We mostly agree on immigration

Conventional leftist wisdom is that politicians who support reducing immigration are pandering to the “base” or “fringe” views (or worse), and dog-whistling to One Nation voters. The prevailing assumption is that Australians are divided along socio-economic and geographic lines. Wealthier “elites” and “ordin­ary” voters are assumed to share little common ground on issues such as the impact of immigration on urban congestion and house prices.

However, our latest research — including polling about attit­udes to immigration in the top and bottom 10 per cent of metropolitan postcodes, based on income and education — found support for infrastructure-linked intake cuts, actively promoting social cohesio­n and strong border-­protection measures are mainstream public opinion.

What the polling indicates is that policymakers who respond to public concerns and adjust immigration policy to better manage its impact are occupying the centre ground and will enjoy broadbased public support. Across postcodes, there is strong support (with very healthy majorities) for reducing immig­ration until infrastructure catches up with demand, implementing stricter English-language and Aust­ralian-values requirements to promote integration, and maintaining strong border-protection policies.

The most significant finding is that there is broad agreement and majority support, regardless of postcodes, for relieving congestion and population pressures, with 65 per cent of residents in the top postcodes and 77 per cent in the bottom postcodes agreeing that immigration should be cut or paused until struggling transport, schools and housing infrastructure catch up with demand.

When it came to the question of social cohesion, this was even stronger, with 75 per cent in the top postcodes and 82 per cent in the bottom postcodes believing the government should “require migrants to attend a course about Australian values before granting them permanent residence”.

Likewise, 80 per cent in the top suburbs and 86 per cent in the bottom ones agreed that “the government should require migrants to reach a minimum standard of Eng­lish-language proficiency befor­e granting them permanent residence”.

The common ground across the metropolitan social spectrum was further exemplified by atti­tudes towards the most heated and divisive immigration issue of the past 25 years. Majorities in the least (67 per cent) and most (58 per cent) affluent suburbs agreed that “regardless of whether the Coal­i­tion or Labor wins the next federal election, the border-protect­ion policies introduced by the federal government in 2014 should remai­n in place”.

The polling found some variations in attitudes to today’s levels of immigration. Of those living in the least affluent suburbs — who were likelier to have more first-hand experience of immigration by being more directly and heavily affected by population pressures on roads, transport and schools — 57 per cent believed today’s immigra­tion levels were too high, compared with 46 per cent of those in the most affluent areas.

Nevertheless, overall result­s indicate that Australian attitudes to immigration are not starkly polarised, and indeed are more similar than different. Australia thus does not appear to be in danger of experiencing the kind of toxic social polarisation and polit­ical disruption over immigration that has occurred over Brexit in Britain and US President Donald Trump’s election victory.

Nor does Australia appear to be on the cusp of the anti-immig­ration backlash that has fuelled the populist insurgencies that have displaced the political establishment in many EU countries.

Our polling indicates that addressi­ng the concerns about immigration that are shared by most metropolitan voter­s would be neither socially polarising nor electorally damaging. It also underlines the importance of responding to community attitudes to build — and retain — public support for immig­ration.

If the immigration program is to remain politically sustainable, governments must address public concerns about issues such as urban congestion and social cohesio­n shared by Australians at the top and bottom of the social strata. This appears to be the politic­al lesson the Prime Minister, final­ly, has taken to heart to ensur­e his government remains in touch with public opinion.

Jeremy Sammut is director of the Culture, Prosperity and Civil Society Program at the Centre for Independent Studies. The report Australian Attitudes to Immigration: Coming Apart or Common Ground? was released on the 19 November 2018.