Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said he believed in restoring migration to the levels seen before the pandemic as soon as the government’s health experts declared it possible.
“And those skilled workers play a very important role across the economy, but we’re not going to compromise public safety, or indeed the economic recovery, by moving ahead of the medical advice.”
“We will get back to it over time,” he said. “Obviously, net overseas migration went negative through this crisis. You’ll see Treasury’s forecast for the coming years on Tuesday night, but that again is a pandemic effect, not a permanent change. Labor home affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally argued one year ago for greater priority to be given to unemployed Australians rather than a return to the migration levels of the past.“Do we want migrants to return to Australia in the same numbers and in the same composition as before the crisis? Our answer should be no,” she wrote.
“By the end of the forecast period in 2023-24, net overseas migration is still not expected to return to pre-COVID-19 levels,” it said. “By 2028-29, net overseas migration is assumed to reach 235,000 per year.” “We might be able to hobble along for a couple of years without it but immigration is really fundamental to Australia,” said Gabriela D’Souza, senior economist at the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia, an independent think tank that began in 1960.
“It’s an interesting point about the money that Australians are spending domestically, the money that otherwise they would have spent overseas. And, as you know, it is not insignificant,” he said.While more than 11.3 million Australian travellers returned from an overseas trip in the year before the pandemic, the number of returning Australians was 1.4 million in the first year of the crisis, with millions of consumers forced to spend their money at home.
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