Latest / Inside Politics / Migration plan revealed: Who comes, who leaves and what it all means

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Migration plan revealed: Who comes, who leaves and what it all means · Inside Politics

• 0:01
  S1: I'm Stephanie Peatling, filling in for Jacqueline Maley, and you're
• 0:04
  S1: listening to Inside Politics from the Age and The Sydney
• 0:07
  S1: Morning Herald. Today we are hot off the press to
• 0:11
  S1: use a glorious old newsroom cliche to talk about the
• 0:14
  S1: federal government's new plan for migration. Immigration Minister Tony Burke
• 0:19
  S1: has just given a speech to the National Press Club
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  S1: in Canberra, where he has announced some pretty significant changes,
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  S1: and we'll do our best to keep this a very
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  S1: jargon free zone. Joining me in Canberra is chief political
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  S1: correspondent Paul Satchell, who has literally just zipped back from
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  S1: the club to join me in the studio. Paul, let's
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  S1: get straight to the heart of the matter. Immigration Minister
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  S1: Tony Burke has just delivered a speech outlining the government's
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  S1: long awaited and proposed changes to the migration scheme. What
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  S1: exactly has he announced?
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  S2: Yeah, great to be with you, Steph. You're right. I've
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  S2: just ran up the hill from the Press Club and
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  S2: I'm I've got the sweat on my forehead to show
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  S2: for it, so I'll do my best to, to quickly
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  S2: summarize what Tony Burke outlined in the hour in which
• 0:57
  S2: he spoke. Effectively, he split the reforms into three categories.
• 1:02
  S2: Who comes, how people extend their stay when they get
• 1:05
  S2: here and who departs. And on the first component of
• 1:08
  S2: who comes, some of the major changes there are around
• 1:11
  S2: working holiday makers. These are backpackers, to put it colloquially.
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  S2: And the numbers of backpackers have exploded since, particularly since
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  S2: a free trade deal was struck with the UK. And
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  S2: I think it was 2022. The number of Australians who
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  S2: go to the UK under these looser systems is about
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  S2: one to every eight British backpackers who come here. So
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  S2: this has become a really significant proportion of the NUM.
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  S2: And this was one of the only places in which
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  S2: Tony Burke outlined the precise numbers of how many would
• 1:39
  S2: be cut. And there's going to be a new ballot
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  S2: system around who can apply for a second and third year.
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  S2: And the numbers would come down in the third year
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  S2: from about 30,000 a year to about 5000. So a
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  S2: really significant focus in terms of who we will be
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  S2: stopping from coming are backpackers, which will spark a reaction
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  S2: from hospitality groups, restaurants, caterers and the agriculture sector. And
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  S2: we might get to that later in terms of who
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  S2: stays and who can extend their stay once they get here.
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  S2: The key groups of people who the government are targeting,
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  S2: there are students who managed to jump into either lower
• 2:11
  S2: grade courses, graduate diploma courses that are not of very
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  S2: high value students who are appeal their rejections, who are
• 2:19
  S2: able to use administrative processes to extend their stay as
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  S2: well as. And this part will require legislation. And the
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  S2: government doesn't have the support of the coalition, but they
• 2:28
  S2: have announced the reform anyway, and they'll try and pursue
• 2:31
  S2: it down the track. They're keen to cut down on
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  S2: these bogus asylum claims by stopping people from certain countries
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  S2: that are safe countries applying for asylum right at the
• 2:41
  S2: end of their stay to claim false protection status and
• 2:44
  S2: extend the last group is who departs the country. This
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  S2: is another growing problem. People who have exhausted all of
• 2:52
  S2: their options, including people who've had rejected asylum claims, who
• 2:55
  S2: stay in the country even though they have no legal
• 2:57
  S2: right to do so. The number of these people is
• 3:00
  S2: at 80,000. Now, Tony Burke said that pre 2015 there
• 3:03
  S2: was a system to put them into immigration detention. Many
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  S2: of them would leave. That enforcement mechanism has pretty much
• 3:08
  S2: evaporated and still be an increased focus on getting those
• 3:11
  S2: people to leave the country. So they're the key three
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  S2: key areas.
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  S1: The broad political context for this speech has obviously been
• 3:19
  S1: all we've been talking about in politics for the past
• 3:21
  S1: year or so, because looming over Tony Burke shoulder was
• 3:25
  S1: obviously One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson, and somewhat less effectively,
• 3:29
  S1: the coalition, although it was obviously a big focus of
• 3:31
  S1: the previous federal election campaign, arguments about the level of
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  S1: migration have been going back and forth for some time now,
• 3:38
  S1: often without many facts to go around them. Today we
• 3:41
  S1: saw the Australian Bureau of Statistics release the latest population figures,
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  S1: which show net overseas migration, which you just referenced then
• 3:48
  S1: as Nom, dropping from 309,500 people to 292,000 people. Seems
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  S1: like the government was already on the on the kind
• 3:59
  S1: of the right track towards reducing migration. What role of
• 4:02
  S1: those figures played in the debate today?
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  S2: Well, the speech of Tony Burke delivered was, um, conspicuously
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  S2: scheduled for the same day as the release of these figures,
• 4:10
  S2: because these figures have become political dynamite a few years ago,
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  S2: as Tony Burke said, the nom figure, which is this, uh,
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  S2: subtraction of arrivals with how many people leave, was kind
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  S2: of a bureaucratic figure that not many people talked about,
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  S2: but it's really elevated into a hot political issue, this figure.
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  S2: And so if that figure today had a three in
• 4:28
  S2: front of it, which would have indicated that it was
• 4:31
  S2: more sticky than we thought, that would have been an
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  S2: even bigger problem from the government. It moderated slightly, but
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  S2: at 292 is still well above the 245 245,000 figure
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  S2: for people that the government wants to see by the
• 4:47
  S2: middle of next year, but it was a movement in
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  S2: the right direction. Tony Burke on the politics. Tony Burke
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  S2: was keen to point out that a number of these
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  S2: measures had been, uh, had been being worked on by
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  S2: the bureaucrats for about a year, and that this was
• 5:00
  S2: not a political response to one Nation. Uh, he emphasized
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  S2: that clearly. Now, most political observers probably wouldn't see heaps
• 5:08
  S2: of merit in that argument. One nation is dominating on
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  S2: this policy area. In most polls, they've got the lead
• 5:15
  S2: on labor and the coalition, particularly in this policy area,
• 5:17
  S2: by kind of double when you look at the proportion
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  S2: of voters who think one nation is best in this area,
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  S2: and migration has turned into one of, if not the
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  S2: most critical political issues in Australia, but it also reflects
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  S2: debates that are happening across the West, in Europe, in
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  S2: the US. These issues on both the economic side of
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  S2: the argument about whether migrants are a net drain or
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  S2: a net benefit to the economy, as well as on
• 5:42
  S2: cultural questions around integration and values. These issues have increasingly
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  S2: dominated political discourse across the Western world, so labor has
• 5:52
  S2: taken a little while to get these policies in place.
• 5:55
  S2: In that period, One Nation has been setting the terms
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  S2: as they usually do. The coalition's been, uh, trying to
• 6:02
  S2: configure a policy that goes as hard as they can
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  S2: without crashing the economy. laborers moderated their policy package to
• 6:09
  S2: some extent. They unwound some of the proposals they were
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  S2: considering about a month ago because of concerns around economic growth.
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  S2: And they've landed in this position to try and cauterise
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  S2: the issue and neutralize the issue of migration.
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  S1: Now, as we're speaking, Question time is going on. So
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  S1: I'm sure the politicians are going hammer and tongs on
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  S1: this very issue as we speak. But outside the chamber,
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  S1: we've got various interest groups standing up already to say
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  S1: that the government's got it wrong. One of those, for example,
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  S1: is the Australian Restaurant and Cafe Association, which obviously, as
• 6:41
  S1: its name suggests, represents the hospitality industry. They're saying that
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  S1: the changes will decimate cafes and restaurants because of their
• 6:48
  S1: strong reliance on temporary workers. Um, the National Farmers Federation
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  S1: is also out there saying that backpackers are crucial to
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  S1: things like cherry picking and so on as seasonal workers. Um,
• 7:02
  S1: what's the government done about those sorts of industries?
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  S2: Yeah. Well this goes to the core problem in this debate.
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  S2: We've got a huge number of temporary migrants in Australia. Now,
• 7:10
  S2: as Tony Burke admitted today, it's effectively become a demand driven,
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  S2: quite loose system. Since the start of the Howard era
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  S2: in about 2001. There are 3 million temporary migrants in Australia,
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  S2: which is about a third of every Australian aged between
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  S2: 25 and 29, is a temporary migrant. Most of them
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  S2: are students and backpackers. Now that's created a sense, a
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  S2: growing sense in some parts of the community that there
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  S2: is a big proportion of people in the country who
• 7:34
  S2: will never become citizens, and that that's a problem for
• 7:37
  S2: national cohesion. On the other side of the coin, a
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  S2: lot of industries rely on these workers, students who can
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  S2: work outside of their study, and backpackers who are cheap labor,
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  S2: particularly in the regions. And so to address those concerns
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  S2: around national cohesion and unity and social cohesion, there has
• 7:57
  S2: to be a balancing act with how you allow these
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  S2: industries to, you know, address labor shortages.
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  S1: But I guess part of the the clue is in
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  S1: the the category, isn't it temporary migration, right. Um, a
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  S1: lot of these people are supposed to only be here
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  S1: for a short period of time or a defined period
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  S1: of time. And yet that's, that's the thing that's really
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  S1: become the problem, hasn't it?
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  S2: Yeah. That's right. As Tony Burke admitted today, there's we've
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  S2: created a system where the minister doesn't have as much discretion, uh,
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  S2: both in this government and in previous governments as they
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  S2: would like. And there's all these mechanisms and administrative processes
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  S2: that allow temporary migrants who were never allowed by officials
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  S2: to become permanent migrants to effectively become permanent migrants. And
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  S2: so the government's now in an effort to try and
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  S2: rein that number in after years of immigration experts and
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  S2: mostly conservative politicians making this point.
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  S1: What did the minister have to say about deportations in
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  S1: terms of actually. Well, to put not to put too
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  S1: fine a point on it, forcibly removing people from the
• 8:56
  S1: country who have outstayed the visa conditions on which they arrived.
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  S2: Yeah. He said that we're not going to copy the
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  S2: Trump ice model. There won't be immigration agents dressed in
• 9:06
  S2: plain clothes snatching people off the street. But he has
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  S2: said that there is a rule of law issue here.
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  S2: Australia doesn't allow people to just remain undocumented in the country,
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  S2: and that is increasingly a behavioural, uh, trend. And so
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  S2: what Burke has said is that Australia will try and
• 9:21
  S2: revert to the pre 2015 model, where your visa won't
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  S2: be automatically cancelled if you become an unlawful non-citizen. Instead,
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  S2: there'll be some attempt to find you, give you a
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  S2: call or locate you, which is expensive and difficult. And
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  S2: those people will be put into immigration detention and asked
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  S2: to leave. Many of those people will voluntarily leave once
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  S2: they go into immigration detention. So this is a reversion
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  S2: to a system of more stringent enforcement of deportations and
• 9:50
  S2: the law around whether you can remain in the country.
• 9:52
  S1: Another sector that's been in the crossfire is universities, which
• 9:56
  S1: are now pretty much underwritten by international students. Ahead of
• 9:59
  S1: today's speech, I saw the vice chancellor of the University
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  S1: of Canberra, Bill shorten, obviously also a former labor minister,
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  S1: until very recently, saying that every student who comes to Australia,
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  S1: generates about $70,000 in revenue for the Australian economy. Minister
• 10:15
  S1: Burke today said the government would stop students from bringing
• 10:18
  S1: in family members and force them to reach new qualification benchmarks.
• 10:23
  S1: Has he produced an outcome that will allow the university
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  S1: sector to continue to underwrite its own funding and to
• 10:29
  S1: obviously provide education for all Australians, while also addressing those
• 10:34
  S1: concerns that other sectors of the community have?
• 10:36
  S2: Well, it's worth noting that the government's been going quite
• 10:39
  S2: hard on international students even before today's announcement. For about
• 10:43
  S2: a year, they've been quietly behind the scenes using bureaucratic
• 10:46
  S2: tools to slow down processing of student visas and rejecting far,
• 10:50
  S2: far more student visas than in previous years, which is
• 10:53
  S2: why we're already seeing the NUM come down. The rejection
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  S2: rate for some countries is is is skyrocketing past half
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  S2: of the applications. Uh, and the, that that's already having
• 11:03
  S2: some effect behind the scenes. And the government's put caps
• 11:05
  S2: on how many international students each university can bring in.
• 11:08
  S2: And those caps are quite low for some unis, and
• 11:11
  S2: even those caps aren't being reached. Some unis aren't reaching 80%
• 11:14
  S2: of them. So the unis are already really concerned about
• 11:17
  S2: revenue flows. And as Bill shorten points out, Australian unis,
• 11:21
  S2: the model successive Australian governments have created to university funding
• 11:24
  S2: means that international students underpins research. So there is a
• 11:27
  S2: critical argument to maintain steady flows. But on the other hand,
• 11:31
  S2: and Tony Burke kind of crashed through a shibboleth on this. Many,
• 11:36
  S2: particularly politicians of the left, haven't been willing to say
• 11:38
  S2: that the housing shortage has a link to migration. They've
• 11:41
  S2: cast that argument as illegitimate, or at least, um, not
• 11:45
  S2: not being clear about it today, Tony Burke said migration
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  S2: rates and the number of migrants coming in is part
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  S2: of the solution to the housing crisis. Demand is part
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  S2: of the problem, and international students bringing in family members
• 11:55
  S2: who need to live in a home, even if more
• 11:57
  S2: of them live in student accommodation than the broader community,
• 12:00
  S2: he acknowledged, is part of the problem. So unis will
• 12:02
  S2: probably have to bear the cost.
• 12:04
  S1: He went in an interesting direction, I thought, on housing
• 12:07
  S1: as well, because housing is obviously gone hand in hand
• 12:10
  S1: with the migration debate. Rightly or wrongly, for the past
• 12:14
  S1: few years, as we've seen the price of housing continue
• 12:17
  S1: to go up and up. He did really take aim
• 12:20
  S1: at that argument from the other side as well, though,
• 12:22
  S1: didn't he? Saying that, I think the figure was you
• 12:25
  S1: couldn't you can't build a house without a plasterer, obviously,
• 12:28
  S1: but that two thirds of plaster is in Sydney and
• 12:31
  S1: Melbourne are born overseas. I think he prioritised construction, didn't he,
• 12:35
  S1: as a focus for the migration program. Do you think
• 12:37
  S1: he's going to be able to win Australians over on
• 12:39
  S1: this point, that migrants are actually helping build the houses
• 12:42
  S1: that they need? How hard is that going to be
• 12:44
  S1: to sell to people?
• 12:45
  S2: It is a tricky argument because quite a few Australians
• 12:49
  S2: you'd imagine would respond to that by saying, well, other
• 12:52
  S2: countries managed to train up workers. And if there's an
• 12:55
  S2: acknowledgement today from the government that the skills program has
• 12:58
  S2: not been prioritising workers in critical industries quite well enough,
• 13:02
  S2: if there needs to be a greater priority given, well,
• 13:04
  S2: why haven't we been doing that already? But Australia is
• 13:07
  S2: not alone in having the demographic problems that it does.
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  S2: We have an ageing society, you know, places like Japan
• 13:12
  S2: have been depopulating because they don't bring in migrants to
• 13:16
  S2: replace the stock of workers. So it's a it's a
• 13:20
  S2: diabolical problem for a government. We have labor shortages all
• 13:23
  S2: over the place. We have an aging population that migration
• 13:26
  S2: is required to restore. But there's a balancing act between
• 13:30
  S2: how many migrants, where the public are satisfied bringing in with, um,
• 13:34
  S2: with questions around satisfying certain industries. So it's, it's a,
• 13:39
  S2: as I said, a diabolical problem. Labor's hoping not really
• 13:42
  S2: to convince the public that, you know, there's, there's not
• 13:45
  S2: many votes to be won for labor here. This is
• 13:47
  S2: about neutralizing the issue, acknowledging that it understands legitimate concerns
• 13:52
  S2: and hoping to move on.
• 13:53
  S1: On that point, the federal government was obviously trying to
• 13:56
  S1: get the coalition onside for the past couple of weeks
• 13:59
  S1: to have, I suppose, almost a bipartisan approach to migration. Uh,
• 14:04
  S1: the benefits to that are pretty obvious for everyone. Both
• 14:06
  S1: you get your legislation through and you have a less
• 14:08
  S1: toxic debate that collapsed. Um, how do you think the
• 14:12
  S1: coalition will receive the package that the government announced today.
• 14:16
  S1: And what exactly does the government need to do in
• 14:18
  S1: terms of legislation or otherwise, to make this policy into
• 14:22
  S1: the real world?
• 14:22
  S2: Yeah, there were two key measures that the government wanted
• 14:25
  S2: to put into legislation and could only do through legislation
• 14:27
  S2: rather than ministerial regulation, which is quite a technical point.
• 14:31
  S2: But legislation requires passage through the parliament. The coalition was
• 14:35
  S2: in talks with labor for a few weeks. The Prime
• 14:37
  S2: Minister was meeting regularly with Angus Taylor, and the two
• 14:40
  S2: measures in that draft bill were to create a kind
• 14:42
  S2: of expression of interest for student applications, which would stop
• 14:46
  S2: students having the immediate right to appeal their rejection and
• 14:49
  S2: stay in the country through, uh, going to an administrative tribunal.
• 14:53
  S2: And the other key measure there was to curtail people's
• 14:57
  S2: ability to apply for asylum after about two months of
• 15:00
  S2: being in the country. There's been a flood of bogus
• 15:02
  S2: asylum claims from people from Scandinavian countries, Britain, very safe
• 15:06
  S2: countries made right at the end of their visa expiring,
• 15:09
  S2: so they can effectively say, I require protection on the
• 15:12
  S2: basis of sexuality or gender or whatever else, and they
• 15:14
  S2: can stay in the country for a long period of time.
• 15:16
  S2: It's effectively a loophole. The government can't stop that now,
• 15:21
  S2: because there is not political support from the coalition to
• 15:24
  S2: pass that bill. The coalition didn't disagree with those two policies.
• 15:27
  S2: In fact, they like them, but they're very conscious of
• 15:29
  S2: working with Labour on migration because Pauline Hanson has been
• 15:32
  S2: running the argument. There's effectively a major party party, uni
• 15:35
  S2: party that is one and the same. And they would
• 15:38
  S2: she would no doubt criticise the coalition for working with
• 15:40
  S2: labor on what she would claim are migration policies that
• 15:44
  S2: are too weak. So we're left in limbo, with the
• 15:46
  S2: government passing a set of using its regulations to pass
• 15:50
  S2: a what Tony Burke even acknowledges is a restricted, um,
• 15:54
  S2: kind of curtailed crackdown, with the strongest measures yet left
• 15:58
  S2: in limbo with no political support in the Senate.
• 16:00
  S1: Let's end on a bigger picture question, Paul. A lot
• 16:04
  S1: of this debate has been pretty pernicious for this past year.
• 16:08
  S1: And before that, and without mincing words, a lot of
• 16:11
  S1: what we hear in some forms of media, online and
• 16:14
  S1: so on is just racism towards people who largely come
• 16:17
  S1: to Australia hoping for a better life and work very
• 16:20
  S1: hard while they're here and to contribute to society. Uh,
• 16:23
  S1: Tony Burke really started his speech with a strong kind
• 16:26
  S1: of preamble saying how important immigration is, what a benefit
• 16:30
  S1: it is for the whole country to have people here
• 16:32
  S1: from other countries and so forth. Do you think he's
• 16:35
  S1: going to be able to convince us to have a
• 16:37
  S1: better debate and a better quality of outlook on this issue?
• 16:41
  S2: It's difficult to say, and we'll see how it plays out.
• 16:43
  S2: Hard question for me to make a judgement on, but
• 16:46
  S2: it's not an issue that will go away, because the
• 16:49
  S2: issue of migration has become a kind of stand in
• 16:52
  S2: to the broader question of cost of living and people's
• 16:55
  S2: ability to get through, um, a really tricky economic moment.
• 16:59
  S2: We're about to see two more interest rate rises, almost
• 17:01
  S2: certainly one and possibly a second. We're in a period
• 17:05
  S2: of pretty anaemic growth, and people are looking for someone
• 17:08
  S2: to blame. And even though blaming individual migrant groups or
• 17:13
  S2: migrants themselves for seeking out a better life is veering
• 17:16
  S2: towards really ugly territory. Labor has today admitted that our
• 17:21
  S2: infrastructure hasn't kept up with the problem of migration, so
• 17:23
  S2: it's hard to see it's seeping out of public debate. Uh, but,
• 17:28
  S2: you know, we would all hope just at a normative
• 17:29
  S2: level that people don't descend into racism, racism. But we'll see.
• 17:34
  S1: Paul, thanks for your time today.
• 17:35
  S2: Thanks, Jeff.
• 17:41
  S1: You can read all of our political news on our websites,
• 17:44
  S1: theage.com.au or sm.com.au. Today's episode was produced by Kai Wong.
• 17:52
  S1: Our executive producer is Tammy Mills, and our podcasts are
• 17:55
  S1: overseen by Lisa Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick. Before you go,
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  S1: Apple or Spotify. I'm Stephanie Peatling. Thanks for listening.