Massive cuts to immigration and a switch to nuclear power are the keys to fixing Australia’s woeful economy, which is on par with that of Equatorial Guinea, according to a leading businessman.
Matt Barrie, chief executive of outsourcing marketplace Freelancer, said that on paper Australia should be the richest country in the world, but it is nowhere near that.
He said a succession of governments have mismanaged the economy to the point where most people are barely surviving financially despite having some of the highest salaries in the world.
Stratospheric real estate prices – sparked by record levels of immigration – leave most people with little money left at the end of the month after their huge mortgage or rent costs are exacerbated by rising food and beverage costs. public services.
The evisceration of the manufacturing sector has left Australia almost entirely reliant on primary industry for income; However, much of what we produce is exported, leaving Australians paying unreasonably high sums for electricity and food.
“Our economy, in terms of sophistication and complexity, is on a par with that of Equatorial Guinea, where there are no cinemas in the entire country,” Mr Barrie said.
The businessman said Australia must abandon the immigration pyramid scheme that creates a per capita recession and use our abundant energy resources to reduce utility bills that crush businesses and therefore lead to investment.
On the latest episode of the EquityMates podcast he said: ‘You would think that a country with 1,200 years of coal supply would be an energy superpower.
‘You would think that a country with 28 percent of the world’s uranium reserves would be an energy superpower. “You would think that a country with 20 percent of the world’s gas exports would be an energy superpower,” said the Stanford graduate.
“You would think that a country with 47 percent of the world’s lithium production, (which) is sixth in the world in copper production, fifth in the world in nickel production, you would think it would be a superpower in electronics and engineering.’
He noted that with 56 per cent of global iron ore exports, Australia could make its own steel and export it around the world rather than selling the ingredients for a fraction of the price to places with much lower manufacturing wages.
“We should be the richest country in the world, period.”
Matt Barrie, chief executive of Freelancer, said Australia “should be the richest country in the world” because of our vast mining resources.
“Instead we have the biggest erosion of wealth in the developed world, a cost of living crisis, we have astronomically expensive house prices, it doesn’t make any sense.”
Barrie said that with just 3.46 people per square kilometre, Australia should have some of the cheapest land and housing in the world, but it is close to the most expensive in the world.
“The root cause of the cost of living crisis is the cost of land and the cause of this is immigration. We have the most expensive casual wages in the world, but again it is not enough to live on because people need somewhere to live “.
He said Australia’s energy crisis is based on the hypocrisy of ending local reliance on “dirty” coal in the name of climate change, while giving more and more to Asian trading partners.
“We are stupidly going down the path of ‘well, what about the environment? We can’t burn coal,'” Mr. Barrie said.
‘No, we are burning the coal, everything we are digging out of the ground is being burned, just China or Japan is burning it.
‘The gas we send abroad is re-exported in many cases. We send it to Japan and they resell it.’
About 80 per cent of natural gas produced in Australia is liquefied for Asian countries (pictured, Origin Energy’s Australian Pacific liquefied natural gas facility on Curtis Island in northern Queensland).
Australians paid record prices for gas in 2022 despite having an abundant supply of the resource. Prices have fallen slightly in the last two years (file image)
Barrie said the solution was simple.
‘We have to get manufacturing back on track in this country. To do this, the energy problem must be solved. We have to legalize nuclear energy.”
‘I think immigration should be reduced by 90 percent, the skilled migration program is not qualified.
‘It is necessary that every person in this country can afford a house to live in. Not being a renter or stuck in a mortgage on a treadmill.
He also suggested that international students should pay a $50,000 “infrastructure fee” before being granted entry into the country.
Coal-fired power stations in Australia are gradually being replaced by renewable energy
China’s iron ore demand is expected to decline in the coming years, impacting Australia’s economy (Mount Holland mine in Southern Cross, Western Australia).
He said many politicians only compounded the problems Australia faced.
“Politicians don’t really know how to grow the economy and really grow industry or do anything other than extract raw materials from the earth to ship overseas,” he said.
‘Both the Liberal and Labor parties have been pursuing a program focused on easy, relentless growth.
“So, as long as house prices rise gently and wages fall gently, businesses will be happy and citizens will be happy.
‘This has been working for some time, but it has only been facilitated by a very extensive immigration programme.
“So we’re bringing people into the country, which suppresses wages, and then those people need housing.”
He said under the current Albanian government immigration had skyrocketed, importing the equivalent of the population of Canberra and Darwin each year.
‘How could we build one Canberra and one Darwin a year? You don’t just have to build houses. The infrastructure must be built; Hospitals and schools, roads and transportation must be built.
“It’s the state governments that foot the bill for that, and they’ve been on a massive construction spree. Basically, it’s driving states to the brink of bankruptcy.’