After two quarters of record-breaking growth, it doesn’t feel like Australia’s economy is currently forgoing one of its main drivers.
Over the last 12 months Australia has experienced a population decrease for the first time since 1916. It’s a problem that may not be noticed at first, but the long-term cumulative effect will bite.
The longer we go without a resumption of normal levels of net overseas migration – one of Australia’s big economic engines – the bigger the drag on our otherwise strong recovery. And with delays to the vaccine roll-out, reopening international borders seems a long way away.
The Property Council has been making the case for upscaling our border processing and quarantine arrangements to increase the numbers of international arrivals in a COVID-safe way.
Last week the National Cabinet wisely tasked the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC) with providing guidance on the future of international border quarantine arrangements.
AHPPC will set a framework to determine what the various stages of the vaccine roll-out will mean for quarantine requirements. The Property Council has welcomed this action. We are pleased to see our leaders seeking to arm themselves with the information needed to safely reopen Australia.
But determining the date when we can return to normal is not a solution in itself. The opportunity cost of these missed visitors and migrants is too great to simply wait for this date to arrive.
Australia needs to take concrete steps now to ramp up our quarantine capacity to increase our international arrivals. This doesn’t mean throwing open the borders next week but it does mean a plan to steadily increase international arrivals in a COVID-safe way.
This will be critical if we’re not able to begin to normalise international borders for another year or more.