25 million Australians: Population milestone prompts immigration debate

Tomorrow night, sometime after 11pm Australia’s population will reach 25 million, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Advocate for high immigration and CEO of the Australian Industry Group Innes Willox joined Tony Jones along with president of Sustainable Australia, William Bourke to discuss the nation’s exploding population and whether it’s a positive or negative.

“It is a good thing that Australia is growing, it presents us with enormous opportunities but that’s not to detract from the challenges,” Mr Willox said.

“But I think there’s a bit of wrong targeting here.

“People are getting concerned about issues around infrastructure, hospitals, education, it’s not knew and its not unexpected that we would be growing.

“We’ve had a policy failure and a lack of planning over the past few decades and that’s what causing concern more than anything else.

“It’s not fair to criticize migrants themselves.”

Mr Bourke agreed on this point.

“It’s not about blaming migrants, Australia has a rich history of migration,” he said.

“Now if we want to talk about population what we really want to achieve it secure jobs and decent wage rises.

“We want better planning, housing affordability and a sustainable environment.”

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