We must sow seeds for our nation's future today

This article was published in The Age 1 August 2010

Permanent and temporary migration programs are important for the economy.

With or without migration, Australia's population is increasing. For this reason alone Australia will become bigger.

This natural increase isn't enough to meet our economic needs. We are getting older faster than we are getting bigger. Although birth rates have recently started to lift, it will be a generation before the babies of today become the workers of tomorrow.

We need a growing and efficient economy to be a prosperous nation with good living standards. This means having enough people of working age with the right skills in the right locations. Economists call it matching labour supply to labour demand.

Fortunately, people are largely free to decide where they live, whether to work and the skills they'll offer.