Budget: population porkies for Big Australia

On top of fires and floods, COVID-19 hounded Scott Morrison to the unthinkable. Suspending mass migration - bipartisan furniture since 2005.

Net migration plummeted to negative 89,000 in 2020-2021. Lowest since World War I. Officially this barely influenced the 50-year unemployment low. It was the genius of government stimulus.

Therefore, 2021 and 2022 Coalition Budgets reset huge migration targets. Rising to plus 235,000 net, from 2024-25 onwards. Anthony Albanese didn't blink.

The first Jim Chalmers Budget pitches the 235,000 (figure likely underestimated) into 2022-23. With 195,000 permanent migration "outcomes". Effectively, Australia's largest immigration program ever. Voters get no say.

A formidable silo of self-interest, dominated by Australia's graduate classes, endorses this endlessly growing Big Australia. Political parties, Treasury/Reserve Bank, state/local governments, industry and developers, think-tanks and economists, media and academics, employer/labour associations, and organised religions.

Here, here, and here voters liked the migration lull. Silo could not care less. They also dismiss the continent's carrying capacity and environmental warning lights.

Chalmers' Jobs and Skills Summit was typical. His 140-plus attendees were Big Australia loyalists. Low-migration thinkers weren't invited. Immigration fibs had the floor.

The envelopes, please, for this year's Population Porkies:

Fib: We should always be an increasingly "migrant nation"

Albanese's premier pitch for Big Australia. Having always had lots of migrants we should have lots more. A non-argument. Try it with "fossil fuels" for "migrants".

Prosperous European Union (EU) or Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations usually practise low population growth. A few Middle East autocracies emulate Australia's 30% of population overseas-born.

We proclaim the world's most successful multicultural society. It's gold to Australia. No reason to keep topping the OECD at population growth.