{"id":106483,"date":"2025-08-30T10:09:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T10:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/106483\/"},"modified":"2025-08-30T10:09:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T10:09:11","slug":"why-the-march-for-australia-will-backfire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/106483\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the March for Australia will backfire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virtually every opinion poll held over the past decade shows that Australians do not support high immigration nor the rapid growth in population, which is straining our major cities.<\/p>\n

In the 60 years following World War II, Australia\u2019s net overseas migration (NOM) averaged 90,000 per annum. In only two years over that 60-year period, NOM exceeded 150,000, and only barely.<\/p>\n

In the early 2000s, under pressure from the business lobby, the Howard government decided to ramp up immigration, which future governments doubled down on.<\/p>\n

In the 15 years leading up to the end of 2019, just before the pandemic, Australia\u2019s NOM surged from an average of 90,000 in the 60 years post-WW2 to an average of 220,500, an increase of 145%.<\/p>\n

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In the five years to the end of 2024, which includes the pandemic lockdowns, NOM averaged 265,000, a 194% increase over the post-war average.<\/p>\n

\"Historical<\/p>\n

As a result, Australia\u2019s population ballooned by 8.5 million to the end of 2024\u2014a 45% increase and the fastest growth in the advanced world.<\/p>\n

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\"Population<\/p>\n

Anybody living in one of Australia\u2019s major cities has seen the dilution in their quality of life.<\/p>\n

Infrastructure and services have failed to keep pace with the population surge, resulting in significantly more expensive and lower-quality housing, while more people are being crammed into high-rise apartments.<\/p>\n

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In short, everyone\u2019s standard of living has gone down, not up.<\/p>\n

\"Productivity<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s productivity has been harmed by \u2018capital shallowing\u2019 because the amount of capital investment per person has shrunk.<\/p>\n

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\"Capital<\/p>\n

The future promises more of the same. The Centre for Population and the Intergenerational Report project that Australia\u2019s NOM will average 235,000 over the next 40 years, which is around 15,000 higher than the 15 years leading up to the pandemic.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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As a result, Australia\u2019s population is projected to grow by 13.5 million people over 40 years to 40.5 million, equivalent to adding another Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane to Auustralia\u2019s current population.<\/p>\n

\"Centre<\/p>\n

Source: Centre for Population (December 2024)<\/p>\n

These levels of migration are excessive and not in the nation\u2019s interest. A significantly smaller migration system is required, with a focus on attracting genuinely highly skilled individuals to areas where there is a real shortage.<\/p>\n

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The March for Australia is poorly targeted and will stifle genuine discussion on immigration:<\/p>\n

While there are genuine concerns and frustrations about the impacts of Big Australia immigration and the lack of discussion in politics and the media, the planned March for Australia on Sunday is misguided and will negatively impact the migration debate.<\/p>\n

The organisers have wrongly focused on \u201cidentity\u201d and have created a divisive \u201cAustralians versus immigrants\u201d, \u201ctake back our country\u201d narrative that will inevitably get overrun with extremists.<\/p>\n

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Worse, it risks making legitimate discussions about population management untouchable\u2014tarring anybody arguing for lower immigration as being racists or extremists.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s not forget that migrants living in places like Western Sydney or Western Melbourne are the ones suffering most from extreme population growth. These places are the fastest-growing regions of Australia and are suffering the most from the lack of infrastructure and services.<\/p>\n

A genuine \u201cMarch for Sustainable Immigration\u201d would have invited these migrant communities most impacted by high immigration to participate, not targeted them.<\/p>\n

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Such a march would have focused on the real issues that are impacting everyone: that excessive, poorly managed immigration strains infrastructure and services, makes housing more expensive, strains the environment, and harms productivity and living standards.<\/p>\n

This sort of nuance is missing from the March for Australia, which is why I don\u2019t support it and will not be attending.<\/p>\n

Sadly, the effective ban on immigration debate in politics and much of the media inevitably leads to extremism.<\/p>\n

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This is why I have always supported a plebiscite on Australia\u2019s future population size. Let voters decide on how big they want Australia to become. Give us genuine democracy.<\/p>\n

Canada was able to have a sensible discussion on immigration by linking excessive volumes directly to the rental crisis, infrastructure, and living standards.<\/p>\n

\"Canada<\/p>\n

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As a result, Canada implemented a three-year population freeze in mid-2024.<\/p>\n

\"Canada<\/p>\n

And Canada\u2019s NOM has plummeted:<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

Why can\u2019t Australia have such a discussion on immigration levels and the quality of the intake?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Virtually every opinion poll held over the past decade shows that Australians do not support high immigration nor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":["post-106483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}