In last week’s column I showed that 59 per cent of GPs (General Practitioners or Family Doctors) in Australia were foreign born nationals at the 2021 Census and argued cutting the migration intake was likely to create more problems than it solves.

When I shared the column on my socials, very predictably, a lot of criticism came my way. These criticisms tended to be very vague – and that’s a problem. Details matter.  

So, what exactly is your concern when you hear about high migration figures?

You must be very precise in naming your concerns because otherwise they can’t possibly be addressed. Most often I hear vague statements like “we have too many migrants – just read the room, everyone thinks that”.  

Personally, I am deeply sceptical towards any argument that bases its validity on the fact that an (apparent) majority of people feels or thinks a certain way.  

I was born into a Germany that still grappled deeply with the question of how the majority of Germans allowed the atrocities of the Second World War to occur (the number of people actively resisting the Nazis was very small).

This question shaped the way that history was taught to me in school, the type of books about the period that I read and the type of public speeches I was exposed to in my formative years.

The majority opinion can be spectacularly wrong when it doesn’t actively concern itself with the details of the topic in question. 

Therefore I distrust anyone who isn’t precise in their criticism of migration. I distrust leaders who doesn’t spell out in which way their proposed solution (in our current case, a massively reduced migration intake) would improve a specific outcome.

The vagueness is usually by design because details kill outrage. Let me explain. 

Advertisers in the 1990s were certain that nothing sold better than sex. Sexy young women in bikinis were used to glue your eyeballs to the TV screen or print ad. 

Today, as most content is consumed via social media, we learned that ‘sex sells’ was amateur hour. Outrage engages us much more than sex or boring facts.  

To maximise attention, or........

© The New Daily