Frank Lowy – the billionaire Westfield founder and bearer of one of Australia’s best-known migrant stories – has condemned a growing hostility towards migrants and migration in Australian public debate, and urged the country to embrace “an ambitious migration program”.
“I have … been disturbed by the negative tone of the debate over immigration ... there is a rising crescendo of opinion from columnists and politicians saying we should reduce our immigration intake,” Lowy said.
Lowy, 87, fled Nazi persecution in Czechoslovakia and Hungary as a child. He arrived in Australia via Palestine and Israel in 1952, where he went into business, founding the company that became the Westfield shopping empire, which he ran for more than five decades.
He is the benefactor behind the eponymous Lowy Institute, to which he gave its annual address on Thursday night, saying he had previously maintained a commitment to keep private his own opinions but that he now felt motivated to speak publicly.
“If I am ever to speak at a Lowy Institute event, then this is the time,” he said.
Lowy described migration as an “act of ambition, imagination and bravery”.
“To imagine a better life for yourself and your family and to leave behind all that is familiar requires a special kind of courage,” he said. “Australia needs more of that courage.”
He said the significant reduction in migration last year – and the rhetorical replacement of migration “targets” with “ceilings” – was a troubling trend for Australia’s future prosperity, diversity and global standing.
“We are focusing too much on the problems and forgetting about the opportunities of immigration,” he said. “Let us learn from our history. Immigration has been great for Australia in the past. I believe it will be great for Australia in the future.
“I believe in a big Australia. I am an advocate for an ambitious immigration program.
“We are all familiar with the differences between the Australia of the 1950s and the Australia of today. We are richer, more productive and more interesting now than we were then.
“This change would not have been possible without a big immigration program.”
The level of permanent migration to Australia fell to its lowest level in a decade last year, with about 162,000 permanent visas granted last financial year, compared with about 190,000 in the preceding four years. A number of politicians, including former prime minister Tony Abbott, have called for substantial and sustained cuts to immigration.
Lowy said his views were shaped by his own childhood experience.
“As a child I learned what it meant to be persecuted. But, even then, at the worst of times, I knew there was good in the world.
“I saw my mother share our meagre food supplies with neighbours. I saw her risk her life, and mine, to practise our religion.
“As a boy I stood at the doorway of our hiding place in Budapest and watched Russian troops fight house by house to liberate the city and therefore rescue us from certain death.”
In a wide-ranging speech, Lowy expounded on the Australia-US alliance, saying the US president, Donald Trump, had made the partnership more “complicated” but that Australia’s allegiance was to the United States, not to a single president.
“I regret that Mr Trump does not see the great advantages that flow to America from its alliances and the global trading system,” he said. “And personally, given my life experiences, I feel more comfortable when the president of the United States is an advocate of democracy, not a friend of authoritarians.”
Lowy said Australia must work to develop a co-operative relationship with Beijing but not allow itself to be dictated to.
“There will also be occasions on which we disagree with China,” he said. “And on those occasions the best approach is to be forthright.
“If you don’t look after your own interests, the person across the table certainly won’t.”
