Yesterday’s Southern Highlands News had an article by Dr John Hewson which said many of the things I was going to say about Immigration but much more eloquently than I could have managed. So I have taken the lazy way out and reproduced it here, slightly abridged.
A bit of Background about Hewson. “John Hewson AM served as leader of the Liberal Party from 1990 to 1994. He was born in Sydney in 1946. He has a doctorate in economics from Johns Hopkins University and has degrees from the University of Sydney and the University of Regina. Hewson worked for periods as an economist for the Reserve Bank of Australia, as an economic advisor to the Fraser Government, as a business journalist, and as a director of the Macquarie Bank. He left parliament in 1995, but since then has remained a public figure as a business leader and political commentator, sometimes criticising both sides of politics.
I have met him a couple of times at charity golf functions and he seems to be a good down-to-earth bloke which might be why he got out of politics so early 
.
Bowral to the Sydney CBD is approximately 120 km(73Miles) and over 90% is (supposedly) freeway travel.
“On two occasions this week, leaving Bowral between 5.30-6am, it took well over three hours to complete the journey to the CBD. Sydney traffic is now gridlocked, and unbearable. Traffic congestion, along with other woes such as housing affordability, is the result of mismanaged planning policies.
However, not once during these elongated car park experiences did I think to blame the couple of hundred thousand migrants that arrived on our shores, Australia-wide, over the last 12 months. The 8 million tourists last year probably were a more significant contributor.
Similarly, I can’t “blame” the crisis in housing affordability on migration, although it has clearly added to the demand side of the problem.
Traffic congestion and the collapse in housing affordability are much more due to what have been poor and failed infrastructure, transport, housing, and planning policies over the last couple of decades.
The media this week has been saturated with stories calling for a longer-term population policy and the appointment of a Population Minister. I would say a strong YES to both. But, neither, in and of themselves, would make a scrap of difference to our current traffic and housing crises.
Similarly, calls for a significant cut in immigration, say a halving of the annual intake, won’t help our current crises much, but would work to stop us compounding the problems in the near term.
However, there is no doubt that much of our post WWII growth and development has been due to our very successful, largely bi-partisan, immigration policies, and our creation of the world’s most tolerant and effective, multicultural, multiracial, and multi-religious society stands as perhaps our greatest national post-war achievement, and the envy of the world.
But, having said that, it does need to be managed; it is a continuous “work in progress”. The approach must be holistic. It is not the level of immigration that is the problem, rather the failing to put in place the essential social and economic infrastructure, and appropriate planning, and integrated transport policies, that has created the problems.
Australia clearly needs a full, open debate about population and immigration. Unfortunately, there are some who would use this as “code” to pursue a racist agenda – you know, “nudge, nudge, wink, wink”, we are really about clamping down on say Muslim immigration, and the like. There should be no place for such sentiments and agendas in a mature, responsible debate.
A key element of a sensible population debate is population density. The density of Sydney and Melbourne is much, much less than in other major, global cities such as London, Paris, New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong. But again, the solution is not just more high-rise developments, but also better open spaces, integrated transport, adequate schools, hospitals, childcare facilities, and so on. This sort of planning has been inadequate, especially given divided responsibilities between state and local governments.
From the point of view of traffic, perhaps our greatest failing has been the inadequacy of our public transport system. The usual excuse is inadequacy of finance, but there are innovative financing alternatives that have never been pursued. So, we settle for more, but inadequate roads.
We can, and should, do better!”
