If you want a textbook example of how Australian academia has lost its credibility, look no further than the below analysis from University of Western Sydney Economics Professor Raja Junankar in The Conversation:
Many who fear Australia’s population boom believe we should be cutting down on immigration. They blame immigration for congestion and expenditure of environmental and other vital resources. They say Australia’s cities are becoming overcrowded and cannot sustain more people.
But if Australia were to cut down on immigration, it would also then make sense to introduce policies that limit numbers of international tourists and students. Why single out one group of people? If any person living in Australia drains a certain amount of resources, it stands to reason this is also the case with short-term visitors arriving year after year.
Not only do tourists and international students add to crowded trains, trams and buses, think of all the environmental resources they consume – such as the water hotels spend on frequently washing their sheets.
Just as with migration, tourist numbers are on the rise in Australia. But to come from an economics professor and to be published in The Conversation (a supposedly august, pro-mass immigration academic portal) is an indicator of how biased and desperate the population apologists have become.
First, international tourists typically stay in Australia for a few weeks and then leave, whereas permanent settlers stay, have children, and add to Australia’s population base. Tourists also don’t use public services like health. To compare one group with the other is ridiculous.
Second, the Professor has only looked at short-term arrivals, not net short-term movements (which includes Aussies overseas). If he had done this, he would quickly have discovered that while short-term arrivals have boomed to 9 million people annually, so too has short-term departures of Australians (11 million):
Therefore, the fundamental driver of Australia’s population increase is permanent migrants. Again, they stay in the country and also have children (then captured as ‘natural increase’). Thus, permanent migrants continually add to Australia’s population base both directly and indirectly.
If the permanent migrant intake was hypothetically reduced to zero then, over time, NOM and by extension Australia’s population would barely increase (because all temporaries would have to go home)
