How Australia became disillusioned by immigration

Five days after fifty Muslims were killed in New Zealand in an attack attributed to a white Australian supremacist, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison unveiled a plan that he said would meet a fundamental challenge for the United States. country.

However, it was not a proposal to fight hate groups and Islamophobia. It was an immigration reduction plan.

The government's plan, which has been preparing for months, is a possible turning point for a country shaped by immigrants since its time as a British penal colony and presented in recent years as a model to follow. this immigration, if managed properly, can strengthen a country.

Amidst the global rejection of immigration that has transformed politics in the United States, the United Kingdom, and much of Europe, even Australia is changing course, so it's not the same. away from a policy welcoming skilled foreigners helping spur decades of economic growth, which turned a multicultural society into a country formerly closed to immigrants who were not white.

Morrison presented this decision in response to the saturation of the country's largest cities, which has resulted in travel congestion and rising costs in the housing sector. "This plan aims to protect the quality of life of Australians throughout our country," he said.

These concerns have been generalized as opposition in the country to population growth has increased rapidly over the past year. However, some fear that these "quality of life" complaints have accentuated – or perhaps masked – a more entrenched ambivalence towards a new wave of non-European immigration, especially from citizens of Muslim, African and Asian countries.

Neither the rapid pace of change nor its benefits can be denied. Australia's population has increased by almost 40%, from eighteen to twenty-five million residents since the 1990s, and economists say the record of twenty-seven years without recessions in the country would have been impossible without increasing immigration

Most of the 4.7 million foreigners who have arrived since 1980 are skilled migrants, particularly since 2004, when more than 350,000 students and skilled workers arrived each year on average, according to government figures.

According to the 2016 census, more than one in four Australians was born abroad, compared to 13.7% of the population in the United States and 14% in the United Kingdom. In addition, six of the top ten countries of origin of migrants are Asian; China (509,558 people) and India (455,385) top the list.

Many Australians say that it is time for this trend to end. In a recent study, more than two-thirds said that their country no longer needed more people. In 2010, most Australians did not agree with this statement.

Morrison and his Liberal party – who often used anti-immigrant sentiment to motivate his conservative base – clearly believe that immigration will be their victorious affair in the May 18 national election.

The government has slowed approval of visas and plans to reduce immigration from 160,000 to 30,000 a year, the largest reduction since the early 1980s, according to archival data.

Experts badyzing the survey data and census figures found that Australia's frustration with immigration focused on general issues: the growth rate of the population (1.6% nationally last year, compared to 0.7% in the United States) and the perception of who wins and who loses because of this phenomenon.

With a territory as vast as the continental United States and one-tenth of the population, Australia is one of the world's lowest population density countries. It is also one of the most urbanized and a culture of high expectations; Even many city dwellers expect to have a garden.

However, Nicholas Biddle, an economist at the Australian National University, who oversaw a very large immigration survey late last year, found that people who live in places with higher population growth do not are not the most likely to live. ask for cuts to immigration.

When Biddle created a map with census data, with the characteristics of people opposed to population growth and immigration, for example, he discovered that none of the areas listed in the top 20% of opposition to population growth and immigration was in Sydney or Melbourne.

On the basis of national surveys, the place where locals were least likely to oppose population growth was Surry Hills, a suburb of Sydney's hinterland, where housing prices soared and traffic can skyrocket. suffocate

Recently, during the rush hour at Central Station, hundreds of people trained to get on the trains while the speakers were asked to extend the users along the wharf.

However, even some of the most frustrated travelers have made a call, not in favor of a reduced number of people, but in favor of infrastructure improvements, microcites located outside the center of Sydney or some work culture changes to limit travel. rush hour.

"I would not go back to Australia in the thirties and forties," said Michael Monaghan, who was carrying his briefcase while waiting for a train. "It's just a management problem."

A very different statement can be heard nearly two hours north of Sydney on the central coast, home to a group of rural suburbs and fishing towns that make up the largest percentage of opposition to growth and immigration.

Some people in the region justify their opposition by asking if Australia has enough water to feed a larger population, part of the immigration debate that the country has been experiencing since the 1980s, before desalination plants become slower. common.

The rise of right-wing politicians, such as Fraser Anning, a senator who blamed Muslim immigration for the attacks in New Zealand, and Pauline Hanson, who has already used the burqa in parliament to protest against terrorism. 39, islam public dialogue

"In recent years, we have found that politicians badert that people have the right to be intolerant," said Tim Soutphommasane, former commissioner for racial discrimination in Australia and a professor at the University of Sydney. "There has been a gradual normalization of political ideas of the far right."

Copyright: 2019 New York Times News Service