Opinion
Australians need a PhD in ‘borderology’ to figure out the rules
Jennifer HewettColumnistFrom November 1, returning Australians will be welcome to fly into Sydney without the need to face two weeks of quarantine as long as they are fully vaccinated.
That’s an advance on what’s currently allowed for anyone wanting to travel from Melbourne to Sydney. Under the NSW rules, the entire state of Victoria is still considered an “area of concern”, requiring anyone travelling from there to isolate for 14 days.
The states have ensured a confusing plethora of different border restrictions and opening timetables. Louise Kennerley
I concede a vested interest in this anomaly being fixed, having been delighted to book a trip to Sydney from Melbourne next Monday only to belatedly discover the rather large flaw in my plans for a two-week stay. Having endured two weeks of quarantine to make the trip one year ago, I am not keen to repeat a similar experience.
But I am hardly alone in confusion over the plethora of different border restrictions and opening timetables. Presumably, the Perrottet government will soon change its conditions of entry to avoid the ludicrous result of making it easier for Australians to travel from London or New York than Melbourne. By November 1 perhaps? Who knows?
Queensland has a December 18 deadline to allow quarantine free travel from all states, for example. Western Australia remains closed indefinitely. Other zero-COVID-19 state governments have so far been vague about timetables to welcome even Victorian pariahs.
The aviation industry lobby group has just put out a list of tips “to help streamline the travel experience” by reminding people to check the various permits, certificates, conditions and codes required.
Australians can only hope that by next year the notion of flying between states will no longer require a PhD in the new science of borderology. International travel will remain complicated but hopefully the proliferation of vaccine passports will proceed relatively quickly.
Morrison is apprehensive that allowing the “big Australia” debate to flourish again also creates electoral risks in crucial Coalition seats in areas like regional Queensland.
What won’t be settled any time soon is the ferocious argument over the desirable number of people wishing to come here on a permanent basis when all of Australia finally rejoins the rest of the world in living with COVID-19.
As well as the other transformations of life as we knew it, COVID-19 abruptly ended Australia’s previously very high level of immigration. Net overseas migration collapsed from around 250,000 in 2019 to negative 5000 last year with that negative number likely to be even more this year.
This shutting of the immigration gate has certainly helped keep the national unemployment rate during COVID-19 much lower than it would otherwise have been.
But businesses are once again describing the shortage of labour as one of the most pressing challenges for the country as it reopens. This goes well beyond the absence of international backpackers filling casual positions in hospitality.
The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry is just the latest employer group to sound the alarm, calling for a near doubling of the skilled intake to more like 200,000 to prevent a skills “crunch”.
That would be difficult to achieve in practice. Many other countries are also grappling with a dearth of workers for the jobs available, compounded by the looming demographic of retiring baby boomers. But Australia’s record of super-charged immigration makes the issue particularly potent here.
NSW is attempting to lead the national debate, arguing for a massive increase in numbers over the next few years to boost post-pandemic economic growth.
Bureaucratic advice to the new Premier urged a dramatic doubling over the next five years of the previous net overseas annual migration rate of just over 200,000.
Yet the Commonwealth and other states are cautious and quiet despite the boost to GDP that would result and rapidly increasing evidence of extreme labour shortages becoming worse.
In part, that’s a political response to the sensitivity of the issue after essential infrastructure like road and rail lagged so far behind years of an influx of immigrants to Australia’s largest cities.
It was one reason why Gladys Berejklian declared the need for a “breather” in the high rates of immigration in 2018.
Her successor still says he is staunchly in favour of a “big NSW” and plans to take this up with the Prime Minister.
But Morrison is apprehensive that allowing the “big Australia” debate to flourish again also creates electoral risks in crucial Coalition seats in areas like regional Queensland.
Naturally, Pauline Hanson rushed to denounce any suggested increase in immigration, insisting “opening the floodgates to an extra 2 million migrants will destroy any hope of easing traffic congestion, reducing wait times in our hospitals, making housing more affordable, and so on.”
But it’s not only base political calculations at stake in arguments over the rate and nature of Australia’s immigration program.
Australia’s tradition of high immigration pre-pandemic has certainly boosted economic growth over all. It has also conveniently hidden a deterioration in productivity growth and GDP per capita growth over the past decade.
Fitch Ratings, in a paper released this week, noted muted productivity growth across most developed markets over the past decade but described Australia’s “lacklustre” performance as particularly weak.
It says the migration shock will have huge economic consequences, including building wage and inflation pressures. (Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe might consider that a good thing!) It predicts a labour supply shortfall of around 140,000 this year due to negative migration.
Yet Australia’s record of plugging labour holes with high immigration has also allowed governments and businesses to avoid harder, long-term questions about the holes in the education system and much greater attention on how to develop skills within the Australian workforce.
There’s no doubt Australia’s eventual restart of immigration will be crucial in building innovation, skills, investment and growth. The ability to finesse the right level and skills needed is less clear.
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