Note the value-type questions, most being more broadly focussed with one, arguably, being more targeted (readers to judge which one!):
Australia’s citizenship test is getting its first update in more than a decade, with a focus on Australian values.
Announcing the changes on Thursday – which marks Australian Citizenship Day – Acting Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs, Alan Tudge said: “Our Australian values are important. They have helped shape our country and they are the reason why so many people want to become Australian citizens”.
The new questions, which will be included on Australian citizenship tests from 15 November, “require potential citizens to understand and commit to our values, like freedom of speech, mutual respect, equality of opportunity, the importance of democracy and the rule of law,” Mr Tudge said in a statement.
“We are asking those who apply for citizenship to understand our values more deeply before they make the ultimate commitment to our nation.”
What kind of questions will be on the new test?
The updated citizenship test will comprise of 20 multiple choice questions, including five new questions on Australian values. The applicant will be required to correctly answer all five of the questions on values, with a mark of at least 75 per cent overall, to pass the test.
There will be no changes to the English language or residency requirements for citizenship.
Examples of questions in the new values section include:
Why is it important that all Australian citizens vote to elect the state and federal parliament?
Should people in Australia make an effort to learn English?
In Australia, can you encourage violence against a person or group of people if you have been insulted?
Should people tolerate one another where they find that they disagree?
In Australia, are people free to choose who they marry or not marry?
In Australia, is it acceptable for a husband to be violent towards his wife if she has disobeyed or disrespected him?
Do you agree that men and women should be provided equality of opportunity when pursuing their goals and interests?
Should people’s freedom of speech and freedom of expression be respected in Australia?
These aren’t the exact questions in the test and answers will be multiple choice.
An updated version of the Australian Citizenship: Our Common Bond resource will also be made available online to assist those preparing for the test.
Will see with the final version is, and the degree to which it has any nuance or not (the question below, given its absence of any discussion of reasonable accommodation, suggests unlikely):
If there’s a clash between a religious so-called law and a parliamentary law, which trumps the other?
That’s just one example of the new types of questions which will appear in the slightly updated citizenship test from November this year as aspiring Austrlaians face a tougher vaules test amid challenges to address social cohesion and foreign interference.
Acting Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs Minister Alan Tudge said on Friday that the questions are being inserted to address “our liberal democratic values as opposed to kids facts”.
A new booklet guide will be released to inform people of the changes to the multiple choice test.
Understanding that language acquisition is important for social cohesion and belonging, Mr Tudge announced last week that permanent residents and citizens with poor English skills would be given unlimited language classes but he said there are no plans to introduce an English language test as part of the citizenship process.
Mr Tudge said the questions will be easily understood by anyone who has been in the country for a period of time and who shares Australian values.
More than 30 people transferred to a remote immigration detention facility on Christmas Island have little access to internet and are struggling to contact their families.
The controversial North West Point detention centre on Christmas Island was reopened in August to relieve pressure on the onshore detention network, which had been nearing capacity.
At least 31 people have so far been transferred to the facility. The Australian Border Force declined to confirm the current detainee population on Tuesday.
One of the detainees is Les Reilly, who was transferred to Christmas Island from the Yongah Hill detention centre outside Perth in early August.
He said there were four computers with no video-calling software at the Christmas Island facility, but “you’re lucky if one works at a time”.
The detainees also don’t have access to wifi and their phone plans don’t work on Christmas Island, which is closer to Indonesia than the Australian mainland.
Detainees have not been allowed visitors in March, and losing video calls has now made that separation more difficult, Reilly told Guardian Australia over Facebook Messenger.
Reilly described his fellow detainees as “depressed, anxious, bored, frustrated”. “The hardest part is not being able to see our kids,” he said.
“We’re very concerned that people held on Christmas Island don’t have access to effective internet and their quality and quantity of communication with the outside world will be severely compromised,” Carolyn Graydon, principal lawyer for the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, said .
“There are also real concerns around people’s access to medical treatment. There’s no tertiary hospital on Christmas Island and help for more serious health concerns is several hours away.”
The Australian Border Force commissioner, Michael Outram, told the Senate’s Covid-19 committee last week that he planned to eventually house 250 immigration detainees in the remote facility, at a cost of over $55m.
The people sent to Christmas Island will be “section 501s” – those who have had visas cancelled or refused on character grounds, he said.
But Graydon said the people transferred already included “people who are owed protection obligations in Australia”.
A refugee detained at Yongah Hill said everyone at that facility was nervous about being sent to Christmas Island.
“There’s just no internet, no phone, you can’t connect with family, that’s why everyone is afraid,” he said.
A number of detainees were transferred from Sydney’s Villawood detention centre to Yongah Hill over the weekend, apparently in preparation to be sent to Christmas Island.
Western Australia’s borders are closed to the rest of the nation, but the state’s police commissioner can issue exemptions. Under the WA government’s rules, detainees from interstate have to quarantine in WA for two weeks before going to Christmas Island, which has not seen a single coronavirus case.
The men transferred to Yongah Hill from Sydney are in a separate wing of the facility, but can enter a shared area for several hours of the day, the refugee said.
Australia’s immigration detainee population has grown throughout 2020, despite advice from infectious diseases doctors to release low-risk detainees to address overcrowding during the pandemic. Border closures have halted deportations, but people are still entering detention.
The Australian Border Force is also making changes elsewhere in the detention network. At the Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation detention centre (Mita), detainees have been told more single men will be moved into huts at the Broadmeadows Residential Precinct – a low-security compound that usually accommodates women and families, to make more room elsewhere in Mita.
On 10 August, the federal court ordered the government to cease detention of a 68-year-old Pakistani man with diabetes at Mita.
Justice Bernard Murphy found there was a “real and foreseeable risk” that the coronavirus would enter the facility, and that the man was exposed to “materially higher risk” in Mita than if he was in the Victorian community and able to wear a mask and practise social distancing.
Rather than release the man to address the risk of infection, the government elected to transfer him to Western Australia.
Amira (a pseudonym), who is detained at the Mita residential precinct, said that four men had been transferred to the precinct in the last week and more were still to come.
“It’s not good for social distancing, it’s not acceptable for other detainees,” she said. “All the people complain and say this is not a good idea if you bring more people here, because there is no space. Each room already has one person, each unit is already full,” she said.
Amira said the precinct’s activities room is small, and only four people are currently allowed in it at a time.
“How are they going to manage all of this? … We’re complaining there is not enough to space to do activities,” she said.
The transfers to Christmas Island also affected detainees’ access to activities, Reilly said. The detention centre there lacks the programs offered at Yongah Hill, like cooking and woodwork.
“There is a gym that is open two hours a day, but apart from that everyone just walks around the compound like zombies,” Reilly said.
Interesting psychological study, with the fear of loss (absolute or relative) being the motivator (association/correlation, not necessarily causation):
Anti-immigration sentiment rises when affluent people fear losing their wealth, a psychological study has found.
The University of Queensland’s Professor Jolanda Jetten said harsh attitudes towards immigrants were found in times of economic downturn and relative deprivation—and also in prosperous times.
“Affluent people who fear losing wealth in the short or long term experience collective angst about their group’s future vitality and wealth status,” she said.
“Our research found this fuels negative attitudes toward immigrants and minorities. Even though wealthy people may have a lot, their fear of falling is associated with opposition to immigration.”
Professor Jetten said the research turned accepted wisdom on its head, showing that society’s most economically vulnerable were not always the most supportive of anti-immigration calls.
“In explaining the rise of right-wing populism, many have pointed to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis as the root cause of rising anti-immigrant sentiments,” she said.
“Experts had long believed that economic downturns triggered perceptions of relative deprivation and chances of civil conflict. Moreover, economic crises, so the argument typically goes, increase fear and frustration among poor working-class voters. These dynamics are typically referenced when discussing Trump’s victory in the 2016 US presidential elections, and the success of populist parties like One Nation in Australia. The assumption that economic crises combined with individual relative deprivation provide fertile soil for populism, dominate many of the discussions on the origins of right-wing populism and anti-immigrant sentiments more generally.”
But the new research highlighted wealthier people who might be attracted to such populist parties, said Professor Jetten from the UQ School of Psychology.
“It seems that if you have a lot of money, you feel you have a lot to lose and the fear of falling makes you feel vulnerable and concerned about the future,” she said.
The research team, including Dr. Frank Mols and Dr. Nik Steffens, found an association between opposition to immigration and fear of losing wealth, individually or collectively, across four studies involving a total of more than 1000 people.
“In the laboratory, when we made people feel wealthy they were more opposed to immigration when they were made to feel that they might lose some of their wealth in the future than the group who felt their wealth was secure,” Professor Jetten said.
“In a study among Australian participants we found the fear their own financial future, or that of Australia’s, will be worse than the present, was associated with more opposition to immigration. The results may help us to explain why support for political parties with anti-immigrant messages sometimes comes from the wealthiest in society. This is important at a time when populist parties and leaders with strong anti-immigrant stances are a force to be reckoned with in many countries.”
Haven’t seen anything as comprehensive with respect to Canadian media although there have been partial samples showing underrepresentatioon:
Few would argue that Australian media does well at representing cultural diversity. Certainly not in a way you’d expect when we are a multicultural society, often trumpeted as the most successful of its kind in the world.
Now, for the first time, we have the numbers that show us just how representative – or rather, unrepresentative – the state of play is.
In our report, Who Gets to Tell Australian Stories?, we gathered data to provide the first comprehensive picture of who tells and produces stories in Australian television news and current affairs. We examined about 19,000 news and current affairs items broadcast on free to air television during two weeks in June 2019.
In their frequency of appearance on screen, we found that more than 75 per cent of presenters, commentators and reporters have an Anglo-Celtic background. While about 18 per cent have a European background, only 6 per cent of those on screen have an Indigenous or non-European background. Within our sample, none of the commercial networks had more than 5 per cent of presenters, commentators and reporters who have a non-European background.
Compare this with the Australian general population. Based on the 2016 Census figures on ancestry, the Australian Human Rights Commission has previously estimated that 58 per cent of Australians have an Anglo-Celtic background, 18 per cent have a European background, 21 per cent have non-European backgrounds, and 3 per cent identify as Indigenous.
It has been nearly five decades since an official multiculturalism was adopted in Australia. Yet that has had limited visible impact on our media.
To be fair, Australian media isn’t the only arena where this is the case. Anglo-Celtic and European backgrounds dominate the leadership ranks of politics, business, the public service and our universities. Our institutions fail to make the most of the talents within our society.
Diversity is often embraced only in name, and not in norms. If there’s a glass ceiling that many women in work hit, then those from minority backgrounds hit a cultural one. According to a survey we conducted as part of our research, more than 85 per cent of non-European background journalists believe having a culturally diverse background represents a barrier to career progression.
Representation, though, matters. It particularly matters for our television media: the medium shows us who we are as a people and as a culture. News and current affairs media have a special role in identifying and telling stories about issues of importance to all Australians.
Yet it’s overwhelmingly journalists who have Anglo-Celtic backgrounds who report, select and produce these stories. The result? Too often, media does a poor job of covering race issues.
For example, just about every time there’s a panel discussion about racism on commercial breakfast television, it involves an all-white panel that has minimal understanding of what has happened. Worse, commercial breakfast television currently seems to thrive on stoking prejudice. For sections of the media, racism is part of their business model.
Even our public broadcasters have their blind spots. For the past 10 years, the ABC’s Insiders program had no journalist who was a person of colour on its panel – something it has only rectified last month. Multicultural broadcaster SBS has recently been criticised for how it treated Indigenous journalists, and for the lack of cultural diversity within its senior management.
It’d be unthinkable for any television network to have a football commentary team on air, where not a single commentator would have experience playing the sport. By the same logic, networks should understand it’s a problem, in a multicultural society, when there’s little or no diversity within its news and current affairs.
Media elsewhere seem to get it. Indeed, Australian media lags significantly behind English-speaking counterparts. What we look like on screen can seem decades behind the United States and the United Kingdom. While they are themselves far from perfect, US and British media organisations have better collection and monitoring of data on their diversity. They’ve also been bolder at setting targets for minority talent.
For change to happen here, Australian media organisations will need to take similar steps. But more than that, there needs to be a cultural change in mindset. Too often, there is unwarranted defensiveness about criticisms concerning diversity. People can wrongly feel that a critique of systemic patterns of under-representation amount to personal attacks, or even a form of “reverse racism”. Deflections and denials come all too easily.
Talk about diversity and race will always spark debate. But it’s hard to argue with the evidence. In the case of our media, the numbers tell us we are still living in a White Australia, even if the White Australia policy was dismantled nearly 50 years ago.
After completely shutting the Canadian citizenship program in late March, June saw a resumption with almost 1,700 new citizens in June (down 92 percent compared to June 2019). Australia had a much smaller decline as this article attests:
The suspension of processing had caused widespread concern among pending applicants, who were worried about their cases being put on hold.
Australian citizenship testing and interviews that were suspended earlier this year due to the coronavirus pandemic are resuming in capital cities across the country.
The federal government says the appointments have started in Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide and Perth and will also resume in Canberra, Hobart and Darwin later this month.
The suspension of processing had caused widespread concern among pending applicants, who were worried about a growing backlog.
Acting Immigration Minister Alan Tudge said the resumption of testing would allow more migrants to progress towards making the pledge of allegiance.
“The interview and tests are important steps in the process of applying for Australian citizenship, ensuring the integrity of our citizenship decisions,” he said.
A record 204,000 people became Australian citizens last financial year despite the coronavirus disruption, while 73,000 online ceremonies were conducted during the pandemic.
There remains a further 150,00 people who have applications pending, including those awaiting citizenship testing and interviews, according to government figures.
Yash-Sanjiv Rungta, who lives in Sarina in Queensland’s Mackay region, said he and his wife are yet to hear back about the status of their application since applying for citizenship in December last year.
The Indian national migrated to Australia six years ago – a decision motivated by his passion for cricket and the country’s “amazing” weather.
“To get Aussie citizenship is a matter of pride and honour,” he told SBS News.
“We are really excited about the prospect of becoming citizens of this country soon… it might take time but definitely we will become citizens one day.”
The government says citizenship appointments will return in capital cities in line with state and territory health restrictions with the safety of staff and applicants to be made a priority.
More than 1,150 people have attended one of these citizenship appointments since they resumed in July.
Mr Rungta said he remains uncertain about when he will get his opportunity, with interviews and testing yet to become available in his regional area.
“If they ask me to attend an interview or test in Brisbane – I don’t mind,” he said.
“(But) I fail to understand why they can’t start it in regional towns – where there is no instance of coronavirus left now.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Home Affairs said that Services Australia conducts citizenship tests on the department’s behalf for clients in regional Australia.
“The department is working closely with Services Australia to resume citizenship testing arrangements in regional Australia as restrictions ease in states and territories, and in accordance with health advice,” the spokesperson said.
In Melbourne, citizenship tests and interviews are yet to be resumed because of the city’s resurgence in coronavirus cases.
Melbourne-based Amul Jani is among those in the city facing the prospect of their citizenship application being further delayed by the COVID outbreak.
“That’s a big test of patience and it is really disappointing – we would have really loved for this to have happened sooner than what it looks like now,” he told SBS News.
Mr Jani migrated from India with his wife Mosiqi six years ago and along with their seven-year-old son Reyansh made their applications to become citizens in March this year.
He said the government should consider introducing virtual options for citizenship processing where face-to-face appointments can’t resume.
“In all sense we consider ourselves as part of this country … we just hope for the best and wait for it to happen,” he said.
Sydney-based Abhijeet Sen, his wife, and six-year-old son are also waiting to undertake the citizenship test and receive an interview invitation.
Almost 1,600 people signed his petition calling for the government to gradually resume the procedures as coronavirus health concerns ease.
Mr Sen said the resumption of the citizenship interviews and testing is welcome.
“That makes me excited … I am really looking forward to it,” he told SBS News.
But he remains wary of a potential backlog of applications because of the coronavirus disruption.
“COVID is not going away anytime soon so even if test is resumed it will be conducted at fairly low levels,” he said.
Face-to-face citizenship ceremonies returned in June.
There are currently around 35,000 people who have their application approved and are awaiting a ceremony, down from 85,000 in April.
One has to ask why Australia was able to maintain its citizenship program through virtual ceremonies (60,000) and Canada was not, despite recent ramping up in June and July (about 1,000).
Given that COVID restrictions on larger groups are likely to remain for some time, IRCC needs to continue to ramp up its capacity for online ceremonies even if they are not ideal and less meaningful than in-person events:
More than 200,000 people have pledged their allegiance to Australia and become new citizens in the past 12 months.
In the 2019-20 financial year, 204,817 people were conferred Australian citizenship – a 60 per cent increase on the previous financial year and the highest number on record.
Acting Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs Alan Tudge said citizenship was an important part of Australia’s success as a socially cohesive, multicultural nation.
“Becoming an Australian citizen means more than just living and working here – it’s a pledge of allegiance to our nation, our people and our values,” Mr Tudge said.
“When someone becomes a citizen, they make a pledge to uphold Australia’s rights, liberties, laws and democratic values. It represents a willingness to integrate into our successful multicultural nation.”
“Being an Australian citizen is an immense privilege, which brings both rights and responsibilities. I congratulate all those who have taken this important step.”
The Government moved quickly to start online ceremonies when COVID-19 restrictions forced in-person ceremonies to stop, and to date more than 60,000 people have been conferred citizenship this way.
Small in-person ceremonies resumed on 3 June. Online ceremonies will also continue for the foreseeable future for councils unable to host in-person ceremonies in a COVID-safe way.
The Department of Home Affairs has also resumed citizenship interviews and testing, in line with COVID-19 health advice. Small numbers of appointments have begun in Perth and Sydney and more will be rolled out in other locations as soon as possible.
Wonder whether they had similar fears for Canada (but Canada never had referendums on the monarchy):
Buckingham Palace feared the monarchy would collapse in Australia because of an influx of postwar ‘non-British’ immigrants, newly released correspondence reveals.
Letters exchanged between Governor-General Sir John Kerr and the Queen’s private secretary Sir Martin Charteris were finally released today after four decades.
Along with providing bombshell revelations on Sir John’s decision to dismiss Gough Whitlam’s government in 1975, they reveal how the Palace saw Australia.
Sir Martin believed that without more frequent visits from The Queen and other royals, a more multicultural country would ditch the monarchy.
A year after the dismissal, Sir John wrote to Sir Martin – by then his frequent pen pal – to voice his concerns about the monarchy’s future in Australia.
‘I have been musing about the monarchy as an institution in our part of the world’, he wrote on December 19, 1976.
‘In 1947, 98 per cent [of Australians] were of British stock. By the 1971 census only 88 per cent were so derived.’
Sir John noted that most of these non-British immigrants were Italians, Greeks, Yugoslavs and Germans – but there were many other nationalities.
‘Our immigrants come from over one hundred countries including, for example, Egypt and Turkey, Lebanon and other Arab countries.
‘Increasingly, but not yet significantly, we have Asians. Most of these, and most who have come from Europe are from republics and are not directly acquainted with monarchy.’
A year after the dismissal, Sir John wrote to Sir Martin – by now his frequent penpal – with concerns about the monarchy’s future in Australia
+6
Sir Martin replied that the ‘increasing non-British element in Australia’s ethnic make up’ had ‘significant ramifications for the monarchy
Sir Martin replied that the ‘increasing non-British element in Australia’s ethnic make up’ had ‘significant’ ramifications for the monarchy.
‘It is one of the reasons why the monarchy in Australia could not, I believe, long remain a reality without more frequent visits by the Sovereign than was customary in the first half of this century,’ he wrote.
‘The days when The Sovereign of Australia could remain in London, and still remain acceptable are, I think, long past; new immigrants, changing values… would all make this impossible, as well, of course as being wholly undesirable.’
In other letters, the pair discussed movements campaigning for an Australian republic but believed they were formed by a small number of ‘left-wing’ rabble rousers.
Australia held a referendum in November 1999 on whether the country should become a republic, but it was comfortably defeated.
The 211 letters, thousands of pages in all, contain many revelations about the lead-up to and aftermath of the dismissal as Sir John wrestled with what to do.
Also revealed is Mr Whitlam’s ‘rage’ at being ousted and the extent of the backlash against Sir John.
The letters finally showed that the Queen did not order Sir John to dismiss Mr Whitlam.
It has long been speculated that Her Majesty may have undermined Australia’s independence by trying to influence Sir John’s decision.
The letters appear to indicate that the Queen and Sir John did not communicate, at least not directly, and Kerr’s correspondence was only with Sir Martin.
Palace allies battled for decades to keep the documents – which also include correspondence from Her Majesty’s then-private secretary, Martin Charteris – secret, with the National Archives of Australia refusing to release them to the public.
The letters had been deemed personal communication by both the National Archives of Australia and the Federal Court, which meant the earliest they could be released was 2027, and only then with the Queen’s permission.
But the High Court bench earlier this year ruled the letters were property of the Commonwealth and part of the public record, and so must be released.
While Australian approach to immigration is more restrictive than Canada’s, Canada’s economic and immigration recovery may also be longer than expected. But like all projections and estimates, time will tell.
Australia has been one of the more successful countries in addressing COVID-19, with only 311 infections and 4 deaths per million (July 1):
Australia’s second-most populous state was poised to take the biggest economic hit from the COVID-19 pandemic even before a dramatic spike in cases over the past fortnight forced renewed shutdowns in large parts of Melbourne.
Key points:
Victoria’s gross state product is expected to fall 1.6pc in 2020-21
The state is vulnerable due to its reliance on immigration from overseas and interstate
Many of the smaller states are expected to see higher peak unemployment rates, despite comparatively better economic performance
The latest business outlook from consultancy Deloitte Access Economics tips Victoria to suffer the biggest fall in gross state product in the 2020-21 financial year, which just began.
Deloitte predicts Victoria’s domestic economy will shrink 1.6 per cent this financial year, also leaving it with the worst economic performance in the nation this calendar year.
“The largest downturn is likely to be felt in Victoria given its current spike in cases, as well as that state’s dependence on migration and on foreign students in an age of lockdowns and closed borders,” Deloitte’s Chris Richardson said in the report.
Most state economies are expected to shrink around 3 per cent this year due to the pandemic.(Supplied: Deloitte)
Mr Richardson said Victoria’s economy was particularly vulnerable due to the latest wave of coronavirus cases, which would see the state cut off from the rest of the country, once the border with New South Wales closed from Wednesday.
“Victoria has had the strongest COVID restrictions across the country and now, with the prospect of a second wave returning and the reintroduction of restrictions, the state is likely to see some prolonged misery in particularly hard-hit sectors,” he noted.
Melbourne’s construction sector facing ‘severe setback’
While travel-related sectors, such as tourism and education, and hospitality will be the most immediate casualties, Mr Richardson says the medium-term effects will be felt acutely in the state’s previously booming construction sector.
“Victoria’s construction sector was already showing signs of weakness before COVID hit,” he wrote.
“With high levels of uncertainty, and an unexpected drop in population growth, construction is likely to suffer a severe setback over the coming year.
“Demand for office and apartments in Melbourne, including those projects that are halfway through, are being reconsidered as the density of Melbourne’s CBD is now less attractive across people’s daily lives.”
Mr Richardson added that one silver lining for Victoria’s construction sector was that there was a lot of planned infrastructure investment, something which would also be seen in the second-most pandemic-affected state, New South Wales.
It will particularly target transport projects in Melbourne and Sydney.
However, that investment is not expected to wholly make up for the loss of overseas arrivals.
“Other things equal, keeping tourists, students and migrants away for longer means that Australia’s economy will be some 4 to 5 per cent smaller than it could otherwise be,” Mr Richardson said.
Deloitte observed that New South Wales was similarly affected by the closure of international borders, with the state usually receiving more than a third of migrants who arrive in Australia from overseas.
However, in recent years, New South Wales has been losing existing residents to other Australian states, notably Victoria, a trend which Deloitte expects to have paused during the crisis, especially due to hard border closures.
The state’s comparatively better success in containing the virus so far has Deloitte tipping just a 0.1 per cent fall in New South Wales gross state product this financial year, as domestic activities continue to return to normal.
Some other states are expected to see a rise in their domestic activity — again excluding the large drop in exports, which includes foreign tourism and education — while the two territories are tipped to perform best.
“The lift in LNG-related exports from the Ichthys project will protect the Northern Territory, while its strong public sector base is a very welcome anchor in the storm for the ACT,” Mr Richardson explained.
Even though their domestic economies are expected to take a smaller hit than the bigger states, Deloitte is warning South Australia and Queensland will suffer the nation’s highest unemployment rates, above 9 per cent, while Western Australia and Tasmania will also have a weaker jobs market than Victoria.
Deloitte tips unemployment to be at its lowest in the ACT (5.7 per cent) and New South Wales (7.5 per cent).
COVID-19 infections ‘best’ economic indicator
Overall, Deloitte is forecasting a relatively fast recovery from the pandemic, tipping only a 0.4 per cent decline in GDP nationwide this financial year, following on from a 0.1 per cent fall in 2019-20.
It is predicting robust national economic growth of 5.3 per cent the following financial year, 2021-22.
However, this forecast is based on Australia keeping COVID-19 cases suppressed, a vaccine or good anti-viral treatments being widely available by the middle of next year, and international travel gradually recommencing, starting with trips to New Zealand at the end of this year and expanding to a general reopening of Australia’s borders by the end of next year.
Mr Richardson said a continued and widespread spike in cases would lead to much worse economic outcomes.
“That’s why opening up if virus numbers aren’t under control is risky.
“And, in a volatile environment, it is also why the best leading indicator of how an economy will perform is how that nation is going in its fight against the virus.”
Will continue to watch how this plays out and whether it influences Canadian debates and discussion (not seeing many signs it is to date). Canada has also largely been dependent on immigration for economic growth and the drop this year will have a comparable impact:
Australia’s immigration program, a key factor in the economy’s record stretch without recession, is under threat amid calls for the nation to turn inward while it recovers from the coronavirus pandemic.
Skills-based immigration has helped fill roles in industries experiencing high demand, slowing the aging of the country’s workforce. Crucially, the swelling population has delivered about 1.5 percentage points to annual GDP growth, allowing the economy to defy the business cycle.
Harry Triguboff personifies the program. The billionaire octogenarian fled to Sydney from China in 1948 ahead of Mao Zedong’s takeover, eventually becoming Australia’s fifth-richest man. His wealth was generated by building apartments to house the multitudes who followed in his footsteps.
“Australia was always built on migrants. We are the most successful with it,” Triguboff said in an interview with Bloomberg News. “Migrants are important because they work and build, and migrants of course need housing.”
Yet Australia’s bipartisan openness toward immigration is fraying amid a pandemic-induced recession. With the virus forcing the closing of borders, Prime Minister Scott Morrison anticipates an 85% drop in permanent arrivals this fiscal year.
Bill Evans, chief economist at Westpac Banking Corp., estimates that such a reduction could limit overall population growth to about 0.75%. The population could even contract if the number of Australians leaving the country doesn’t change, he said.
This has “profound implications for the nature of the job market, from the perspective of supply, the future and structure of the dwelling construction cycle and Australia’s potential growth rate,” Evans said. “Supporting Australia’s population growth is paramount. Australia should not accept the prospect of a collapse in net migration.”
Australia has been hailed for running the world’s best immigration program. In 2016, just under half of all Australians were either born overseas or had a parent who was. It ranks highly even among developed-world counterparts: 29% of Australians were born overseas, compared with 23% in New Zealand, 21% in Canada and around 14% in the U.S.
Immigration played a central role in helping Australia avoid recession for 28 years — until coronavirus hit. In per capita terms, however, the expansion halted temporarily in 2013 following the mining investment boom, and again in late 2018 as residential dwelling construction slowed.
“The post-COVID-19 question we must ask now is this: when we restart our migration program, do we want migrants to return to Australia in the same numbers and in the same composition as before the crisis?” said Kristina Kenneally, the opposition Labor party spokesperson for immigration.
“Our answer should be no,” she wrote in a May opinion article. “Our economic recovery must help all Australians get back on their feet, and to do that we need a migration program that puts Australian workers first.”
What Bloomberg’s Economists Say
“Migration has been a key driver of Australia’s growth story over the past decade, bolstering demand – particularly for housing – and easing labor market and demographic pressures through a strong supply of younger skilled workers. A migration-led slowdown in population growth risks exposing several underlying weaknesses in the economy, dampening demand, and revealing shortcomings in the training of skilled workers.”
James McIntyre, economist
Australia’s Treasury department said in a 2018 research report that migration is typically attacked because it adds to existing problems. The department noted that from 1996 to 2016 Australia’s population rose by more than 6 million people, with 75% of the growth in the states’ capital cities.
“Issues such as congestion and pollution are not new. These issues have concerned policy makers for decades and are the result of a range of legacy issues, such as environmental practices or town planning decisions, in addition to population growth,” the Treasury report said. “However, population growth tends to heighten existing challenges.”
Veronica Sparagis, business manager and co-owner of Ultima Building Group in Sydney’s western suburbs, warned that scaling back migration would hurt home building. It could erode demand for new homes and deprive the industry of specialist knowledge from offshore, she said.
Net immigration creates demand for an additional 80,000-100,000 homes per year, responsible for around two-thirds of underlying property demand, based on a calculation of net arrivals and average persons per household. Almost 10% of Australians work in construction, which accounts for about 9% of GDP.
“The industry most impacted by a cut in immigration is construction,” Sparagis said. “The building industry may be forced into a standstill.”
Multicultural Meanderings 