‘The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself.’ – Franklin D. Roosevelt.

These words resonate profoundly today as we grapple with the implications of powerful vested interests influencing Australian government policy, most particularly in the realm of immigration.

Australia’s immigration policy stands at an organised blockade.

The migration agent cartel, big business lobbies, and our major universities swamped the government’s official community consultation on population policy with submissions, and meaningful reform was blackballed. Even after the comprehensive review by Dr Martin Parkinson found egregious failings, we saw only the most modest of changes to our immigration policy announced in December last year.

The interests of a few powerful entities continue to overshadow the common-sense reform needed to serve the needs of the majority.

Roosevelt’s warning, as much as ever, finds resonance when we see the influence of private power over democratic governance, manifested in policies that prioritise the needs of property developers, big businesses, universities, and migration agents over the broader national interest.

Public sentiment against the reckless ‘Big Australia’ policy is overwhelming. More than 70 per cent of Australians believe our cities are already too crowded, with the same percentage opposing a return to pre-pandemic immigration levels, and 65 per cent opposing further population growth. Despite this, government policies persist in direct contradiction to public wishes.

The policy update from Home Affairs released on December 11 failed to address the fundamentally broken nature of our migration system and population policy, even after Minister Claire O’Neil’s candid admission of failure and the need for reform in March 2023. She had at least been honest with the Australian public when she said, ‘Our migration system is broken. It is failing migrants themselves, and most importantly, it is failing Australians.’

‘That cannot continue,’ she assured us. And yet, it conspicuously does.

The disconnect between government policy and public opinion despite recent modest reform remains glaring. Policymakers continue to prioritise the interests of powerful lobbyists over the welfare of the nation. Concerns about urban amenity, congestion, and competition for services be damned. Those concerns are dismissed in favour of short-sighted growth to our GDP while its share in ordinary wages falls. Far from bringing a higher standard of living, a 2020 report from the Productivity Commission found that real incomes for young Australians aged between 15 and 34 have declined since 2008, with both lower-ranked entry-level jobs and slower career progression.

Economic arguments provided by lobbyists in favour of high population growth do not withstand scrutiny for ordinary Australians. The benefits for the aforementioned vested interests are outweighed by costs, including job insecurity, falling wages, and housing unaffordability. The arrival of a staggering number of migrants – almost 750,000, or one-sixteenth of our population – last year only served to enrich vested interests at the expense of ordinary citizens, exacerbating existing issues and leaving a greater number of Australians struggling to make ends meet in a cost-of-living crisis with rising inflation and interest rates.

In the name of democracy, it is high time to reclaim the national interest in Australia’s immigration policy by listening to the voices of ordinary Australians and decoupling population policy and immigration from vested interests. Government policy must prioritise the well-being of our citizens, promote wage growth for our workers, and ensure housing affordability.

When will we have a government brave enough to heed Roosevelt’s words and put the interests of the people ahead of powerful private interests of property developers, big business, universities, and the migration agent cartel? Unfortunately, as Roosevelt pertinently opined, ‘Government by organised money is just as dangerous as government by organised mob.’