Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, trailing in opinion polls ahead of a May 18 election, on Sunday campaigned on the hot-button issue of immigration, promising to cut annual migrant numbers and freeze the country’s refugee intake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pace of migration and the over \ncrowding of Australia’s major cities is a sensitive issue amongst voters\n in a nation where 29 per cent of the 25.3 million people were born \noverseas and where migration levels now outstrip the birthrate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Managing\n our population growth is very important to the quality of life that we \nhave in our cities,” Morrison said from a Liberal party rally in Sydney \non Sunday.The Australian Bureau of Statistics says net overseas \nmigration in the year to September 2018 was 240,100.The prime minister \nsaid if his government was re-elected it would cap annual migrant \nnumbers at 160,000 people per year for the next four years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The \nrestriction does not include more than 350,000 foreign students granted \nvisas each year, the majority of whom end up staying and who pump \nmillions of dollars through the nation’s universities, according to \nDepartment of Home Affairs figures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Voters in the largest cities \nof Sydney and Melbourne where most migrants settle have growing concerns\n over congestion, inadequate infrastructure and the rising cost of \nliving.Morrison also said the annual refugee intake would be frozen at \n18,750 people. The Labor opposition intends to increase the refugee \nintake to 27,000 by 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Labor’s campaign has focused on \nincreased spending for education, health and welfare and on Sunday its \nleader, Bill Shorten, promised A$4 billion worth of childcare to a \nmillion low-income families, including 15 hours a week of free \npre-school, if elected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It’s time that we rewarded mums for \nparticipating in the economy instead of penalising families,” he said \nfrom a rally in Melbourne. He also promised free dental care for the \naged.\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, trailing in opinion polls ahead of a May 18 election, on Sunday campaigned on the hot-button issue of immigration, promising to cut annual migrant numbers and freeze the country’s refugee intake. The pace of migration and the over crowding of Australia’s major cities is a sensitive issue amongst voters in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":60173,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60172"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60174,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60172\/revisions\/60174"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}