The classic move: blaming migrants

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.