More want migrant intake cut
Yuko Narushima
October 13, 2008
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DISSATISFACTION with immigration is rising across the country, and NSW is the state most set on reducing migrant numbers.
Between 2004 and 2007 the proportion of voters who wanted the migrant intake cut rose from 34 per cent to 46 per cent, a study by a Swinburne University of Technology academic, Katharine Betts, shows.
The paper, which appears in the journal People And Place today, found that NSW had the highest support for a pared back intake, half of the respondents saying migrant numbers should be "reduced a little or a lot".
In 2006-07 a third of all new migrants to Australia chose to live in NSW. "The effects of population change are more noticeable," said Dr Betts, an associate professor in sociology. "People are aware of the extra traffic on the road, and everyone knows someone that can't find a place to rent."
Voters' mutterings come as the Federal Government faces questions over its immigration program which, this year, swelled to record levels while the country teetered on the brink of a recession.
The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has said next year's intake will take into account financial conditions before the federal budget next May..
Dr Betts said attitudes to immigration were influenced markedly by the economic climate and political rhetoric of the day.
For instance, over the past 18 years of comparable statistics, taken from the Australian Election Studies, opposition to immigration policy was strongest in 1993. About this time, the Labor government, under Bob Hawke and then Paul Keating, was speaking enthusiastically about multiculturalism, the nation was emerging from recession and high unemployment was souring sentiment to new immigrants' easy access to welfare.
"In such a setting, some voters could have believed that immigration was bringing in competitors for scarce jobs," Dr Betts said.
Conversely, support for increased immigration was highest in 2004. Under the Howard government the word multiculturalism all but disappeared from use, economic conditions had improved and changes to immigration policy reduced total numbers, limited family reunions and restricted new migrants' access to welfare.
This, combined with tough border control, worked to calm the electorate, Dr Betts said.
"Many voters may have come to believe the program was not only small, well-targeted and … in the national interest, but that it was also under close control. The idea that people are just streaming in gets people really upset."
And it is unlikely to surprise politicians that when they talk tough on immigration, voters feel more favourably disposed toward migrants.
Immigration policies that appeared to benefit the people already in Australia were best received, Dr Betts said.
Like so many other people I've spoken to have said, "At first I was all excited about the prospect of reduced immigration. But then I realised that the Government will simply wait until economic conditions improve and then commence bombarding us with the third worlders again." I feel the same way.
It's quite clear that third-world immigrants don't necessarily 'boost the economy' like so many brainless multiculturalists and anti-wacists argue, but they merely boost the income of business owners by allowing them to pay them less money rather than paying regular Australians a fair wage. Thus, lowering the living conditions of Australians by forcing Australians to work for less to compete with these third worlders.
Immigrants are by no means 'good for regular Australians' in any sense of the word. The people who most want immigrants are greedy business owners who want to pay immigrants less money for more hours.
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Migrant dissatisfaction rising across Australia (Read 13836 times)
