Angus Taylor says migrants are a ‘net drain’ on Australia. The numbers say the opposite is true

Angus Taylor’s thinly veiled attempt to paint migrants as bludgers is not supported by the facts. The typical migrant over their lifetimes pays more in taxes than they receive in government services.

Far from lobbing up on our shores and demanding welfare, most migrants arrive hungry for work and motivated to make a life for themselves and their family.

Migrants are generally younger than the average Australian, typically 25-30 years old, and they are skilled and more educated. This is not by accident.

Our migration system may not be perfect, but it does a reasonable job of granting visas to foreigners who have a high chance of making a positive contribution to our country.

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Yet in mere months since becoming leader of the Liberal party, Taylor has described migrants as a “net drain” on society, and claimed too many people seek to use Australia’s generosity “for self-serving purposes”. Now he is making the case that Australians are missing out on benefits because of migrants.

“They’re slashing money to veterans at the same time as they’re handing out money to non-citizens,” he told Sky News on Friday.

“There’s substantial savings in all of this,” Taylor said of his plans to place further restrictions on government payments to permanent residents.

There’s no evidence that Australia has a problem with a big group of migrants who are here simply to live off welfare. This is just not our experience of migration. In fact, far from a “net drain”, it has been long understood inside the government that the opposite is true.

Treasury released a paper in late 2021 which modelled the lifetime fiscal impact of our permanent migration program. “Where migrants pay more in taxes than they receive in government services, it benefits the incumbent Australian population,” it says.

The analysis shows that the average migrant across the skilled, family and humanitarian streams pays $41,000 more in tax than they receive in government services over their lifetimes.

This is down to the skilled worker visa scheme, where the average net lifetime benefit is $198,000. Family visa holders pay $126,000 less in tax than they receive in services, and humanitarian visa holders $400,000 less.

The average Australian citizen, in comparison, consumes $85,000 more in services than they pay in taxes. This means that the “fiscal impact” of the average migrant is $127,000 more positive than the average citizen (there’s some rounding in there).

The modelling “provides strong evidence that the permanent migration program generates significant fiscal benefits, in aggregate, to Australia”, the paper says.

This is a narrow way to assess migration, but it’s an important one in the context of the Coalition’s politically motivated attempt to paint migrants as a drag on the country’s coffers.

Alan Gamlen, the director of the ANU’s migration hub, says the Coalition’s promises to restrict entitlements to permanent residents are a solution for a problem that does not exist.

“It’s just a kind of slightly nasty opportunism, really, because by and large it’s taxpayers who pay for those benefits and migrants as a whole contribute more in taxes than in benefits,” Gamlen says.

“If we care about social cohesion and people doing their best job and supporting productivity as well, taking away their social security nets is not a great thing to do.”