En Passant

I’m for a big Australia. Big in its vision; big in its heart; big in its hopes; big in its thoughts and big in its humanity. This is an Australia where all are welcome; where planning replaces the anarchy of the market; where democracy is the essence of everyday life.

Instead we have an election battle between two parochial, narrow-minded, backward looking, reactionary parties. They know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.  Their hearts are full of hate and their minds are full of shit.

They are the leaders from behind. They gather their forces to retreat, retreat, retreat – not one step at a time but galloping headlong to the abyss of doing nothing.

Fuck off we’re full appears to be their real but unbidden slogan.  They couch their small Australia in terms of sustainability, population, congestion and infrastructure but their goal is the same – to blame the most recent arrivals for the problems of the system.

Shamefully some conservationists and Greens give this racism a veneer of respectability with their Malthusian mantras.

Of course Tony Abbott is pulling a swiftie when he says he will reduce immigration to 170,000 in the Coalition’s first term. Labor is on track to do more than that anyway.

The disgrace is that Labor proclaim this as a virtue rather than the outrage it is.

In 2008 we had net migration into Australia of 300,000. We survived. Some of it was Australians returning as a result of the global financial crisis. Much of it was skilled migration.  And some of it was students studying here.

Leaving aside 33,000 immigrants from New Zealand who are not counted in the figures, only 30,000 immigrants last year came from predominantly ‘white’ regions out of 158,000 arrivals.  So any debate about immigration is necessarily about race too.

In the 2007/08 financial year for example there were almost 115,000 skilled immigrants who came to Australia. Last financial year the target was just over 108,000.

Labor cut the planned skilled immigration program, according to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship website, ’by 14 per cent from 133 500 to 115 000 in mid March 2009 in light of the economic situation.’ This year it has cut it a further 7,000 or about 6 percent.

The Liberals have made much of the fact that in 2008 the net overseas migration intake was 300,000. What they don’t mention is that much of this (perhaps over 100,000) was Australian expatriates returning home after losing jobs, pay or prestige in other countries badly impacted by the  Global Financial Crisis or students coming to study in Australia who return to their home country after a few years.

The Liberals will attack international students. Last year education was our 3rd biggest export.

It earnt $18.6 bn. There were 200000 international students in higher education alone, and 491,000 all up. The Liberals will destroy international higher education.

They are protecting their mining mates and the money they make from selling our minerals, but offer education as the sacrificial lamb for the possibility of winning an election.

But the problem for both Labor and the Liberals is that the student program, and especially the skilled migration program, are both vital for the long term survival of a vibrant Australian capitalism.

So both sides will talk about cutting immigration but the reality is that the bourgeoisie will demand more skilled workers and, to a lesser extent, more international students. 

International students are a great earner for Universities and a source of cheap labour for retailers. On top of racist proposals to restrict their numbers, many international students are not coming anyway. The festival of racism led by the two major parties makes us a very unattractive education destination now.

As to skilled immigration we have grossly underfunded our training and education systems and because our booming industries like mining cannot keep up with the demand. So we bring in already trained workers from overseas either permanently or on 457 work visas for a few years.

Abbott might have ‘saved’ the mining bosses from a small tax rise but cutting immigration could do more damage to them than any tax. He’ll listen, just as Gillard will.

On April 6 this year I wrote the following (can I claim prescience here?) when Tony Burke was appointed Minister for Population:

His role is to square the circle on population, what we might call the third way between the xenophobes who want no immigration and the ruling elite who want more immigration. One possible Labor compromise  is growth in regional and less developed centres and stagnation in the major cities. 

Business is mostly concentrated in the big cities, apart from the miners and agribusiness who have their headquarters there but their productive enterprises in the bush and beyond. Most capitalists need workers in the cities, not regional and outback Australia.

So the unplanned anarchy that is capitalism will continue to crowd new arrivals into the big cities.  What Governments won’t do is spend any money on improving life in the crowded working class suburbs with better public transport, public housing, public hospitals and public schools let alone allow ordinary people to plan the future to meet human need.

Labor and Liberals won’t and can’t spend more on people because that would require taxing big business much more to pay for better cities.

It’s far easier for the two major parties of capital to rail against immigrants and asylum seekers than to do anything that would actually address the real problems of overcrowding and congestion.