Liberals continue with nonsense immigration policy

The Liberal Party proposes to “cap” net migration to less than the number of homes completed; This is putting the cart before the horse, writes Dr Abul Rizvi.

LIBERAL PARTY announced his plan It also includes its position on net migration for Australia. It is proposed to “cap” net migration to less than the number of homes completed.

While it’s perfectly reasonable to set a long-term net migration target and factor in projected housing completions for it, “capping” net migration by the number of housing completions in the previous quarter/year is complete nonsense.

No nation on the planet has ever adopted a law that would make it possible to “limit” net migration. There are two simple reasons for this.

First, it is completely impractical to “limit” the movement of people, some of whom may have long-term comings and goings, while others may not.

Second, no government can know the outcome of net migration for a given period until months after that period has ended. By then it is too late to impose a cap.

Why the Liberal Party continues to use the word “hat” in this context is a mystery. Don’t they know that “limiting” net migration is impractical?

Or is the political message conveyed by the word “hat” more important than the feasibility of the policy? This shows that they think Australian voters are stupid.

Then the idea of tying net migration to the number of houses completed emerged. This is putting the cart before the horse.

The construction industry needs to have an idea of the level of net migration so it can plan how many homes it can build.

If the construction industry thinks that net migration will be too small or even negative, as One Nation suggests, builders will be afraid to build large numbers of homes for fear they won’t get a price to cover the costs (unless the taxpayer provides a large subsidy for each home built, which will enable builders to take less risk).

The construction industry also needs to have an idea about the composition of net migration. Net migration dominated by students and working holidaymakers will have a very different impact on housing needs than migration dominated by families and overseas skilled migrants.

A much better approach for the Liberal Party and Government would be to set a long-term net migration target (or target range) and explain how they will achieve that target (or get as close to that target as possible).

This will allow the construction industry, and indeed all other industries and government agencies, to plan towards this goal.

Doctor Abul Rizvi He is an independent Australian columnist and former Deputy Secretary of the Immigration Service. You can follow Abul on Twitter @RizviAbul or Bluesky @abulrizvi.bsky.social.

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