Open-borders Australia learns nothing from Carney visit

For mutual gratification of the governing classes, the 101 repetitive immigration fibs include:

Net migration isn't policy, we can't control it, it's lower than the Coalition, it's Dutton or even Abbott's fault, we're catching up for COVID, we're fixing the visa backlog, we've got migration back to "normal", migration is down 40%, there are too many visa categories to control, and anyway migrants are a net gain to the budget.

We need migrants to build houses and help us get to net zero, migration keeps us young, our immigration is primarily skilled, we'll deal with the wage theft, migrants are being scapegoated, migration doesn't impact the housing situation, housing is always a supply-side problem, migrants help us to decentralise, and multiculturalism is a unique Australian advantage.

Emissions growth and environment can decouple from population growth, we must win the global talent war, migrants are carefully vetted, we're shifting from temporary to permanent immigration, we're building social cohesion, we must take in climate refugees, blah blah.

To tie it all together, pro-Labor pollster Kos Samaras promotes his insidious antipodean theory of why Australian "democracy" would or must lean towards high immigration.

As reported gleefully in Indian Sun, Samaras Theory goes like this. There are 150 federal electorates, but Labor holds 48 of the 50 "most diverse". Here "most diverse" has a most peculiar meaning - the biggest majorities of 1^st and 2^nd generation migrants.

Sez Kos, you can't win "democratic" government unless you appease these "diverse" electorates. Too bad if nationally the voting aggregate wants low immigration or an immigration pause.

But Australia should follow Canada

At least as much as Trump, Australians should worry about Albanese. Recently I remarked, quite likely he'll follow Gillard, written up as a "reformer" when he leaves office. Even if, he bequeaths mass migration, low housing affordability, high energy costs, highly stratified schooling, real wages stuck at 2011 levels at best, and the continuing productivity fail.

The societal and economic contest in Australia, I claim, is less about "left" Labor/Greens vs "right" Coalition/Teals, more about the top 20% versus the rest. They signal virtue, whilst hoarding opportunity. 21^st century identity politics supplants 20^th century equality politics.

With One Nation polling through the roof, the party-political response isn't to steal its thunder and slash immigration. Instead, disenfranchised voters get to wear Albanese's imperial demands for them to lower the "temperature" and mind their "cohesion".

At Australian Treasury, our real GDP growth is estimated at 2.6% for calendar 2025. But that's propelled by huge population growth of probably 1.6% in calendar 2025. For Canada, the equivalent GDP figure was "only" 1.7% but under population growth close to zero.

For Treasurer Chalmers, that artificial 2.6% means he's "winning". If citizen voters struggle to afford a roof over their heads, can't realistically buy a house as distinct from a life mortgage, they should tell someone who cares.

If you recall the 2020-21 COVID border freeze, that pandemic was an unexpected opportunity, for Australia to wind back mass migration. Of course, Liberal then Labor did the exact opposite, to "catch up". Albanese's 2022-25 net-migration tally dwarfed the daunting Rudd record by 60%.

Now the Iran war is another sudden opportunity, to curb our immigration overreach. Yet the big immigration story is Iran's football team. Expect the upcoming federal budget to continue to quarantine our rapidly growing population from the economic and productivity "reforms".