hi bluey..... developing nations are full of poverty, famine and war.... and very low education levels and numbers. Its these factors + the Roman Catholic prohibition, that stimulate poor uptake of contraceptive. Historically it has been seen that impoverished nations often have large population growth. Hence ppl leave their home country for greener pastures, such as Aus.
Emigration from such countries is understandable and doesn't have a negative impact on domestic GDP or income as the ppl are too poor to pay much anyway... indeed emigration reduces the demand on Govt services and reduces competition between small businesses allowing business to make relative increases in revenue.
Foreign students, eg African, Arabic and Asian ppl, often return to their home country to assist in the development of higher skills. Some return later but still many return.
Aus GDP does get held up higher by immigration, yet GDP is not, as others have pointed to, the full picture. Wages and inflation are the main concerns of the RBA and Lowe's speech is certainly well worth watching along with several analyses.
The downward pressure on wages is the key imo. Govt needs to pay close attention to find a better balance with probably lower numbers of immigrants so as to ensure the consumer economy grows instead of only the up-market consumption of luxuries.
I agree with your first paragraph
I used to think the same, but people have been saying for 100 years plus in European based countries that immigration will threaten jobs and wages but unemployment is nearly as low as it’s ever been and peoples standards of living arguable the best they have ever been.
we now have minimum wages and other protections that unions have brought in to make sure this is the case, there will always be some unscrupulous employers who don’t pay the right wages.
I think the biggest issue with immigration related to the environmental damage it causes.
As to universities it was a mistake to make them a business and covid has shown the error, I still think it’s wrong we steal so many doctors and engineers from these poorer countries
