Australian ‘Go Home’ migration policies will reap bitter economic harvest from COVID-19

Author: Editorial Board, ANU

Australia claims to be the most prosperous multicultural society in the world. Almost 29% of Australians were born abroad; half of the population has a parent born outside Australia. “We are one, but we are many”, the well-being hymn to national cohesion and unity, sounds this achievement.

Australia’s response to COVID-19 could see all of this change.

Australia’s migratory success is not only a success in social harmony and cohesion. Migration has been a major factor in both managing the burden of disease on rich countries of declining national fertility and economic stagnation. Migration has compounded the problem of aging (less than 15% of Australia’s population is over 65) and is boosting national economic growth and productivity.

Underestimated, the “temporary” component is a crucial element of the Australian migration model. The roughly 2 million temporary migrants in Australia today – students, people on short-term work visas, young people on working holiday visas, New Zealanders and others – are a breeding ground for young people who foster the permanent Australian facility. Almost a third of the large numbers of permanent migrants in Australia (at most about 1% of Australia’s population growth) are assimilated through the temporary migration channel.

Already, the foundations of this construction had been shaken by the populist assaults on the safety nets that once protected all Australian residents, citizens or not. Eligibility for free social assistance, education and health care has been removed from a growing subclass of temporary resident taxpayers who are expected to self-insure against social risks and pay for social risks. basic services for which the State would normally and correctly assume responsibility.

While many of these same people are essential infantrymen on the front lines of social services like health and elderly care or essential jobs like seasonal harvesting and maintenance of the once vast tourism industry. It is not a social policy with good international visibility. Japan, for example, does not deny temporary foreign residents or their children access to free health services or basic education. And the hardships and resentments it engenders will eat away at, and ultimately shatter, the social cohesion of the multitude Australia boasts about.

With COVID-19, travel restrictions imposed and the shutdown of large swathes of the economy to deal with its consequences on mortality, and how Australia is dealing with temporary migrants at the heart of its successful model of migration and economic growth? With a little caution: “Go home,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison told them.

Some temporary migrants may keep their jobs and some will be eligible for assistance under one or another of the major programs the Australian government has in place to protect the estimated 15 percent of the workforce. made redundant by the economic shutdown. But the vast majority won’t, and coming home is a remote option.

In Singapore, where 37% of the workforce was not Singaporean earlier this year, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, on a nationwide broadcast, sent a very different message to those who chose a temporary home there. “We pay special attention to the welfare of foreign workers,” he said. “They came to Singapore to work hard for a living and to support their families back home. They played an important role in the construction of our HDB apartments, Changi Airport and MRT lines. We’ve worked with employers to make sure they get their paycheck and can send money home. We will provide them with the medical care and treatment they need. If any of their family is watching my video, let me tell them this: We appreciate the work and contributions of your sons, fathers, husbands in Singapore. We feel responsible for their well-being. We will do our best to take care of their health, livelihood and well-being here. And let them come home safe and sound. On behalf of all Singaporeans, I wish you good luck.‘

Australian leaders today, like their counterparts in our region and around the world, are destined to make choices that will shape the destiny of the nation for many decades to come. The decision to guarantee income support for the large part of the displaced workforce by the government’s own health policy decisions to impose strict social isolation was a natural and immediate corollary to avoid widespread social dislocation – although implemented with an expensive and unnecessary delay. The decision to exclude non-resident workers from support, with its unexpressed nativist appeal, casts long shadows and will carry greater economic and social costs that will make Australia’s recovery from the crisis much more difficult.

As Abul Rizvi writes in this week’s main essay, “The Australian government needs a more nuanced approach to temporary entrants than its ‘come home’ message – which only tarnishes the reputation of Australia for the future, makes the recession deeper and the recovery more difficult. Helping temporary entrants to be able to comply with self-isolation requirements, see the doctor when needed, avoid destitution and contribute to Australia’s health and elderly care services should be a priority in the short term ”.

The largely self-inflicted negative collapse that can be expected in Australian net migration this year – on a scale not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s – will make Australia a less attractive place for anyone to invest in and suck up growth energy for years. On what question, as Christopher Findlay points out, it makes no sense to tighten restrictions on foreign direct investment precisely at a time when we need foreign capital to cushion the loss of assets and stimulate investment in the recovery. . And the damage to human capital formation by setting aside international students who have chosen to study (and, in many cases, settle) here will add to the long-term impact of growth. and economic potential. New Zealand’s example of government income support and fee relief for international students is one to follow.

The challenge for Australia and other countries in our region and the world can be daunting, but it is not impossible.

Dealing with the pandemic requires a commitment to unusual social control, possibly until effective drugs or a vaccine can be rolled out, and decent people all over the world have substantially rallied around this call. Sustaining prosperity for all requires government intervention that effectively shares income with those who are left behind and vulnerable to the shutdown of the economy, alleviating unjustifiable hardship, allaying social discontent and maintaining social cohesion. Failure to help temporary residents return home or survive the crisis in a vibrant migrant society such as Australia will result in significant long-term economic, social and national costs.

The EAF Editorial Board is located at the Crawford School of Public Policy, College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University.

This article is part of a EAF special series on the new coronavirus crisis and its impact.