Even as the “what Donald Trump’s victory means for Peter Dutton” takes are being written, Dutton’s most Trumpian moment yet drew little comment yesterday. The Coalition’s decision to oppose Labor’s foreign student caps isn’t merely in contrast to Dutton’s heated rhetoric on migration, it’s cut and pasted from Trump’s own playbook. It was Trump who early this year demanded congressional Republicans veto any legislation that might have enabled the Biden administration to curb cross-border flows of illegal immigrants — enabling Trump to campaign against Biden’s failings on illegal migration.
Dutton isn’t merely calling for substantial migration cuts, of course — he made the absurd claim that foreign students were the modern equivalent of boat arrivals. Clearly, like Trump, he wants to be able to campaign against Labor on immigration unhindered by any government attempts to reduce migration. In that, he’s aided by the Greens, who are clothing their opposition to the foreign student cap in the garb of anti-racism but know perfectly well that their electoral success is also tied to keeping migration high — which will in turn put pressure on rents and house prices, which the Greens exploit to appeal to younger voters. The Greens have no more interest than Dutton in actually solving issues like housing affordability.
Dutton’s perfect mimicry of Trump, and his rank hypocrisy, drew no comment from the very ordinary federal press gallery that only last week was wondering how Dutton would seek to replicate Trump’s win.
The extent to which migration is now a dominating political issues was illustrated in the latest social cohesion report from the Scanlon Foundation Research Institute. It also demonstrates how badly the government has failed on migration — but also the strangely reversed attitudes to migration in the community. Housing affordability is now cited as the most important issue facing Australia behind the economy, the report shows. And the proportion of respondents who say migration is too high has leapt from 33% in 2023 to 49% this year, well above 40% who feel it’s about right. And 57% say migrants push up house prices.
Not only has Labor failed to decrease migration, but voters are aware of the failure and its implications for the crucial issue of housing affordability.
The data also confirms a well-established link between personal financial insecurity and hostility to immigration: people who view themselves as prosperous or comfortable are less likely to see immigration as too high compared to those who are “just getting along”, while those who see themselves as “struggling” or “poor” are most likely of all to believe migration is too high.
But there are some interestingly perverse results: younger people, who bear the costs of migration, are far less likely to believe it’s too high compared to older people and especially over-65s, who benefit from the inflation in house prices created by migration. People in regional areas are more likely to believe immigration is too high than metropolitan voters, despite their being far less affected by it and more likely to benefit from it. And foreign-born people whose first language is English are almost indistinguishable from Australian-born people in attitudes to immigration — hello, drawbridge migrants — while foreign-born people from non-English speaking backgrounds are much less likely to see it as too high.
None of this, however, translates into support for a discriminatory migration program. Indeed, the data shows a specific rebuke of Peter Dutton’s demand that Palestinians be banned from Australia for the crime of fleeing genocide. Just 17% of people believe migrants should be rejected on the grounds of race/ethnicity, and 20% on the grounds of religion; 26% say migrants from war zones should be rejected, but 73% oppose such discrimination.
That the biggest economic beneficiaries of migration are the most likely to oppose it, while those who bear the cost through higher rents and mortgages are least likely, is a pointer to how complex the electorate’s views are on the issue. The majority view that migrants drive up house prices is coupled with the fact that more than 60% of respondents also believe migration is good for the economy — a figure that has changed little in recent years despite wild pandemic-induced swings in the level of migration — and 72% who believe migrants fill job vacancies.
It’s thus possible that the electorate has a more nuanced understanding of migration than politicians of any side give them credit for — especially Peter Dutton and his appeal to racism and hope that voters don’t notice his tough rhetoric isn’t matched by actions. The debate over migration is — as voters seem to intuit — really a debate about which kind of inflation we have: inflation driven by a surging population and the pressure that places on housing, infrastructure, services and overall demand, or inflation driven by workforce shortages.
In which case, what kind of Australia do we want? One where our kids can’t ever buy a house, and face constant competition for rentals from foreign workers and students (and where outlets like the self-interested, bad-faith Nine newspapers run pro-developer campaigns based on the lie that removing planning restrictions will fix everything), or one where growth is markedly lower, housing affordability is better, wages grow strongly, you have to wait months for a tradie, and childcare centres and aged care facilities struggle to get enough staff to stay open?
Australians seem to get that immigration is complex and has pros and cons. They just need politicians who do as well.
How should politicians address the issue of migration? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
