmers, or if we did HAVE to do it - we could do it in half a year and then not have to do it for another 20-30(?) years.
How does that get upvotes?
@Other: I'm not an expert and this may be a massively ignorant comment - I have worked in many factories and farms, the majority of people I have worked with have been foreigners. I know that after a few years a lot of immigrants quit those jobs and move in to the city, but regardless they're the majority from what I have experienced.
My question to you is this, if we cut immigration, where are we going to get the workers from? There is a labor shortage in agriculture right now and we rely very heavily on new immigrants coming in to ease the burden.
Australians don't seem to want to do it, technology is slow to improve yields and you can't force people to work in agriculture and that's including immigrants.@Gauntlet: I spent many years in agriculture in my youth. It was "hard" work, but it also paid better than other work available to students, like fast food. I also noted that we'd get foreign workers in, because they were more readily available, but they were largely under performing compared to locals, as a result my employer preferred to hire locally.
I'm not saying one country is superior to the other, this is literally a comparison of local workers who are willingly participating in farm work vs foreigners on work visas who have the attitude "I'll do farm work to maintain my visa even though it doesn't interest me".
So, my view is if we're often already getting people in who will under perform just for the sake of meeting their necessary quotas, I see no reason why we couldn't do the same with a work for the dole initiative. In the best case we're teaching young people actual life useful life skills. Lots of young people these days claim to be interested in sustainable living, perhaps having skills related to a sustainable lifestyle will spark their interest.
@Other: -Think about where the farms, forests and fisheries are located. Now think about where the schools are located. How does one attend full-time and work at a farm. Remember international students have a requirement they must be attending class and making satisfactory progress to maintain a visa.
-Those workers are most likely full-time and seasonal. The vast majority of students have a 40 hour per fortnight cap. Imagine during harvest time, not having enough people working because they have to study for exams or have already maxed out their working hours.
-You would be fairly correct that the numbers would work on paper, but there would be no practical way to make it happen in reality. It also negates that while a lot the work is unskilled, what about the more skilled aspects? I assume more students wouldn't for example know how to use most of the required machinery.
-Students do not make up the statistics for "IMMIGRATION" as that refers to people who are "PERMANENTLY" moving to a country. They are still temporary visa holders.
-Agree with you on technological advancements making things more efficient for those that can afford it.
These jobs are undesirable. Immigrants flee rural areas as soon as they aren't chained to them, to live in the cities.
Keep in mind we only have a shortage of workers for farms because we export so much. We have more than enough to feed Australia.
That would be the final death blow to our economy and make the recession we are running into that much deeper and longer.
There are far too many people in this country already.
Maybe but far too many don't contribute or no longer contribute to the economy. The employment rate pre-'rona was 62.6% . It is expected to be around 58% by the end of this quarter.
In fact, those unproductive members of society are quite expensive.The social security and welfare expenditure in 2019–20 was estimated to be $180.1 billion, representing 36.0% of the Government’s total expenditure.Now add to that the extra $14 billion 'rona boost…More people just means our wealth is diluted further
International students fall under temporary migration. They bring on average $3.4 billion every year. Why would you want to forego that once the risk of spreading 'rona is minimised?
We don't need more people
Yes, we do. Australia has an ageing population problem. It was estimated that there will be over 1 million new job openings between 2020-2024. These will be due to “replacement demand”, effectively replacing the retirements from the labour force of baby boomers.The small number of births in the 1990s means that, in the absence of international migration, we won't be able to fill the gap. Would baby boomers be happy to work well into their 70s to fill it?
P.s: I didn't neg you. Everyone is entitled to have an opinion.
Usually i'm all for immigration but with house prices going to the moon and infrastructure costs ballooning to keep up it would make sense to restrict this for a while as our birth rate plummets (as has happened in Japan, and they've been in a recession for years since their boom time).
Shipping in more people will further place stress on already maxed out households as more people fight for properties, mortgaging themselves up to their ears. As a result this leaves less disposable income for each family translating into cutbacks in expenditure, the main one being children and a subsequent decline in population growth.
The core of this is to control the housing market and allow it to reset, bringing it out of bubble territory.
(as has happened in Japan, and they've been in a recession for years since their boom time).
The Personal Income Tax Rate in Japan was expected to reach 55.95% by the end of 2020, according to Trading Economics global macro models and analysts expectations. That was the pre-'rona estimate. Would you be happy if over half of your salary goes to the Taxman?
Playing devil's advocate, and quoting a young adult I spoke to not so long ago, "unleashing the 'rona" would burst the housing bubble faster than any other economic measure could…
@[Deactivated]: Unfortunately the government isn't in a position to hike tax rates as they've already squeezed a good proportion of us where we can't afford it. As long as wage growth stagnates any increase in tax will just result in more foreclosures, destroying the housing market in the process (might not be a bad thing), similar to the way that a rate increase would cause people to sell out of their property. So basically the government has backed themselves into a very precarious corner, i'd imagine many businesses will be wearing the brunt of the costs.
And yes unleashing the 'rona', just as trump has, would be a benefit to the economy as pensions are decreased and the relative proportion of Australians working would increase. Though naturally no one wants to see their grandparents die prematurely.
Though naturally no one wants to see their grandparents die prematurely.
I should probably go on record and say that I do not want anyone to die from a preventable death, including grandparents. Otherwise, I get a lot of hate PMs …🙄
@[Deactivated]: lol at the downvote (not me but still lol).
I think we can safely assume that no one wants anyone to die, without say it. Mainly themselves and people who are related to them.
If anyone sends a PM about any controversy on a forum they should be exposed so we can All bully them mercilessly forever and ever.
@Drakesy: Part of the reason housing is unaffordable is because everybody wants to live in the same 2-3 places: Sydney, Melbourne +/-Brisbane. Incentivising people and businesses to move to/expand into rural areas, properly enforcing laws there and building infrastructure to support this would reduce pressure on housing prices in the cities. Basically, smaller cities have to become more livable, including for recent immigrants.
Anecdote: We immigrated 8 years ago. We both work in healthcare. We lived in Rockhampton briefly, but we left as did all our friends because the crime was so bad and amenities were so poor. We live in Brisbane now, where we still have QPS doing absolutely (profanity) nothing if you call them, but there's less to call about.
The 'rona boost is actually a lot more than the $14 billion I stated above:
First package of $17.6 billion (announced March 12)
Second package of $66.1 billion (announced March 22)
Third package of $130 billion (announced March 30)
we should do the same.