Migrant workers - short-term solutions that make problems worse

July 27th, 2008

It seems a perfect solution. Australia needs workers for seasonal and mining jobs; The Pacific Islands and East Timor, with high birth-rates and much of their populations under 25, have up to 65% youth unemployment. Let their young people come here as temporary labour. Neat. Two problems solved. Temporarily.

It is a dangerous stop-gap for the Islanders unless also family planning cuts family sizes down to four or less. These islands have populations growing to the degree that their own resources cannot support them. The average woman in East Timor has eight children = 64 grandchildren = 512 great-grandchildren... The islands of Tonga, population 45,000 in 1950, are now over 100,000 in only 50 years. The Solomon Islands, in only one hundred years, will grow from just over 100,000 in 1950 to a million in 2050.