In this interview, Morgan Begg appeared on The Dean Mackin Show TNT Tv to discuss the IPA’s research on immigration.
All media appearances posted onto the IPA website are directly related to the promotion and dissemination of IPA research.
Below is a transcript of the interview.
Dean Mackin:
All right, and during this interview you’re going to get some numbers, some statistics. I would strongly suggest if you’re in the car, you pull over, make sure your seatbelt’s fastened. Even if you’re not moving, if you have a stack hat you might want to put it on even if you’re at home and possibly take a Stemetil tablet because some of these numbers may make you violently ill. And I literally mean we probably should be. If I’m perfectly honest, the Institute of Public Affairs does some terrific work and migration research is what we’ll be talking about today with Morgan Begg. He’s the director of Public Policy at the Institute of Public Affairs. And comments on issues pertaining to the federal government’s nature positive agenda and what it means for Australia’s economy, agriculture, and resource sectors.
Morgan also tracks our government policies developed in activists. International NGOs often determine the laws of Australia and what it means for our democracy or the illusion. There of the Institute of Public Affairs website is ipa.org.au. You can actually join and be a part of it if you wish. And you can be a terrific fellow, possibly as good as Morgan Begg. Mate, welcome to the programme.
Morgan Begg:
Thanks, Dean.
Dean Mackin:
Thanks for coming on. Really appreciate it. Now, migration, I don’t remember historically my parents asking for it. Even though one of my parents did migrate here from Scotland, so I’ll put that out there first. But I think we were pretty cohesive in the beginning. I think it worked very, very well. I grew up in Marrickville, something I was quite happy with and blissfully unaware of. They’re just your mates. It doesn’t matter where they come from, we’re just mates and we all get along. It’s not until people start not to get along that you may have a bit of a wonder why did we ever do this? And numbers are now showing that we’re doing it in record levels. Wow, I’m looking at the graph and I’ll just hold that up for our viewers to look at. And that is just terrific. It started off with Hawke there on the left and it ends with our current Albanese government. And it’s gone from what looks like well truly under 100,000 to 1.2 million. When do we say enough is enough?
Morgan Begg:
Yeah, exactly right. And you mentioned something really important at the start, which is migration has always been a part of the Australian story. And it’s always contributed to the country in a great way. But we’re clearly, as we’re seeing in the data that we’ve published now, the numbers are completely unprecedented and we would argue they’re at unmanageable levels. We’ve found that under the current government since the 2022 election, that migration has a topped 1.1 million in net terms. This is 62% more than the previous records set in the Rudd-Gillard government between 2007 and 2010. And actually exceeds the entire total of net migration between 1983 and 1996 under the Hawke and Keating governments. These numbers are completely unprecedented. It’s a dramatic surge in the population that Australian policymakers simply have not planned for.
Dean Mackin:
Gordon Peterson, and you’ve probably seen the interview, he said, ‘How did we get to where we are?’ And he answered in increments, I step up, I get in your face, you’re uncomfortable. I wait. You get used to it and you take a step back. I then encroach on your new space, before you know it we are nowhere near where we started. We are miles away from where we started. And that’s exactly what they’ve done with these numbers. Starting with Hawke, going all the way up through Keating, Howard, Morrison, and right up to where we find it now under the Albanese government, 1.2 million. It would be almost, no, I won’t say acceptable, it wouldn’t be acceptable on any level unless the people of the country want it. But let’s just say if that was in America and as a percentage of their existing population may be far less noticeable in a population of 27 million, when you bring out 1.2 million it’s pretty darned noticeable.
And again, it’s not a clash of races, it was never about race. But we are having a clash of cultures. There are compatible cultures, there are incompatible cultures. And how do you identify an incompatible culture? That may be those who don’t advocate for that which we historically have, those who don’t like the country and those who possibly don’t like the people who are here and who welcome them here. But these are the things that we’re having. And why do we find, and it’s been, let’s face it, over 40 years, I’ve looked up it’s almost identical numbers of years that either liberal or Labour have been in power. So we don’t see a full on immigration, no immigration full on immigration, no immigration. If that was the case, we would actually have a true choice between major parties. It turns out looking over time at the numbers that seem to be irreversible, what we have is a duopoly.
Morgan Begg:
Yeah, exactly right. Both parties seem to be playing the same game on economic growth policy. So mass migration is simply the lazy, short-sighted approach to economic growth. You bring in a lot more people into the economy, sure they’re spending more, the headline growth figures are increasing. And this looks great for politicians because they can brag about GDP has increased by x percent this quarter. But the problem is under that situation, economic growth is actually going backwards on a per person level. So we’ve just found in the latest figures released by the ABS that per capita, per person GDP, which is an actual proper measure of individual living standards, has been declining for the past five quarters. This has never happened in our history on record. So Australians at an individual level are going backwards at the same time that governments are dramatically increasing the population.
Dean Mackin:
Yeah. And again, not something that we ever asked for. How they’ve done it and they’re very clever, well, you don’t have to be that clever to fool the bulk of the population. It would seem a lot of us are concerned, but many more are not concerned. The oh, she’ll be all right mate thing seems to be in play. And how they’ve done it is you’ve got the right hand of the duopoly saying, “Oh, we’re going to stop the boats. We’re going to stop illegal migration. These numbers are minuscule.” And people go, “Oh, I love them. They’re stopping migration.” But they’re not stopping migration at all. They’re just stopping this small number. I think they need illegal migration to keep us distracted from the true numbers, which are legal migration that rarely ever get noticed. And unless you dig deep or you’re somebody who is in the politics, certainly not if you’re somebody who lives in one of the electorates where they advocate for mass migration because none of these people tend to end up there.
Morgan Begg:
Yeah, it’s really interesting that the illegal immigration issue, you’ve correctly identified that that is only a small proportion of the overall number. And it’s interesting that you find in the data that the Howard government which was very successful at clamping down on illegal immigration, actually oversaw quite a significant increase in the overall migration numbers in the 2000s, which has kind of led into this modern era of mass migration. So that’s quite interesting. And it’s also interesting, just to circle back to a point you made about community perceptions and community views on this. We commissioned polling last year that found that 60% of Australians would support a complete halt on migration to give time for policymakers to bring housing and social services and infrastructure up to the level that would support it. So I think the community is quite clear on where it stands on this issue, but they’re just not being listened to.
Dean Mackin:
Those who wrote the American constitution I think were far more wary of things that could go wrong. I don’t think any of them could have imagined how mad, literally mad things have turned out. If only we could go back in time, fire up the flux capacitor, get into the DeLorean and head back and show people these numbers. We could have had written into our constitution that we will not have any mass migration. We will never increase the population by more than X percent or possibly be selective as to where those compatible cultures are. And again, it’s about culture. That being the case, we probably wouldn’t find ourselves where we do now. And we just had an overwhelming response to a referendum. It was again, very similar numbers I would predict to what would’ve been a no to further mass migration.
And to prove that’s not about race, I would suggest many of the people who have come out here from even some incompatible cultures in the last five years because they’ve got to live with the traffic, with the decreased hospitals, ambulances, the lack of facilities around the place, they too would probably say, enough’s enough. We’re going to be hard done by this as well. And again, the timing of bringing out all of these people is just horrific. We still had the post-COVID hangover. We’ve never been in so much debt. In fact, it doubled in a very short period, less than half a decade. And here we are, we’ve no houses as well. And I’ll tell you what, when people are really going to start to worry, when Medicare goes. And that’s not a matter of if, it’s only a matter of when.
Morgan Begg:
Yeah, exactly. And I should make a point about the experience that the strain on public resources and social services, it’s not just people that were born here that struggle when the demands rapidly increase in this way. It’s also the recent migrants that are only new to the country, they’re also struggling. And as you identify, they’re saying enough’s enough as well. So it affects us all when the government adopts these reckless policies without properly planning for how they will support it. And just one other point about migration is I do just want to make the point that, this is not a knock on people who would like to move here. Who could blame anyone for wanting to move to a country like Australia. It’s the greatest country in the world. But this is solely directed towards the policy makers and the lawmakers who have completely let down the country by failing to put the policies in place.
Dean Mackin:
It’s a brilliant point you make. Nobody would knock back the chance to move to this country. It’s those who are making those opportunities available. And worse still, when they know, they absolutely 1000% know that the bulk of Australians don’t want this, they forget they’re paid to represent us. It shows very clearly that they are beholding to global governance, not to those here in Australia who have… And you could argue, yeah, it only takes in the low 30s to get a Labour government in pretty much state and federal levels across the country. But the whole point is they know, they continue to do it and it shows that they are beholding to others who don’t have our best interest at heart. We’ll be back with Morgan Begg, who is from the Institute of Public Affairs right after the short news headlines.
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Dean Mackin:
Tntradio.live. And welcome back. I am with Morgan Begg from the Institute of Public Affairs. We’re talking about mass migration. And just the numbers they are staggering. They are record numbers and there is no end in sight for any of this. It’s a discussion they never wish to have. And of course, they distract us with that illegal versus legal migration. And it really is something that we need to address. I don’t know if we’ll ever address it or if Australia is smart enough to vote a party in who makes a point of it. Pauline Hanson did that years ago. They called her every name under the sun. Tony Abbott conspired with the liberal government to trump up charges and put her in jail. So they really had this agenda in play and were happy to do whatever it took to throw anyone under the bus who got in their way, it would seem.
Morgan Begg:
Yeah, that really speaks to just how stunted the public debate is and has been on this issue. There’s a great deal of sentiment in the community, which is sceptical of mass migration of course. But the cudgel of racism, the cudgel of bigotry has been expertly wielded against anyone who raises those concerns in a public way. And when those cudgels are wielded in that way, it scares other people from making the same point that they feel deeply but just would no longer be comfortable saying,
Dean Mackin:
Yeah, it’s crazy. They’re buzzwords, racist and bigot. The amount of times on commercial radio… They stopped after the first year when they realised I enjoyed actually having a bit of a debate with them, but I remember being called a bigot a couple of times. And I said to them, “So you’re really intolerant of everything that I’ve just advocated for.” “Yes.” “Would it be fair to say you are highly intolerant of the opinions I just expressed?” “Yes.” “Let me read you the dictionary definition of a bigot. Those who are highly intolerant of the opinions of others, bam.” This is who we’re dealing with. The term racist was invented by a guy named Richard Pratt or Dick Pratt, very aptly named man back in the early 1900s. And it was used as a weapon to shut people down who want to have an intelligent debate. And it’s all about compatible cultures, but no, they want to make it about something else. And I don’t think Australia is a racist country at all.
Morgan Begg:
Oh, absolutely no. Australia is one of the least racist countries in the world. I have no doubt about it. And you are right, just the name-calling the ad hominem attacks, it’s completely about controlling the parameters and the boundaries of what public debate can be. And really the beneficiaries of that are the political class in Canberra who get to implement these kinds of policies without any effective opposition. But I think the numbers now, the numbers don’t lie, they’re spelling disaster for this country. And I think the debate is turning on it.
Dean Mackin:
I just hope so. And I think the interview between Elon Musk and Donald Trump in those numbers, one billion, the lame stream media historically could rarely hope to get those numbers back when people tuned into them when there was no options. Now that there are options, they find themselves just absolutely failing. I think they’re on the way out and they’re really worried about what’s happening with the internet. It’s all these disinformation laws which are of course the exact opposite. We seem to be in some sort of Orwellian 1984, except it’s literally madder than George Orwell ever could have predicted.
Morgan Begg:
Yeah, exactly right. It just goes to show that a social media platform, especially with someone like Elon Musk at the helm can really be a great platform to get around the mainstream censors. But as you identify, the political class has recognised this and their agenda now is to find ways to curtail the reach of people to speak on social media platforms. So we get misinformation rules, which would in a sense establish the Orwellian idea of defining the official truth and imposing it on society. It’s a dramatic scheme of government censorship that would probably do as much as any law in the Australia’s history to undermine public debate.
Dean Mackin:
Yeah. I challenge anybody to find anybody in either the liberal… You’ll find a couple in the National Party, very few in the liberal party and those who are still in the liberal party who do advocate for the welfare and well-being of Australia, they’re about to get squeezed out. [inaudible 00:17:10] talk of a couple of them not being offered pre-selection. So when Australia hopefully wakes up and smells the coffee, realises that the answer to fixing this country… In fact, those who break it are doing a terrific job in the duopoly that exists between liberal and labour. I just hope that we wake up. The problem is as we wake up by the millions… And this is the thing and this is the point I want to make here very clearly. It turns when there’s a, let’s say we had 200,000 people wake up and come to our side of the political fence in one year, then maybe 50,000 the next.
What happens if you get, let’s say a million people just wake up suddenly because of something that happened over the last four years. Well, what do you do? Let’s bring in a million people to counter that vote because we know they’re going to absolutely vote for those who advocate for them and to bring more of them in as well. That’s how they play the game. Let’s import some votes for us and we’ll never win as long as that continues to happen. Organically, we just mathematically we can’t win that. So let’s hope we wake up and get active. Morgan Begg, I very much appreciate you coming on the show, mate. We’ll do it again sometime.
Morgan Begg:
Look forward to it. Thank you
Dean Mackin:
Everybody if you would like to be a part of or see what they do at the Institute of Public Affairs, get onto the website, ipa.org.au. Adam Crichton coming up after the break here at TNT.
This transcript with Morgan Begg talking on The Dean Mackin Show TNT Tv from 15 August 2024 has been edited for clarity.
