The classic move: blaming migrants

The Australian Labor Senator Kristina Keneally has come up with a classic way to help Australians, beat-up on immigrants. The Senator in an op-ed piece recently talked about the need to reset the migration system. Basically, reduce the number of migrants coming into the country.

A tribal, nationalistic, us against them, and Trump like commentary. Where if one gives that commentary as a politician, it may sound better than someone shouting the same thing at the local pub.

One can be fair to the Senator and argue she merely wants to help Australians. The problem of course, like every other time people cite migrants as the problem, it does not help.

The Senator wrote of the unemployed and underemployed Australians. Agreeing, with an economist she mentioned, that these people, if retrained, could fill jobs, if not for those pesky migrants.

For one, most of the unemployed are short-term unemployed. They will find a job without anyone needing to attack migrants.

The underemployed in say retail, may not want to retrain, especially in another industry.

The long-term unemployed have multiple barriers to employment that go beyond a lack of training, or migrants.

The Senator also noted that young Australians are particularly disadvantaged. The unemployment rate is higher for them, higher than the general rate.

Once again, the solution to this complex issue goes beyond blaming migrants.

It was quite telling that there was not a single mention, in the op-ed piece, of the benefits to temporary migrants themselves.

No mention of how their lives are improved almost overnight, by coming here.

The World Bank notes that migrants from poor countries, can earn on average 54 times more in a rich country than a poor one.

The money they send back to their families, can help those families. In fact, the money they send back can do a lot of good for whole countries.

The amount of remittance flowing back to low-and middle-income countries in 2019 around 551 billion. Money that is helping to reduce global poverty.

The Senator, nonetheless, is happy to reduce the number of migrants coming here, especially temporary workers.

The Senator notes that we have the second most temporary workers, after America, amongst OECD countries. She wants to reduce those numbers, giving people even less chance of coming here.

I would have thought temporary migration is a good compromise.

There are people that do not like migrants living here permanently. The Australian government even capped the number of permanent migrants coming here. So, let them come here at least on a temporary basis, and even increase the numbers.

If the Australian government or opposition wants to help Australians, good. There are things that can be done that have nothing to do with migrants.

Introduce a job guarantee, where all people are offered a job paid for by the government. Boost unemployment benefits {and not just because of a pandemic}, but because it has shown to boost the economy. Build far more social housing because the housing sector is a big employer. Give much more money to the not for profit sector, it employs many people, and has capacity for many more. Create new industries, better support small businesses and commit to greater infrastructure spending. Get rid of poverty so people can have more opportunities to study, work, earn and create businesses.

The Senator notes the pandemic has changed the migration system. No one is coming in, and there were foreign workers told to return to their countries.

So, the Senator wants us to use this as an opportunity to reset the migration system.

I agree, let us reset the migration system.

Let us increase both the number of skilled and unskilled workers allowed to come. Let us increase the number of temporary workers that can come. Let us be number one amongst OECD countries, with the most temporary workers. Let us consider making, as noted by others, more of the migrant places, refugee places. If we can take in over 150,000 permanent migrants per year, and many more temporary migrants, we can take in more refugees.

None of those changes may quite get the votes. So how about something else added to the list?

A preamble perhaps at the top of my list, one that states that migrants should not come to a country. Steal jobs that could be done by locals, nor congest roads as they drive about, and should stay in their own country, and work to improve their own countries, or something to the effect.

Yet, I am not thinking of the migrants that come here. I am thinking of the Australians that go overseas and take jobs from locals.

It seems that it is okay when we do it, but not okay when people want to come here.

How about we remove that preamble and add a new one. How about it reads, stop blaming migrants for all problems.