If not for the sanity that work provides us with…

Paul O’Loughlin

Does maintaining our Sovereign Borders have an impact on salary levels, or has the last week been simply political hyperbole?

If not for the sanity that work provides us with, the last 7 days may have driven many of us to the brink of madness! The release of today’s polls in Australia suggests the federal government’s rise in popularity resembles a feat some may say of biblical proportions! A resurrection of sorts! In Labor supporting Karen Phelps’s “medivac” legislation through the parliament, it appears Bill Shorten the Opposition Leader, has gifted the government an own goal! We will see.

The single biggest issue of the week has been “border protection”. Border protection is something the electorate treats as a serious issue. We as a nation do live in hope that we are safe and secure when we go to bed at night, and the terrorists and illegal boat people are held at bay! Excuse the pun!

The government’s primary objective as we all know is to protect its people. We get that. Whilst it may, for the most part, be fanciful thinking though, there is a real economic reality to all of this. Mass immigration as we have experienced in recent years in Australia can have a profound effect on keeping salaries low. There has been a consistent argument that the vast numbers of people that have been allowed to enter Australia has artificially kept salaries down. As skilled and unskilled labour competes for jobs, particularly offshore labour that has been well used to accepting lower wages, this then has a downward effect on not only salaries but also conditions!

There is a similar narrative being played out in the US. Donald Trump has just announced a “state of emergency” in order to guarantee delivering on his own pledge for border security. It will be interesting to see how this scenario evolves because for years the labour market in the USA has depended on Latinos crossing the border to provide skilled and unskilled help. A significant proportion of the workforce is made up of Mexicans and other South American natives. But in both countries, we are been fearful that if our border security is compromised our labour markets will be impacted.

You see in all of this, certainty is the currency we all rely upon. Without strict policies in relation to border protection, we will have many more weeks like we did last week. Uncertainty producing calamity! We can all do without the political hyperbole!