Australia needs a migration policy based on workforce reality, not populist fear, racial resentment or a political race to match One Nation’s impossible promises.

It is too much to hope and expect that an Albanese Labor government would implement a liberal immigration and refugee policy simply because it was the right thing to do, and very much to Australia’s advantage. But could or would they do it because it is the cunning thing to do, as both the Pauline Hanson One Nation movement and the conservative parties hitch themselves to populist, racist and pseudo-nationalist wagons that are not good for the Australian economy, not good for the most disadvantaged Australians already here, and which are destructive of social cohesion, whatever that is.

Australia must set its population policies according to its needs, but the argument that the nation does not need a bigger and more skilled workforce is nonsense, based more on opinions and prejudices – mostly false – about the character and colour of migrants, rather than on the facts.

Even were it true that the problems of housing shortages and the incapacity of younger Australians to get access to the housing market were a product of housing demand from migrants and international students, and that is dubious, the only way that the nation can build enough housing is with a bigger and better-trained building workforce. It cannot be raised here, and certainly not from among the millions instinctively leaning towards One Nation as the answer to the nation’s problems. They are mostly too old, for starters. We also need additional workers to make up many of the material shortages and supply lines that are restricting production.

The existing economy cannot supply the workers, nor adequately train those that are available. Building quality and standards are already dropping significantly, partly under the pretence that the biggest single obstacle to greater housing production is red tape, bureaucracy and relentless nimbyism. Adding an air of panic and urgency is already guaranteeing that future generations of Australians will live in shelter manifestly less well-built, safe and secure, and in a form other than they want, than their parents do. But the problem is not merely one of diverting and training existing workers from jobs they have into the building and construction industry. Australia has virtually full employment, if one with significantly less job security than most of the preceding generations, and those who want to redirect existing workers must specify where they must come from.

Australia also needs skilled and semi-skilled jobs in the community sector, including childcare, disability services and aged care, and is moving into an era where there will also be bigger shortages of teachers, doctors and skilled health workers. In the healthcare industry, we could barely survive were it not for thousands of well-trained workers from........

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