Mitchell Unlimited S01E13 - Alan Kohler

If, alright, forget...

You're dictator, you don't have to worry about elections or caucus or party room or anything.

How would you fix it? How would you address it? I don't know if you can fix it, but how would you address it?

Well, I think we can, uh, we can probably look to Canada to some extent.

So, um, uh, it, last year, uh, th- there's a couple things Can- Canadian government's done.

One is firstly last year they actually cut immigration substantially.

Um, it's going back up a bit now, but they, they really s- sliced immigration a lot.

Um, by cutting temporary migration.

Right? This is what...

And this is what the government of Australia is kinda talking about doing, cutting the student visas, uh, cutting working holidays, uh, all that.

And that did mean that the universities in Canada had to sack a lot of people.

I mean, they really had to cut back because of the decline in foreign students.

So the, so it wasn't without cost, um, what the Ca- what the Canadian government did.

But, um, it has taken the pressure off, uh, both socially and economically.

So a Cana- is the average Canadian better off because of the immigration cut?

I th- I think, I think you can say that.

You can argue that.

So would the same apply in Australia? Cut immigration, we're better off.

I think that's true.

Uh, it would, it would apply.

Um, so that's the first thing that the Australian government could do is to do that, and they- they're talking about doing it.

Um, possibly not as much as, well, definitely not as much as the Canadian government cut immigration, but anyway.

I mean, yeah, but, uh, Coalition and One Nation are talking about big cuts in immigration.

Um, uh, the government not so much.

Anyway, last week the gov- the Canadian government announced a bunch of, uh, business tax measures, which, um, basically what they're gonna do is they're gonna expand the number of, uh, uh, business investments that can be written off in year one in, you know, against your, against your income, your tax, um, from 15% to 65%.