Immigration and Government Planning

​​← Australia's Political Leadership​

Immigration is frequently blamed for housing shortages, congestion and pressure on public services. Those concerns are particularly strong when population growth exceeds the rate at which governments provide new homes, transport, healthcare, schools and other infrastructure.

Others argue that immigration itself is not the underlying problem. They contend that successive governments have benefited from population growth without adequately planning for its consequences.

From this perspective, reducing immigration may relieve some immediate pressure but will not correct the policy failures that created housing shortages, infrastructure deficits and poor coordination in the first place.

Question:

To what extent do you agree or disagree that Australia’s immigration challenges are primarily the result of poor government planning rather than the level of immigration itself?

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Open Democracy Perspective

Public participation cannot replace demographic, economic and infrastructure expertise. It can, however, complement expert advice by providing governments with continuous evidence of how migration and population policies are affecting communities across Australia.