South Australian Premier raises concerns over national anti-immigration debate

0:00Dave Roberts here. There you are surrounded by fans, sharing wings, sharing drinks, high-fiving random strangers. Everybody remembers the game. Nobody remembers the guy coughing behind you until a few days later. At 2 a.m., you wake up with a fever and your throats on fire. Now what? Urgent care, clothes, ER, slam, telehealth, maybe, but the pharmacy's clothes. You needed a medical emergency kit. These aren't first aid kits. They contain essential prescriptions used for over 30 common conditions. Sinus and ear infection, UTI, stomach bug, travelers diarrhea, and more. On hand before you need them. Use your doctor-developed guidebook to select the right prescription or call their telemedicine doctor standing by. It's like an urgent care and drugstore at home. When you're sick, traveling or stranded, you'll wish you ordered a medical emergency kit. Order online in minutes and it's shipped to your door and say $45 with my promo code blue at urgentcarekit.com slash blue. That's promo code blue at urgentcarekit.com slash blue. So I read the very interesting

1:02editorial in today's Australian newspaper. It's entitled Don't Let Populism, Dictator Stradeys Migration Policy in the article outlines good aspects of immigration and some perceived bad aspects, many related to congestion. The main thing about the article is the premiere of South Australia. Peter Melon, Askers Good Morning. Good morning Tom, good morning to your listeners. Well thank you for joining us now. My reading of your article is that there's three major arguments in favour of a, let's call it a strong immigration program. There's, there's trying to see off the aging of the population. There's topping up skills that we have a shortage of and there's keeping our universities funded and doing R&D via the money provided by international students. Is that, is that how you said? Yeah, principally that was the main economic argument I outlined last night. I mean, I guess what I'm concerned about Tom is we're seeing a, a national political debate on migration where everyone seems to be arguing what we're against rather than thinking through what we should be for. I mean, I think we all agree we shouldn't

2:06let people into our country that don't share our values and you know, support our democratic way of life. I think we all agree that we shouldn't have a open door, let it rip migration policy. But what I'm concerned about is no one seems to be arguing what we should be in favour of. And last night I'll sort out Lina, you know, an economic argument and case for that. See, I find the debate perplexing because it always seems to center on how many migrants are coming this year or last year or next year and yet very rarely do we talk about a sort of a vision for the population of Australia. I feel like if we had a shared view of how big we want Australia to be in terms of population, we could work backwards and come up with a migration policy that people would agree with. But for some reason we don't ever seem to do that. Yeah, well, you know, in many respects I agree I think we should be focusing on what we need. I think here's the problem. If we start with just a number, you know, it becomes an arbitrary exercise, you know, pick a

3:07number any number and work backwards from there. I actually think we shouldn't start by picking the number. We should start by establishing what do we need that is in the national interest, you know, look at the demographic profile. Look at the fact that in only a few short years in our time, we're going to have more people in Australia over the age of 65 rather than under the age of 15. That's never happened before. As massive implications for being able to do the work that many people expect to be done in retirement, right? And so if we think that through, that should be the dominant consideration here rather than just a political concern about the rise of migration, which I think has been fed by capitalism. But I suppose the issue is what is the national interest. I mean, you've outlined in your article, you know, some strong economic arguments for higher migration. But then, you know, we did debate the other way about what if Melbourne gets to 10 million people, which some demographics say will happen by the end of this century, what will our city over here look like? What would your state, South Australia look like with

4:08a doubling population? You know, I think qualitative aspects are important. Like, you know, can you walk along the beach by yourself? Or, you know, can you expect to go to a public hospital and not have to wait too long? The things that people also think about? My word, right, which is again an argument for making sure that we plan and think this through carefully. There are, of course, huge consequences if we don't have careful calibration and just let it rip. Brian, you've just outlined a few examples. But there are also very severe consequences if we could tailor it arbitrarily without thinking through the implications of that. And hence my argument last night, and what I was seeking to outline is, you know, the debate shouldn't be dictated by, you know, a wave of populism. It should be, it should be dictated by what is in our national economic interests and our social interests. Let's flesh that out, you know, a little bit. So we're going to, we're going to, we're going to have to cross this more than a migration process. We need more homes built, right? And

5:12we could inadvertently shoot ourselves in the foot if we could tailor migration when the natural fact, you know, on every part of the country, and not that particularly during South Australia, I mean, more sparkies, brickies, parlors, concreters, roofers, you name it. We need them all. Yeah. And that problem, that problem is going to get worse. Well, just on sparkies, like we were talking about data centers the other day, and yeah, there's hundreds like in Melbourne, and I'm sure it's the same in South Australia. You know, we've got probably thousands of electricians making a lot of money, you know, working on data centers. The average new home has a lot more wiring than homes used to. It needs four times as much electrical work. So, and yet we simply don't have enough electricians. So, you know, there's a case for bringing in more qualified electricians into Australia that I think people would agree with. So, firstly, the first stop is to make sure we're training up every young Aussie that wants to be a sparky. Well, that's a no-brainer, right? And actually we've seen regardless of the politics of various state governments around the country, everyone's sort of putting, you know, a lot of effort

6:13into that. And the federal government's actually done a fair bit of really good work in this area too. So, first job is to train up young Aussies, but then after that, if we've still got a shortage, yes, we're going to be bringing them in. I mean, you talk about data centers in South Australia, we've got the similar challenge, but also with, you know, building the, the nuclear submarines and the frigates, they require like extraordinary amounts of electricians to do that work. It's unfathomable. And they're going to be well paid. Little like the mining expansion in the north of my state. So, they're going to suck that out of the civil construction sector, which will have those exact consequences you're talking about, which will actually make life more expensive to someone who just wants to get a bit of basic work done at home. Yeah. The final final question, I mean, I've attempted, and I appreciate you coming on today, I've attempted to engage federal politicians, both Labor and Liberal on the subjects of immigration, trying to have these discussions. And over the years, there's been a market reluctance to do so. It's like, you know, they, they just don't want to talk about immigration too much. And maybe it's because they don't think there's votes in it or maybe it's

7:16because they worry about what people will say, but it's very hard to get federal politicians, weirdly, apart from Pauline Hanson, who love her a heighter, has strong views on this issue. They don't want to talk about immigration. They just don't. There's a vote loser, mate. That's why. Well, you know, you tend not to please too many people when you talk about migration, right? Unless you're arguing against it. So, but he, I think that's the, that's the real risk. He said, if we don't have an honest conversation about this, if we don't have an honest conversation about how badly a good go for us, if we don't think it through, then I worry about the implications of that. So I'm willing to put my head above the parapet and argue the case for a strong, sustainable, well-calibrated targeted migration program. But if we only focus on the negative, like I said, we can wake up one day and be full of regret. But think about Melbourne. You know, it's one of the, one of the heartbeats of Melbourne is international students. They are on the P-NOW R&D base. We've got a productivity problem in this country. That's hurting people

8:18standing in the living. If we don't have R&D, we don't have innovation. If we don't have innovation, we have low productivity. If we have low productivity, people get lower wages. And that makes everyone's life worse. So I mean, that's just one example where we should be making the argument loud and proud. Now, final supplementary question. Almost every politician I see puts on about 10 kilos and they go into politics and whatever level of fitness they have goes out the window. You are the reverse. You are the fittest politician I've ever seen. How do you do it? A bit of patience for my wife. I've got to retain and I try best as I can to stick to it early in the morning. But you know, come, come Christmas. I'm looking for a bit of putting as much as the next person. I can assure you of that. Okay. Think of each time. Peter Melon asks us there, premier of South Australia. And maybe one day a federal parliamentarian. Dave Roberts here. There you are surrounded by fans, sharing wings, sharing drinks, high-fiving random strangers. Everybody remembers the game. Nobody remembers the guy coughing behind you until a few days later at 2 a.m. you wake up

9:22with the fever and your throats on fire. Now what? Urgent care, clothes, ER, slam, telehealth, maybe, but the pharmacies close. You needed a medical emergency kit. These aren't first aid kits. They contain essential prescriptions used for over 30 common conditions, sinus and ear infection, UTIs, stomach bug, travelers diarrhea and more. On hand before you need them. Use your doctor develop guidebook to select the right prescription or call their telemedicine doctor standing by. It's like an urgent care and drugstore at home. When you're sick, traveling or stranded, you'll wish you ordered a medical emergency kit. Order online in minutes and it's shipped to your door and say $45 with my promo code blue at urgentcarekit.com slash blue. That's promo code blue at urgentcarekit.com slash blue.