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More migrants plea

AUSTRALIA'S leading business industry body, the Business Council of Australia has again come out saying that Australia needs more migrants to counter the ageing population.

The Council has rejected the Productivity Commission's claim that boosting population would do little to help combat the rising costs of an ageing nation.

The BCA has argued for many years that increased migration and policies aimed at raising labour force participation would reduce the impact of ageing.

A BCA spokesman said that attracting skilled migrants to Australia was a way of increasing the size of the economy and supporting increased funding of aged services.

The author of the latest BCA policy statement on population, Australian National University professor Glenn Withers, said he believed the Productivity Commission had underplayed the role that increased population and improved workforce participation could play.

Professor Withers said the Productivity Commission's own numbers had shown migration would make a difference. It showed that raising immigration levels from 90,000 to 125,000 would bring a 2 per cent improvement in the dependency ratio, which compares the number of people aged over 65 with the population of working age.

Professor Withers said while this did not sound like a lot, it would save between $5 billion and $9 billion a year in social outlays. "The headline conclusion that immigration is not a feasible counter measure is incorrect."

But he said it should not be beyond reach for Australia to match the participation rates of countries such as the US, Canada and Britain. If it did so, there would be another 625,000 people in the workforce.

If Australia were able to match Scandinavian rates of participation, the number of people in the workforce could be increased significantly further.