Property, population and fees: the media is getting it wrong on three major issues

I refer to population growth; property prices; and private school fees.

When Treasury's Centre for Population published its third annual Population Statement this month the reportage generally talked about how COVID meant that Australia had "lost 1.2 million people", how that without high immigration our tax bills would be higher; how Australia is "smaller, older, and sicker"; how the "ageing population" and the "skills shortage" could only be fixed with higher immigration.

The facts are different, of course. As the population has aged, workforce participation has increased, not decreased. Since 1980 the average age rose nine years to 39. In that time participation rose from 61 per cent to 65 per cent. This is because more people over 65 are staying in the workforce.

If anything, the pressure on the workforce is not from older Australians leaving the workforce, but from younger people not entering it. Full-time employment has plummeted among 15- to 19-year-olds. And so it should, because they are getting educated.

High immigration does not solve the dependency problem of an ageing population. Indeed, it makes it worse. Young people are more dependent for longer. And immigrants are younger and bring in children or have children here.

The answer lies in more action on age discrimination and more career incentives and help for women in the workforce.

Further, the drop to near zero immigration during COVID resulted in a magnificent reduction in the unemployment rate and a general improvement in the prospects for people getting work and better pay.

Australia should be rejoicing that two years of low immigration has resulted in 1.2 million fewer inhabitants with their pressure on the environment and existing infrastructure, not bemoaning it.

The post-COVID ramping up of immigration is just a scheme to create a larger, more compliant labour force and a pool of exploited consumers. At least this government is doing more on the training front, but it has fallen completely for the false propaganda of developers, retailers and big business generally, to the detriment of the rest of the population which struggles to get access to health and education and suffers from poor infrastructure.

Worse, in the year of the Voice, there is a lot of hypocrisy here. The Treasury population report says: "In the spirit of reconciliation Treasury acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community."

But surely, it has been continued immigration from 1788 on that has caused Indigenous dispossession and continues to make it worse.

Yet, even if the Voice referendum is passed (and I hope it is) it will be completely powerless to do anything about it. This is because the Voice is only a Voice to Parliament, and Parliament does not set immigration quotas. That is set by ministers in the executive without any public input or debate from anyone, least of all Indigenous people who are arguably most affected.

Now to private school fees. Every January we get reports that private school fees are going up. Oh woe, the cry goes up. Middle class people will be shut out of private education. The fees in some Sydney schools are $45,000 a year. Canberra's private school fees are nudging $30,000. What a Bad Thing, the cry goes up.

But really it is a Good Thing. Shutting middle-class people out of private education will mean they will have to go to public schools. That will improve public schools.

The federal government should slowly unwind the skewed funding model begun with the Howard government which pumped federal money into private schools, so much so that it costs the federal government more if a child goes to a private school than if the child goes to a public school.

Australia should wean itself of the idea that it is some sort of right that the middle classes send their children to private schools. Private schools should be exactly that - totally private with no government money.

Funding private schools is a waste of precious public money. It adds no better educational outcome for schools that are doing well on that front anyway.

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The private schools do not need the money. The top 20 Sydney private schools raked in $370 million in donations over the past six years.

Public money should be spent on education not on schools that pay their principals CEO salaries and provide lavish extra-curricular facilities on their students.

Now to property prices. Oh woe. Property prices are falling. What a Bad Thing, most reportage says. But surely it is a Good Thing. Politicians always wring their hands with concern about "housing affordability". These are weasel words. How can housing become more "affordable" without property prices falling.

The housing crisis should not be. And it is a crisis when a country as rich as Australia has people, including employed people, living in cars and tents or living under near-impossible rent and mortgage stress.

The crisis can only be solved by reducing demand and increasing supply.

Demand can be cut by reducing immigration and eliminating tax perks for property investors so they take their money elsewhere, opening the way for owner-occupiers.

Supply can be increased. But not by axing development regulation and allowing the white shoe brigade to convert koala habitat into crammed up, heat boxes with little or no public infrastructure. Rather it can be done by insourcing.

I hope the word "insourcing" becomes more widely used to describe a way of reversing some of the over-zealous privatisations since the mid-1980s. Some were successful, but others were destructive, particularly with housing policy under which home-ownership has declined and massive wealth shifted to the already wealthy.

Governments should build up a replenishing stock of public housing for renters and for those renters to buy later. It should be energy efficient and contribute to a more even spread of transport and other public facilities. By increasing supply, prices overall would fall. In the long run that would be a Good Thing because you can't have "affordable housing" without it.