Aust. migrant flow upset

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34127, 13 April 1976, Page 21

Aust. migrant flow upset

f.N.Z.P.A. Staff Crspdt) SYDNEY, April 12. If Australia ever revives the idea of controlling the flow of Australians and New Zealanders across the Tasman, it may be done to keep people in Australia, not out of it.

Immigration figures published in Canberra show a net migration loss in 1975 for the first time since 1947 — of 6641 people, compared with a net gain of 87,000 the year before, and a minimum net gain of 28,000 people in every other year since 1947. Added to a near-zero growth rate through births and deaths, the figures have produced what the Minister of Immigration (Mr Michael

Mackellar) describes as “a remarkable situation.” Uncertainty over economic conditions, which had discouraged people from emigrating to Australia, and the tightening of immigration controls ordered by the Labour Government in 1974 are thought to be causes of the low immigration record. Changing attitudes towards family planning have caused the low natural growth in population. Some commentators and unions have expressed satisfaction at the situation, but Mr Mackellar sees problems ahead. “Australia’s population will age significantly if present fertility and mortality trends continue, bringing a large increase in the proportion of people of retirement age who are dependent on others,” he said.

“Far from improving our standard of living and quality of life, this approach would require the transfer of resources away from education, training, and investment in productive processes to the needs of a pro-portionately-increasing population of aged people.

“There are groups who see the standard of living increasing by upgrading the skills of the work force without immigration or population growth, but an ageing population would be a result.”

Mr Mackellar told Parliament that there was no doubt that Australia had the resources, technological capacity, and the social, political, and economic structures to continue immigration at post-war levels until the year 2000.

International immigration would continue to be the only real instrument available to the Government to influence the level and composition of Australia’s population.

‘There are those who say that Australians should be encouraged to have more children as a substitute for immigration, but there is little evidence that human fertility can be readily manipulated by the Government to serve specific goals,” Mr Mackellar said. “Countries which have tried it have had little, if any, success.” The Minister has asked the Australian Population and Immigration Council, which is being reconstituted, to prepare a Green Paper on population to stir public debate and to produce more informed public opinion on the subject.