What should Australians know about migration before the election?

360info

Professor Alan Gamlen, director of the Migration Hub at The Australian National University, outlines what Australians should know about migration ahead of May's federal election. Courtesy: 360Info.org

Transcript

00:00The most important thing people need to understand about migration coming up to this election

00:04is that migration is a pattern and not a crisis.

00:08Migration has always happened and it always will.

00:11And from that perspective, being pro-migration or anti-migration makes about as much sense

00:17as being pro or anti the weather.

00:20It happens, we've got to deal with it.

00:22Most people in the world don't actually move internationally.

00:25There's a myth that migration is out of control and at historically unprecedented levels.

00:31But in reality, less than 4% of human beings live outside their origin country.

00:35And that percentage has been pretty stable since the 1960s.

00:39It's essential to realize that normal migration isn't a fixed measure.

00:44It's a political judgment.

00:46Different countries have different expectations at different points in time.

00:49In Cuba, for example, just 0.03% of the population were born overseas.

00:56But in the United Arab Emirates, more than 88% of the population are foreign born.

01:02In Australia, about 30% of residents were born overseas at the moment.

01:06This is the second highest proportion in the OECD, but it hasn't always been that way.

01:12In 1891, about a third of Australian settlers were foreign born.

01:16By 1947, after the Great Depression and two world wars, that number had fallen below 10%.

01:22So an important question that voters need to ask in this election is how much migration

01:27do they want?

01:28At the moment, many people think they want less migration, which is fine.

01:32Except that the reason they often give is that they think there's a lot more migration

01:37than there actually is.

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