Australia’s immigration program is a mess, and the Albanese government has promised to fix it.
In her National Press Club address on Thursday, Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil signalled the government’s intentions — at least in regard to skilled migration. Family migration will wait for another day.
The speech coincided with the publication of the expert review of the migration program that the minister commissioned in September, and with the release of the government’s initial response — an outline of its future migration strategy.
Labor is pushing back against the long-term shift towards temporary migration, saying that a greater emphasis on permanent residence is in the national interest. Not only does it foster social cohesion, but it also makes Australia a more attractive destination for migrants who can fill critical labour market gaps and boost productivity.
The government hopes its changes will entice young, highly skilled professionals to settle in Australia permanently. It also wants to make it easier for international students to stay on after graduation — if they have qualifications in high demand.
Together with Immigration Minister Andrew Giles, O’Neil is determined to build a migration system that is fairer, simpler and delivers better economic outcomes.
They’ve made an impressive start on the fairness front, beginning to dismantle bottlenecks and blockages that kept hundreds of thousands of visa applicants and visa holders in limbo, working through the huge backlog of unprocessed applications bequeathed to them by the Coalition. Then they started clearing the path to permanent residence for refugees on temporary protection visas, ending a decade of unconscionable cruelty.
Next, they established a straightforward route to citizenship for New Zealanders, putting them on an equal footing with other permanent residents and ensuring that, in time, they can access the full range of government services and enrol to vote.
In a new fairness measure announced on Thursday, all temporary skilled migrants will be able to seek permanent residence. In 2017, the Coalition created a two-tiered temporary skilled visa. The lower tier only permitted a stay of two years, renewable just once, meaning migrants then had to leave Australia and had no chance of settling here. The new approach doesn’t guarantee that temporary workers can stay, but it increases their opportunity to do so.
The government is also applying a filter that will prevent some temporary migrants from arriving in the first place by raising the minimum wage employers must pay if they want to sponsor a worker from overseas.
In 2013, the Coalition froze this threshold wage, known as the TSMIT, at $53,900. From July, the government will boost it by a whopping 30% to $70,000. The higher cut-off will shut out workers on lower earnings, like commercial cooks and café managers, who often feature among the top 15 occupations nominated for temporary skilled visas. Expect complaints from the hospitality sector — and from retail and agriculture — as the changes bite. Other sectors that employ temporary skilled migrants won’t be worried since they pay much higher wages.
The higher TSMIT is designed to ensure migrants bring the skills most needed to boost productivity, but it will also help advance another key government aim — reducing workplace abuse. As researcher Anna Boucher has shown, workers lower down the skill ladder are more likely to suffer underpayment. The Grattan Institute, which recommended the $70,000 threshold, says the migrants it excludes “are precisely the workers who are at greatest risk of exploitation”.
The Home Affairs minister wants to simplify the migration program by streamlining the bewildering array of visa sub-classes, and by scrapping clumsy and ineffective systems of labour market testing and skilled occupation lists that are meant to ensure the system prioritises workers we most urgently need.
Instead, Jobs and Skills Australia will determine which skills are in short supply, based on “advice from tripartite mechanisms” (i.e., government, business and unions). O’Neil says Jobs and Skills Australia’s key task is to better integrate the migration program with education and training to ensure we build skills at home as well as bring them in from overseas.
Despite the opposition carping that Labor’s reforms amount to “big Australia by stealth”, the changes won’t necessarily increase migration. There has always been a hard ceiling on permanent migration, and while temporary migration is uncapped, numbers fluctuate with economic conditions, especially demand for labour. The latest record high numbers reflect pent-up demand, especially from international students, from when borders were closed.
Some proposals could even push migration lower. O’Neil wants to inject more “integrity” into the visa system to ensure that international students are coming here to study, not to work. If she’s serious, the government will need to rein in the “Ponzi scheme” that sees dodgy recruiters hawking low-value courses for huge commissions.
The missing piece in the puzzle is how the government plans to fill critical labour market shortages that don’t qualify as highly skilled, such as aged care assistants, meat processors and fruit pickers — roles often filled by migrants on temporary visas.
In her speech, the minister was critical of “guest worker” programs; she wants to exclude students who might be attracted as much by an Australian wage as by an Australian qualification, and she promises to end the entrenched exploitation of backpackers and other temporary visa holders.
Who then is going to fill these low-paid jobs that are dirty, dangerous and difficult?
I would like to remind folks that before Neoliberalism we had free education and public utilities that trained people and apprenticeship programs and aged care facilities weren’t mainly profit driven and media capable of debate.. We paid for these things with a more equitable tax system, negative gearing and other failed ideas such as privatisation hadn’t raised their ugly head. People may have had less money but wealth was more evenly distributed and the working day, traffic congestion was less, we had more free time, leave loading 9 day fortnights etc, less aspiration for outright wealth made for cheaper holidays that were more likely . I put it to you that this way of life was better than most and this was putting pressure on less well organised countries politics and they moved to shut it down.
It is strange that the LNP is against Labors proposals, they can’t even follow Neoliberalism anymore as Labor holds that mantle. If the new generations realise what we had they are more likely to challenge the current stats quo.
Crikey needs to grow much bigger.
AGREE with all your points and would only add that until Neolibs blighted our existence, courtesy of those class traitors Hawke, Keating & Kelty, one primary wage earner was more than sufficient to buy a starter house.
Childcare was really that, in the form of playgroups, usually street-by-street and people whom one knew & trusted with that which was most precious for any mothers who chose to work “in the economy”, for whatever reasons.
Try forming one today, even with ones siblings – the union demanded regs. would crush them in an instant, enforced by ambulance-chasing shysters.
Held up by the madBot because of the word between “class” & “Hawke” – as he is regarded by anyone with a shred of awareness and conscience.
AGREE with all your points and would only add that until Neolibs blighted our existence, courtesy of those grifting chancers Hawke, Keating & Kelty, one primary wage earner was more than sufficient to buy a starter house.
Childcare was really that, in the form of playgroups, usually street-by-street and people whom one knew & trusted with that which was most precious for any mothers who chose to work “in the economy”, for whatever reasons.
Try forming one today, even with ones siblings – the union demanded regs. would crush them in an instant, enforced by ambulance-chasing shysters.
I don’t remember such a time – and I’m 71. I bought my first humble house 30 years ago and it took two wages to pay for it. Prices started to go through the roof in the Howard era when the capital gains tax was halved and immigration doubled. My daughter was in community childcare – not looked after by “someone in the street”. Are we talking about the 50s? Long before Labor got in.
If you were born 1951/2 then you were presumably sentient, if not politically awake, in the 70s yet seem unaware of it being the hide tide mark of a society worth inhabiting.
That you waited until you were 40, post betrayal in the 80s by ‘Labor’ of all principles and decencies before buying a house suggests that ‘sentient‘ is overgenerous.
I’d like to see an immigration program that focussed more on a refugee intake and less on jobs jobs jobs for people trained overseas which is inevitably using that governments efforts to train people for their own countries.
I agree Stuart. There is no good reason to not train our own people, for free. There is also no good reason, and plenty of ethical ones, why should stick to the discredited neo liberal idea that we need to impoverish 5% of our worker force to confine inflation to the 2-3% band. We should be aiming to put every current citizen in a job no matter what.
Skilled immigration isn’t a problem if it’s actually skilled, and targeting genuine shortages.
Our system is, sadly, pretty much the complete opposite of this.
Yes and no? Not sure if it’s any business of highly mobile Australians to demand that people trained overseas should stay where they are when there are about a million trained Australian PRs and citizens living elsewhere e.g. teachers, nurse etc. working in UK and /or EU?
They’re not. It’s theatre.
The LNP has overseen record migration for most of its last twenty years in Government.
Certainly Labor is now intent on increasing that even more, but the Liberals would not be winding it back any lower than it was previously.
But now they can blame the negative consequences of high immigration on Labor.
While the lnp harped on about boat arrivals, there were hundreds of people arriving on tourist visas by plane then being allowed to stay one way or another. Don’t hear any mention of these folk any more.
Yes it’s FIRE media theatre of suggestion (get in now or miss out) & good old dog whistle, post 1970s which is de rigueur in Oz for both parties.
Historically there has been much permanent migration that is capped, but low vs. higher NOM net overseas migration ‘temporary resident churn over’ of past decades, which is normal in most developed and other nations (but understated and not obsessed about).
The NOM (UNPD defined) was inflated in 2006 by an expansion of the formula to 12/16+ months, sweeping up more students with international education, mobility grew and spiked population; missed by all media and one cannot compare with other nations using other methods.
The elephant in the room is demographic decline in the permanent population, ex. NOM, i.e. below replacement fertility for generations, fewer youth, working age passed the ‘demographic sweet spot’ a decade ago, more retirees and now baby boomer ‘bomb’ is in transition to retirement.
This then leads higher old age dependency ratios and budget issues, but in a few years ‘the big die off’ commences and by mid century the population pyramid maybe more balanced, in favour of younger generations.
Perhaps so but this government has overseen the greatest immigration intake in Australia’s history smack bang in the midst of a housing crisis.
They own this one.
Moreover the government’s refusal to discuss the issue during the campaign confirms them as nothing more than a bunch of neoliberal sellouts.
Like we needed confirmation anyway.
Thanks for stating the obvious Kimba. Evidently “the obvious” needs to be spelled out for some.
You make some very good points there stuart. Well said!
I agree with your general sentiments but would note that negative gearing has been a feature of the Australian tax system since 1922. The Hawke government removed the ability to offset negatively geared property losses against other (eg wage) income in 1983 but this move was reversed in 1987 following a largely confected backlash.
The large increase in the incidence of negative gearing in more recent years is largely due to the Howard government decision in 1999 to halve the rate of capital gains tax.
Very good question. Perhaps the answer is dirty, dangerous and difficult jobs should never be low paid.
The fact they still are low paid suggests that there’s not really a shortage of workers at all.
More reason to support enhanced union outreach, improved awards, conditions and ensuring compliance by employers; good for both local and migrant workers.
And where and how are these migrants, skilled or otherwise, going to be housed?
That’s the last thing on the minds of the imbeciles who are running this show, Frank. They wouldn’t know, nor would they care.
Perhaps they’ll Replace current battlers who are just holding on by their finger nails who will then either hump-the-swag (as if!) or form shanty towns as during the 30s such as Era, Burning Palms and Little Garie outside Sydney.
Except that
As the article points out
The shortage of housing is a huge crisis, but not relevant to sorting out Australia’s current horrible mess of different visas. The number of different visas and their irrational system of operation is a separate issue to the number of migrants. The opposition is just stirring up trouble about housing because it cannot think of anything worthwhile to say about fixing the visa system.
Agree, the ‘Big Australia’ myth was used against Rudd government and also nobble any Labor efforts to introduce carbon pricing of fossil fuel usage by using the ZPG/SPA ‘sustainable population’ trope masquerading as an environmental ‘hygiene’ measure to deflect.
One recalls similar scare campaigns in the past that feed into FIRE agitprop on supposed housing or rental shortages, but also acted as psychological floor to the market and induce the ‘better get in now or miss out’.
There is little if any good grassroots data analysis in different housing types e.g. postcode level, and it’s always framed against or correlated with NOM net migration increases of the past year.
Housing types include paid homestays (support mortgage payments) etc. used by international students, plus with other temporary residents, including specialised student housing/apts (on/off campus), hostels and/or CBD/inner city apartments (many are off public market, like shared houses run by word of mouth); catching up now after Covid accommodation closures etc..
Maybe people need to take a breath and wait a few months as things shake out and normalise.
Exactly. We have a housing crisis. Millenials can’t afford to buy, in fact many can barely afford to rent. Where are these 400,000 people going to be housed? LNP overseeing a train wreak.
Does anybody give a rat’s arse what the LNP say?
Is anybody even listening?
Why the media even bother reporting their bollocks is a mystery.
When Dutton was in the immigration hot seat he managed to lose track of 200,000 tourists who overstayed their visa………….
……..but that was okay because they’d arrived by air.
I can’t wait for the Federal ICAC to get under way to clear this dross out.
I suspect the NACC holding secret hearings won’t clear out much dross at all, unlike the NSW ICAC with mostly public hearings. Another handholding collusion between the two major neoliberal parties.
It’s not such a ‘whopping’ boost when inflation is taken into account. Using Reserve Bank data for the past 10 years suggests that the TSMIT should be increased by 31.6% just to keep up with inflation. It’s no increase at all over the 2013 wage.
That it’s not even at the median wage (~$85k I think), let alone the average ($100k), demonstrates the complete joke that is “skilled” immigration. Reinforced by the paper (can’t remember who from) showing that if the TSMIT was raised to just $85k, something like 75% of current visa holders would no longer be eligible.
Our immigration system is built around creating an army of low-skill, low-pay, low-productivity, easily exploited workers.
What I’ve always said.
Who is going to do the less skilled work when working age cohort passed the demographic sweet spot a decade ago? See UK post Brexit & border control obsessions…..
This is the OECD’s Australian working age trend to now, falling further…. https://data.oecd.org/chart/74hD join the dots on that?
Obsession about ‘high value’ or ‘middle class’ skilled immigrants versus ‘low skilled’ is largely irrelevant when many lower or lower skilled jobs become vacant and children schooled locally but viewing ‘immigrants’ as robots of units of production, ignoring their humanity and access social mobility; class system and pecking order?