Could the US election result dent the 'Huge Australia' plan?

Forever, powerful pro-migration stakeholders have wrung their hands in mock distress. By golly, if only we had a "population plan". We should have an "immigration plan".

Of course, we do have such a plan – Big (or Huge) Australia. Labor and Liberal have been devoted to it. Could the US Democrats immigration-trainwreck tempt Peter Dutton to genuinely shift?

Treasury writes the plan, OK?

It doesn't matter how much cost-of-living hardship and real-wages freefall that Australian households endure - Treasurer Chalmers soft-soaps them with Treasury Building talking-points.

Memo to ABC – naturally, said Treasurer maintains a national population plan. As does any major OECD economy. Despite our resources cornucopia, lazy population growth is a (the) major driver of economic "growth":

Australia's low-publicity population plan requires mega (1.5-2.5%) population growth by OECD norms (0.5%), powered by immigration. This allows Budget to assume expansive economic benefits from population growth, discounting the obvious economic and environmental costs.

Every year, this pernicious plan soft-shoes into Budget Paper 3, as Appendix A.

No justification is offered. Treasurer doesn't discuss it. Not even on Budget night.

Consolation prize, at least it lights a guttering candle on the massive Treasury targets for net-migration, plus the resultant estimates for population growth. Of which, the "natural increase" or non-migration component is very low, currently 20% and less, and highly predictable.

The plan doesn't even publish population growth estimates, percentage wise. DIY.

The latest Appendix (May 2024) implies population growth about 2% over 2023-24, though the actual is more like 2.5%. That's way higher than economic growth 1.5% over the same period, with ABS advising a "sixth consecutive quarter of GDP per capita falls". Ouch for voters.

Labor's all-time immigration betrayal

In its reform agenda, Whitlam Labor was not so concerned with revving population growth. But Hawke-Keating Labor celebrated "multiculturalism", openly suggesting population numbers were a fiefdom for politicians not voters.

However, mega-migration didn't really take off, until the 21st century. Net migration of 200,000 was unknown to Australia, before 2007. Then we topped 300,000, the following year.