The former NSW Premier who famously declared that Sydney was “full” in 2000 has again hit out at Australia’s record immigration levels.
“I’ve been trying to get Australia to understand that we do not need to have the highest rate of immigration, in proportion to our population, in the world,” Bob Carr told Sky News host Erin Molan on Friday.
He compared Australia’s immigration rates as “third-world” and said “we don’t need it”.
Mr Carr questioned whether increasing immigration to secure increased workforce, more tax contributions and a boosted skill set in Australia’s economy was the only trigger to pull.
“I just wonder why this is the only economic model we’ve got – to force feed population growth, to run the highest imaginable immigration intake, and to condemn our big cities to a relentless chase to keep up in terms of infrastructure,” he said.
“We don’t have to do it to guarantee Australia’s prosperity.”
He said it was a “lazy” way of running an economy.
The former Labor Premier said governments can’t keep up amid the housing crisis.
He said there was a “mismatch” and states were under pressure from Canberra’s immigration policy.
“Canberra makes no contribution to the states in response to the pressure that it is putting the states under,” he said.
Mr Carr was NSW’s longest-serving Premier, and his late wife was born in Malaysia before emigrating to Australia.
When Mr Carr was premier between 1995 and 2005 his government was under pressure over transport and infrastructure as Sydney’s population was teetering on four million.
Sydney’s estimated population is now estimated at over five million.
Australia brought in a record half a million migrants in 2022-23 and the population — which last month officially ticked over 27 million — is expected to nearly double in the next 50 years.
The federal opposition has blasted immigration levels as contributing factors to the housing crisis.
That led to more than 40 housing experts penning a letter to the Prime Minister and opposition leader expressing their concern that migrants were being used as a “scapegoat” and blamed for the housing crisis.
Everybody’s Home spokesperson Maiy Azize, who co-ordinated the letter, said in a statement in December the housing crisis was “decades in the making”.
“It is nonsense to blame overseas migration as a primary driver of a housing crisis that has been decades in the making,” she said.
“During the Covid era which had lower migration, rents actually increased more than they did in the preceding decade.”
Mr Carr’s comments come after Australian businessman Dick Smith this week labelled latest January immigration statistics a “disaster for families”.
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data released on Thursday showed the country brought in a record 125,410 permanent and long-term arrivals in January.
Even accounting for departures, the net increased of 55,330 was the highest January intake ever recorded.
Mr Smith told The Daily Telegraph the figures should be around 75,000 a year, in line with the long-term historical average.
“Every Australian family has a population plan to have the number of children they can give a good life to, but at the rate we are going it means the average Australian family will have less,” Mr Smith told the newspaper.
“The problem is billionaire political donors have a short circuit in their brains, and all they want is unlimited population growth to grow their wealth.”