Too much of a good thing

December 8, 2025

It is sad that Mainul Haque felt a necessity to defend migrants. Most of us encounter migrants every day, for instance my doctor is Chinese and my dentist Zimbabwean, and I’m grateful for their expertise and care. Nevertheless, I worry about poaching skilled workers from countries that have borne the cost of educating them but not benefited from their skills because they are over here.

Migrants bring diversity which is mostly a good thing. When overseas conflicts are played out here, for instance, between Jews and Palestinians, it is not a good thing. And most migrants are good people who share our values of liberalism and egalitarianism. Sometimes, however, cultural practices that should have been left behind in the home country, such as forced marriages, rear their ugly heads.

As for housing, migrants do not directly take houses away from Australians, but they do add to demand. That makes it harder for everyone to put a roof over their heads, be they existing residents or newly arrived migrants themselves.

It’s not migrants’ fault that infrastructure has not kept pace with population growth. Rather it’s the fault of government who, through post-Covid hyper-immigration, has allowed “too much of a good thing”.