Q&A guest hits out at ABC after simple immigration question was banned
Jordan Knight, the founder of Migration Watch Australia, was due to appear on the program where he'd planned to raise the issue of immigration in Australia.
Australia's housing shortage and record overseas migration rates have once again been brought into question with a campaigner against high immigration hitting out at the ABC. He claims the national broadcaster banned him from addressing the issue while appearing on Q&A this week.
Jordan Knight, the founder of Migration Watch Australia, who works for independent MP Rod Roberts in the NSW Parliament, claims he was "chosen to read out a question" on Monday night's program, "only for them to call and cancel last minute".
He claims the reason was to do with the question he'd planned to ask the panel — which on Monday night included Housing Minister Clare O'Neil, shadow housing minister Michael Sukkar, Grattan Institute chief executive Aruna Sathanapally and the ABC's finance commentator Alan Kohler — about whether or not the high number of international students was worsening Australia's rental crisis.
Guest banned from asking about high intake of foreign students
The 30-year-old shared the detailed question on social media on Tuesday. "Australia has more foreign students than Great Britain and almost as many as the United States," Knight's submitted question said.
"Meanwhile, we have record low rental vacancy rates, people are paying 50 per cent of their wage on rent."
"My question is this," it continued. "Does the panel believe that housing Australians is more important than educating foreign students? And if so, will they further reduce the number of foreign students in the country to 50,000, in order to free up housing for Australians?"
Was chosen to read out a question from the audience for tonight’s Q+A—only for them to call and cancel last minute.
Which is greatly disappointing. Funnily enough, despite the ABC already running a 10-minute attack piece on me (likely not the last), I still would like nothing… pic.twitter.com/4dmrLhCoDM— Jordan H Knight (@jhk_______) September 9, 2024
ABC questioned over 'disappointing' decision
Taking to X on Tuesday, Knight said it is "greatly disappointing" that he was not allowed to ask a question as an audience member, especially since Greens volunteer Sophia Redjeb was reportedly allowed to ask a question when appearing on the show last week. She reportedly suggested that international students were being unfairly blamed for the housing crisis.
An ABC spokesperson reportedly claimed the situations with Knight and Redjeb were different. Knight "is a paid staffer" whereas "Redjeb was interning for the Greens".
"Q+A doesn't take questions from paid political staffers," they told Daily Mail Australia. However, Knight implied it's hypocritical.
"Really makes you wonder," he posted on Tuesday.
International students the 'main contributor' to arrivals in Australia
The latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) shows the country’s population grew by 2.4 per cent in 2023. While the annual natural increase was at 106,100 people, it was outstripped by a boom in net overseas migration (NOM), with more than 737,000 people arriving in the country.
"People arriving on temporary visas, such as international students, were the main contributor to the arrivals, with the number of departures remaining low as the cycle of arrivals and departures have not yet returned to typical pre-pandemic patterns,” ABS head of demography Beidar Cho said of the numbers late last year.
International students accounted for some 283,000 out of 737,000 arrivals in 2022–23, according to Home Affairs' migration trends data. Meanwhile, of the 2,463,244 people in Australia on a temporary visa in 2023 — an increase of 533,831 people (27.7 per cent) from 2022 — 568,753 were granted student visas in Australia.
In 22-23, citizens from India, China and Nepal made almost half (41.9 per cent) of all student visa grants. Currently, there are roughly 810,960 international students enrolled in Australian universities.
Is immigration to blame for the housing shortages?
While immigration is often blamed for contributing to the current housing crisis, Greens housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather has previously said he did not believe migration was the “primary cause of the housing crisis”.
He pointed instead to the "tens of billions of dollars" the government doled out to property investors, a lack of rent caps and chronic underinvestment in public housing.
The current government has plans to slash the total migration intake over the coming years, in an attempt to reduce pressure on the stretched housing sector. Treasury is forecasting the figure will decline to 395,000 in 2023-24, before tapering off even further to 260,000 in the coming financial year.
with NCA Newswire
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