Business and community groups have savaged the federal government’s plan to cut migration to Australia by 30,000 migrants a year.

Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott said that Australia needed “well managed population growth” to help offset an ageing workforce as fellow business leaders warned of the economic fallout from Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s plan to slash immigration.

“We know that our cities are under pressure, but that’s exactly why we should double-down on getting the skills mix right, on planning for regional development to encourage new arrivals out of our cities,” Ms Westacott said.

“We’re ready to work with governments at all levels to seriously consider how we can manage growth more effectively, particularly by focusing on development in our regions to create new jobs.”

Chief Executive of the Australian Industry Group Innes Willox said the government “should think very carefully about cutting too deeply into the permanent migration program, especially given the skills demand pressures that are building as our economy grows”.

“Immigration will be especially important in meeting the skills demands of the huge pipeline of largely government-funded infrastructure projects across the country,” Mr Willox said.

Meanwhile, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive James Pearson said cuts to Australia’s permanent migration program “should be a concern to all Australians”.

“The evidence is clear that skilled migrants, particularly employer nominated ones, deliver maximum economic and demographic benefit,” he said.

“By filling jobs that can’t be filled locally, they are helping local businesses to survive and thrive, and create more jobs in turn for more Australians.”

Ms Westacott said a well-managed approach to increasing Australia’s population through immigration would give Australian workers and businesses access to the best skills and expertise in the world.

She called on the government to make “a serious effort on decentralisation”, to make regional areas attractive places for immigrants to settle in.

Mr Morrison has said the Coalition believes it can revamp the current migration settings to better disperse new arrivals in regional areas, but has ruled out calls to force permanent migrants away from the capitals.

University of Melbourne demographer Professor Peter McDonald said a reduction of migration into Sydney and Melbourne would simply drain labour from other cities and regions around Australia.

“They’d be drawing workers from Adelaide, from Perth, potentially also from New Zealand,” he said.

“This is really bad news for places like Adelaide. They are already losing their best and brightest to Sydney and Melbourne and they would lose even more under this kind of plan.”

Property Council of Australia chief executive Ken Morrison said Australians and migrants alike would “continue to be overwhelmingly attracted to the opportunities presented by our biggest cities, so we need positive plans for these cities as well as our other major cities”.

“Immigration doesn’t create bad planning: bad planning creates bad planning,” Mr Morrison said.

“A growing population is an overwhelming economic and social benefit for Australia and we should be ambitious in our planning for it,” he said, pointing to “examples from around the world of successful big cities”.

“It’s not their size that matters; it’s how well they’ve been planned,” he said.

The Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia (FECCA) also condemned the move.

FECCA Chairperson Mary Patetsos said: “at a time when leadership is required, we see Prime Minister Scott Morrison reacting to a divisive agenda”.

“Our strong immigration level is vital to Australia’s economic growth, something Mr Morrison himself emphasised earlier this year when he declared that cutting immigration would negatively impact the Budget, that it would ‘hit the bottom line, the deficit’,” Ms Patetsos said.

“Instead of now declaring ‘enough, enough, enough’, Mr Morrison should be showing national leadership with a comprehensive plan to improve the nation’s infrastructure so that it can service a growing, prosperous nation.

“It is not good enough for the nation’s Prime Minister to abandon long-term vision for our future and opt for short-term populist politics,” she said

Laurie Nowell

AMES Australia Senior Journalist