Latest / The Morning Edition / Coalition’s 'race to the bottom on migration' and former immigration official answers your questions

Transcript

Coalition’s 'race to the bottom on migration' and former immigration official answers your questions · The Morning Edition

0:02
S1: I'm Natasha Chrysanthos, filling in for Jacqueline Maley, and you're
0:05
S1: listening to Inside Politics from the Age and The Sydney
0:07
S1: Morning Herald. It's been exactly one year to the week
0:11
S1: since Liberal MP Andrew Hastie quit Susan Lee's frontbench to
0:14
S1: speak his mind on migration.
0:16
S2: I just think net overseas migration is out of control
0:18
S2: under labor, and regular mainstream Australians are feeling the pressure
0:23
S2: of Labor's uncontrolled immigration 1.2 million.
0:26
S1: His decision fractured the coalition and Lee's ambition to woo
0:30
S1: back multicultural communities with a more moderate stance. How things
0:33
S1: change in a year. Through it all, migration has become
0:36
S1: a more heated political issue. And on Tuesday, Angus Taylor
0:40
S1: finally stood up to announce the coalition's immigration policy.
0:43
S3: And what we are proposing today is the biggest cut
0:46
S3: to immigration in the history of this country. That is
0:51
S3: what is necessary right now, given the failures of.
0:55
S1: He said the coalition would reduce net overseas migration to
0:58
S1: 100,000 people for two years. Joining me today to pull
1:03
S1: apart the policy and the politics are chief political correspondent
1:06
S1: Paul Satchell and special guest Abul Rizvi, a former deputy
1:10
S1: secretary of the immigration department whose name many close readers
1:14
S1: will recognise from the commentary he provides on these precise issues.
1:18
S1: Welcome to you both.
1:19
S4: Hi, Natasha. Hi. Thank you for joining us.
1:21
S5: Thank you.
1:22
S1: Paul. To kick us off, can you run us through
1:25
S1: a quick history of how we got here?
1:27
S4: Well, how far back would you like me to go to?
1:30
S4: Should we go back to the White Australia policy? Should
1:32
S4: we go back to the Fraser government? Where should I start?
1:34
S1: Maybe. Let's start with the emergence of Pauline Hanson's One
1:39
S1: Nation in political polls. Or that that Andrew Hastie one
1:43
S1: year ago kind of bookmark, I think, is when this
1:46
S1: was probably really identified as a as a sleeper issue.
1:49
S4: But it is I didn't actually mean to go this
1:52
S4: far back. And that was meant to be a bit
1:54
S4: of a gag, but it is maybe worth thinking about
1:57
S4: this because so often in politics, it can feel like
1:59
S4: the first time in issues being debated and the historical
2:02
S4: context gets lost. I mean, Australia famously or infamously had
2:06
S4: the white Australia policy and then with the US became
2:09
S4: one of the biggest hotspots for migrants post World War
2:13
S4: Two and became the modern country that we are. But
2:17
S4: there have been outbreaks in concern about migration under various governments.
2:21
S4: Under the Fraser government, the. The Hawke and Keating governments
2:24
S4: were the first to bring in mandatory detention. And then
2:27
S4: under John Howard, there was a famous outbreak of concern
2:30
S4: around the Tampa incident. Tony Abbott in 2013 famously won
2:34
S4: on a stop the boats mantra. But the differentiating factor here, perhaps,
2:39
S4: and coming to the contemporary moment, is that many of
2:42
S4: those moments were focused on asylum claims and boat arrivals,
2:48
S4: which were largely illegal arrivals. Whereas in the last five
2:53
S4: or so years there's there's increasing concern around legal migration
2:58
S4: and what some members of the right have started to
3:00
S4: term mass migration. And they say mass migration, that term
3:04
S4: has been used by One Nation and others on the
3:06
S4: right and arguably co-opted by people who have racist attitudes.
3:10
S4: But there is a solid argument to say that Australia
3:13
S4: has run a very high per capita population growth program
3:18
S4: since about 2000 under the Howard government, and I feel
3:21
S4: much less qualified than you able to go through this.
3:24
S4: And just if we go back to the start of
3:26
S4: the the current debate, and as you point out, Pauline
3:29
S4: Hanson has been caught about natazia. This story starts in
3:32
S4: Covid 19, when the Morrison government really opened up our
3:36
S4: migration program to get Australians and others to come back
3:39
S4: into the country after borders were shut. That created a
3:42
S4: very high level of migration. It's often forgotten that those
3:46
S4: settings did exist under the current coalition government, not this
3:49
S4: labor government. But Labor's mistake was not reacting quickly enough
3:52
S4: to that. this led to an outbreak of concern about
3:55
S4: housing costs, infrastructure, various other problems in the economy and
4:00
S4: the society. Uh, labor took a long time to tighten up.
4:03
S4: Pauline Hanson entered the fray. Bondi happened last year. So
4:07
S4: there's a number of factors that have led to an
4:09
S4: elevation of this debate, including a years long inflation crisis.
4:13
S4: And now we're seeing all three political parties react to
4:16
S4: this new problem of what some have started to describe
4:20
S4: as temporary permanent migrants who are coming in on student
4:23
S4: visas and temporary graduate visas, but finding ways to stay
4:27
S4: on for a long period of time and rort in
4:30
S4: the system, and creating a large group, which has now
4:32
S4: reached about 3 million of temporary migrants who have become
4:36
S4: a much more significant part of the Australian economy in
4:38
S4: society but have no pathway to citizenship. And so all
4:42
S4: parties are trying to clean up this problem now.
4:44
S1: I guess the reason I kind of probably bookmark the
4:47
S1: start of this latest political chapter, at least at that
4:50
S1: Andrew Hastie resignation a year ago, because I feel like
4:53
S1: that was the moment that the pressure kind of was
4:55
S1: really on within the coalition to to put out a
4:58
S1: big policy here with that kind of threat of one
5:00
S1: nation looming large and and ever since, at least in
5:04
S1: that side of politics, we have been waiting for the
5:07
S1: coalition's policy. Which brings us to the present. So coalition
5:12
S1: named this number of 100,000, which we'll get into shortly.
5:16
S1: But just a bit of detail for our listeners. There
5:19
S1: were kind of three main pillars to that plan. First
5:22
S1: was taking away temporary graduate visas, which are the visas
5:25
S1: that are held by overseas students after they finish their studies.
5:28
S1: The second element was eliminating the bridging visa backlog, which
5:32
S1: is people waiting to have their visas processed. All up there,
5:35
S1: about 600,000 people in those groups. Another element was making
5:39
S1: people go overseas when their visas expire, before they can
5:42
S1: apply for another visa to speed up departures. And there
5:46
S1: were also measures to halve the humanitarian intake. That's refugees.
5:50
S1: A slack cut to international students and higher fees for
5:53
S1: British backpackers. Before we get to the numbers, because the
5:56
S1: numbers have kind of become a flashpoint in this debate,
5:59
S1: I will. What do you think about the coalition's decision
6:01
S1: to target those areas of the migration program?
6:06
S5: Before I go into the the the specific issues there,
6:10
S5: I think I should point out there are some good
6:12
S5: things in this policy. So it's not not all problematic.
6:16
S5: But there are three areas where I think there are problems. Firstly,
6:20
S5: the policy changes the actual detail of the changes. When
6:26
S5: you add it all up, do not deliver you the targets.
6:29
S5: They've announced there is a yawning gap between the two.
6:33
S5: You don't get to 100,000 noms based on what they've announced.
6:37
S5: You don't cut the temporary entry number by 650,000. That's
6:42
S5: the first problem. The second problem is they are going
6:46
S5: to cut temporary graduates out completely, eventually with an interim
6:50
S5: transition period. I think they'll find the transition period becomes
6:54
S5: much larger and much longer than just transitionary. I think
6:58
S5: it'll become permanent. There was a need to tighten temporary
7:02
S5: graduate visas. I would agree with that. But abolishing it,
7:05
S5: that's a mistake. You can't treat temporary graduates as a
7:09
S5: homogeneous group. They're not. They have studied all sorts of
7:12
S5: different things. Many have studied in areas where Australia needs
7:16
S5: those skills. Many have studied in areas where Australia does
7:19
S5: not need those skills. We need to be able to
7:22
S5: differentiate that. Treating them as a single homogeneous group, as
7:25
S5: the coalition is doing, is a big mistake. The third
7:29
S5: problem is the coalition says it's going to expand the
7:33
S5: number of skilled temporary visas very significantly by 100,000. But
7:38
S5: at the same time, it's going to tighten standards. Well,
7:42
S5: as a person who's managed these visas for a very
7:44
S5: long time, I can tell you you cannot expand a
7:47
S5: demand driven visa by tightening standards. If you tighten standards,
7:51
S5: you actually reduce numbers, not increase numbers. So they, in
7:55
S5: my view, are the three major flaws in what they announced.
7:58
S1: Mhm. What about the intent? And I think you said,
8:00
S1: you know, temporary graduate visas do need some tightening. What
8:03
S1: about this bridging visa backlog, which has gone from, you know,
8:08
S1: in the hundreds, you know, 100,000 plus to more than
8:11
S1: 440,000 a record. You know, the coalition kind of put
8:16
S1: it this week that they could just give the department
8:20
S1: more resources to process them faster. That, you know, processing
8:23
S1: that backlog strikes me as a good intent. Um, I
8:26
S1: think you'd agree, but what are the challenges there?
8:30
S5: They've treated the bridging visa backlog once again as a
8:33
S5: homogeneous group. It's not. There are four main parts to
8:38
S5: the bridging visa backlog. There are students, about 100,000 of
8:41
S5: them in the backlog. And with faster processing you together
8:45
S5: with some of the other policy changes they are making.
8:47
S5: You could reduce that number quite a bit, not to zero,
8:51
S5: but to quite a bit. The other three parts, I
8:53
S5: think they have not identified how they're going to reduce
8:56
S5: the numbers. The other three parts are asylum seekers on
8:59
S5: bridging visas, parent visa applicants on bridging visas, partner visa
9:04
S5: applicants on bridging visas. They are not going away, in
9:08
S5: my view. They can probably get the bridging visa backlog
9:12
S5: through through the measures they're taking from around 400,000 to
9:16
S5: possibly 300,000, not 10,000.
9:20
S1: So you've kind of made a strong case, and you've
9:23
S1: been making it this week that the numbers, the policies
9:25
S1: don't match the numbers that that 100,000 is not what
9:29
S1: you arrive at when you put all of those things together. Paul,
9:32
S1: can you talk to us about the number? Does the
9:34
S1: number matter? Like, it strikes me that it's it's more
9:37
S1: of a virtue signal than anything else. At this point.
9:40
S1: I don't think it's a coincidence that the coalition had
9:42
S1: been talking about a number closer in the realm to 161.
9:46
S1: Nation was putting out a policy at that point of
9:48
S1: about 130. Now One Nation has reverted to a previous
9:52
S1: policy of negative migration, and we've seen the coalition's corresponding
9:55
S1: policy come down at around the same time. What do
9:58
S1: you think was going through the the heads of Angus
10:01
S1: Taylor and his his staffers in his colleagues in pulling
10:05
S1: to get that 100,000 number?
10:07
S4: Well, I think the these numbers are in some ways
10:12
S4: as arbitrary as they appear. And the political pressure in
10:17
S4: the rusted on section of the right, particularly in some
10:21
S4: in conservative media outlets, but also in in voter land.
10:23
S4: I'm not diminishing this as an issue. It is a
10:25
S4: genuine talking point, has pushed the conservative parties to go
10:30
S4: as far as possible in this policy space, potentially to
10:34
S4: the detriment of the quality of the policy and the
10:36
S4: coherence of the policy. Remember a few weeks ago, and
10:40
S4: I won't go into too much in the detail of
10:41
S4: this because it is head spinning. But as you say, Natasha,
10:44
S4: one nation's policy was for 130,000 permanent visas. At one
10:48
S4: point they backflipped and said that was the net migration number,
10:52
S4: and then backflipped again to say that they would actually
10:56
S4: go into negative migration. So somehow at some unspecified number,
11:01
S4: there would be more departures than arrivals. And they haven't
11:04
S4: actually picked a number in the negative. But they say
11:06
S4: it will be negative for three years. So that decision
11:09
S4: to go negative by One Nation was in in response
11:13
S4: to sections of their online base saying, hold on, we've
11:16
S4: given you this mandate to drastically cut migration, yet you
11:19
S4: still want to bring in 100,000, 130,000 people per year.
11:23
S4: Get serious. We want further cuts. So One nation went negative,
11:27
S4: which forced the coalition to go down below 170 or
11:31
S4: 160,000 target that they were floating for months. And internally
11:34
S4: in the coalition. Angus Taylor has been really hands on
11:37
S4: on this policy. And he's been telling his MPs and
11:40
S4: staff to keep working with the Parliamentary Budget Office and
11:44
S4: the three Treasury officials who work in Angus Taylor's office
11:47
S4: now to get the number down as far as possible,
11:51
S4: while maintaining through their own modelling and analysis, the ability
11:55
S4: to claim that the economy will be able to withstand
11:58
S4: this cut. And so the 100,000 figure, no doubt, is
12:01
S4: driven in part by the instinct to have a big
12:05
S4: headline that they've got to a claim number. It's not
12:08
S4: 115 or 107, it's 100. And crucially, it's lower than
12:13
S4: one nation's long run target, which they'll get to after
12:16
S4: these three magic years of negative migration of 130. So
12:20
S4: I think that's broadly how they've landed at the 100.
12:23
S4: As Abel says, some components of the policy make a
12:25
S4: lot of sense. Others still questions to answer.
12:28
S1: And the context, I think, for the coalition as well
12:31
S1: has been kind of two pronged. Like you've got one
12:34
S1: nation on one side and trying to Um muscle up
12:37
S1: to them. On the other, you've got this traditional constituency
12:40
S1: of business and, you know, the coalition's pitch to business
12:44
S1: was that we're going to, as Abal said, replace these
12:48
S1: graduates with 100,000 more places for skilled visas. As you
12:51
S1: pointed out, easier said than done. There are kind of
12:54
S1: issues achieving that. But the pitch is the higher tax
12:58
S1: income from those migrants will avoid a giant hit to
13:01
S1: the budget. Does business believe it?
13:04
S4: Well, I, I think business is sceptical. Business has even
13:09
S4: started to use. I mean there's an interesting similarity in
13:12
S4: language between David Shoebridge, the new Greens leader this week,
13:15
S4: and Brian Black, the head of the BCA and former
13:18
S4: chief of staff to Dominic Perrottet. Both of both of
13:20
S4: them are calling this a race to the bottom on migration.
13:24
S4: Most members of the Liberal Party, I've spoken to them
13:26
S4: about this this week, believe that the business community is
13:29
S4: entirely out of touch on this issue. A Liberal MP
13:32
S4: I spoke to who is a strong fundraiser and needs
13:35
S4: the business community on side, said mate. We've had the debate,
13:38
S4: the country's had the debate and it's made its mind
13:40
S4: up and significant cuts are what we need. So I
13:42
S4: think the coalition is happy to dismiss the business community
13:45
S4: on this. They've been not on the same page on
13:47
S4: a number of issues for years. But what what will
13:51
S4: what will be more important for the coalition is whether
13:54
S4: this policy is able to stem the bleeding into one nation.
13:58
S4: The hope on the Liberal side in particular, and labor
14:00
S4: with its announcement a few weeks ago, which we haven't
14:02
S4: gone into detail on here, is that by at least
14:05
S4: entering the debate on migration, using language that shows that
14:09
S4: the consensus on migration at the political level for years
14:12
S4: for higher levels is is no longer there. Acknowledging the
14:16
S4: depth of concern will allow the coalition to start talking
14:20
S4: about other issues on economics and other matters that perhaps
14:24
S4: are more in their terrain. But also the coalition's key
14:28
S4: aim this week was to be able to contrast with
14:30
S4: One Nation's plan, which was uncosted haphazard. didn't include a
14:34
S4: press conference afterwards. It was clearly rushed that the coalition's
14:38
S4: plan is coherent. They stood up behind it. Angus Taylor
14:41
S4: delivered it with some real passion and some cut through lines,
14:45
S4: and that they can stand by this policy and say,
14:48
S4: if you want lower migration but want to keep the
14:50
S4: whole system from crumbling, vote for us, not one nation.
14:54
S4: Who knows if it will work?
14:55
S1: Yeah. Well, do you think? Well, that's the question, I suppose. Like,
14:58
S1: do you see this turning things around for Taylor? Like is,
15:02
S1: is the win for him kind of winning people over
15:06
S1: from One Nation on this migration debate? Or is the
15:09
S1: win for him putting out something that allows the debate
15:12
S1: to move on to other issues that the coalition would
15:14
S1: rather be talking about?
15:15
S4: Mhm. I think for the voters who feel most strongly
15:18
S4: about this, who have lost out from the era of globalization,
15:22
S4: who feel like the demographics of society are changing in
15:26
S4: front of their eyes. You know, Andrew Hastie used this
15:28
S4: term a year ago, strangers in our own country, which
15:31
S4: was mimicking Enoch Powell, the famous and infamous in some parts,
15:36
S4: conservative politician. There is a sense among some voters that
15:40
S4: there are simply too many migrants around them, and this
15:43
S4: is not a reversible thing. None of these policies will
15:45
S4: radically change that. And so it's unclear if the major
15:48
S4: parties can win these types of voters back, because in
15:51
S4: their mind, there's been a change that makes them feel
15:54
S4: uncomfortable in their in the places they live and the
15:58
S4: major parties and the system more generally that the major
16:01
S4: parties represent are the cause of that. And so perhaps
16:04
S4: some come back, but it's difficult to predict and would
16:08
S4: be a fool's errand to predict.
16:09
S1: Yeah. And I just want to kind of take that
16:11
S1: point and zoom out a bit because, you know, undeniably there's,
16:14
S1: there's a part of the community that holds those views
16:17
S1: and fears. Obviously, you know, Australia is a bigger country
16:21
S1: than that. It is diverse. It is multicultural. I want
16:24
S1: to go back to Susan Lee here, because when she
16:26
S1: came to the leadership 18 months ago, her strong view
16:29
S1: was that the coalition needed to win back voters in
16:31
S1: multicultural seats to form government again. And that was the focus.
16:34
S1: And this is also a this is an important part
16:37
S1: of Australia. You know, diverse cities are multicultural communities. Migrant
16:41
S1: families are also a key part of the country. And
16:45
S1: the electorate that for Sussan Ley, was where the coalition's
16:50
S1: focus needed to be after the last election. We've seen
16:53
S1: that go out the window since Taylor took the leadership,
16:55
S1: largely because the opposition has been polling so low. Their
16:59
S1: hope is to retain any voters at all. They don't
17:01
S1: kind of can't afford to narrowcast um, to specific sections
17:06
S1: of the community to grow. They're focused on retention. But
17:09
S1: in the long term, if they do want to win
17:10
S1: city seats, they will have to appeal to more diverse
17:14
S1: parts of the country. Well, how do you think this
17:17
S1: week's policy will resonate? You know, in the country at
17:21
S1: large and particularly the cities?
17:24
S5: Well, in terms of the cities, it probably won't resonate
17:28
S5: as strongly as it will in regional Australia. Regional Australia
17:31
S5: is where one nation is strongest. Interestingly, both the policies
17:36
S5: of One Nation and the coalition are designed to increase
17:41
S5: the level of migration to regional Australia, the very areas
17:45
S5: that apparently don't want more migrants, particularly in Sydney. But
17:49
S5: they do. Apparently some employers want more migrants in regional Australia.
17:54
S5: It all really doesn't make a lot of sense in
17:57
S5: terms of what the voters actually want. Much of this,
18:01
S5: I think, apart from the core rusted on One Nation voters,
18:06
S5: is about how individuals are feeling about their own circumstances,
18:10
S5: their own financial circumstances, and their ability to cope with
18:13
S5: the cost of living. And they're hopeful. And this is,
18:17
S5: to some degree, Pauline Hanson's line, you cut immigration and
18:20
S5: you'll all be fantastically more rich. Well, they won't, but
18:25
S5: they believe it. And perhaps we just need to go
18:27
S5: through a period of Pauline Hanson governing the country to
18:30
S5: understand what that really means. It's a bit like the
18:34
S5: United States. Um, they voted Trump again two years later.
18:39
S5: They're not better off. Things are actually worse and they're
18:43
S5: regretting what they did.
18:44
S1: Um, Paul going to that kind of theme of the coalition,
18:49
S1: you know, threading the needle with, you know, a couple
18:52
S1: of different constituencies. There are still some liberals who say
18:55
S1: we do need to go back to the teal seats
18:57
S1: if we're ever going to win government. We've had a
18:59
S1: couple of immigration announcements from Angus Taylor. There was one
19:03
S1: earlier in the year which was very much focused on standards,
19:05
S1: and it was quite crude rhetoric. He was accused of
19:10
S1: of dog whistling. It was made inferences about who should
19:13
S1: come here. This week's announcement was focused more on numbers.
19:19
S1: How do you think he's marrying the two. And do
19:21
S1: you think it's it's landing.
19:23
S4: Well, I think it's a notable comparison you've made between
19:26
S4: the announcement this week and that speech you mentioned before, Natasha,
19:29
S4: the Susan Lee approach when she came to government, there
19:32
S4: was this instinctual reaction to the Dutton era, and the moderates,
19:37
S4: which elected Susan Lee wanted to pivot away from a
19:41
S4: more hardline position on cultural issues to a more moderate,
19:45
S4: cosmopolitan focus in that period of Susan Lee focusing on
19:48
S4: those issues. And I'm not saying this is a one
19:50
S4: for one thing in a causal link, but in that period,
19:54
S4: due to that and a range of other factors, including
19:56
S4: undermining from right wing MPs, Susan Lee lost about 15
20:01
S4: points off the Liberal primary vote. And so the response
20:04
S4: to the coalition primary vote. So the response to that
20:08
S4: failure and to the Liberal Party's dire polling position in
20:11
S4: the party now and among the senior members of the party,
20:14
S4: is that it needs to rediscover its conservatism and that
20:19
S4: that Susan Lee experiment was folly and that its voter
20:22
S4: base actually does want to see more muscular, muscular approach.
20:25
S4: Whether or not that's the right response, I don't know.
20:28
S4: But that's where that's where heads are at. And so
20:30
S4: that's what gave life to the Angus Taylor speech, which
20:34
S4: there were lots of similarities between the rhetoric in that
20:37
S4: speech to how Tony Abbott has been speaking about migration
20:40
S4: for years. Don't forget, the Sussan Ley policy on migration
20:44
S4: was leaked about a week after she was toppled in February.
20:48
S4: And there was one element of that proposal, which was to,
20:51
S4: I think, to significantly clamp down on migration or ban
20:54
S4: migration from areas that her office described as terror hotspots. Now,
20:59
S4: those hotspots, I think all but one were countries that
21:02
S4: were Muslim majority countries. And so there no doubt would
21:05
S4: have been a critique from others in the party, and
21:08
S4: particularly on the left, that this was an effective Muslim ban,
21:11
S4: a Trump like Muslim ban. So Sussan Ley, in her
21:15
S4: dying days, despite her pitch for moderation and cosmopolitanism, cosmopolitanism
21:20
S4: ended up with quite a harsh, crude policy. Angus Taylor, used,
21:24
S4: as you say, quite firm rhetoric that was criticized at
21:28
S4: the time in that speech. But this week has not
21:32
S4: gone forward with that. Susan Lee proposal spoke about, as
21:35
S4: you say, numbers more than he did. Types of migrants,
21:39
S4: although he does talk about quality as well. And there
21:42
S4: could be an implicit message on quality. But if you
21:45
S4: talk to people in the Liberal Party, particularly in the
21:47
S4: moderate side, they're quite happy with where Taylor landed and
21:50
S4: that he tweaked his language and ensured that none of
21:54
S4: the specific elements of the policy could be accused of
21:57
S4: being discriminatory to any group of people. He has linked
22:01
S4: the policy directly to the Bondi massacre and said that
22:04
S4: that was a wake up call for problems around assimilation
22:08
S4: and extremism. But he's not gone so far as to
22:11
S4: say we need X group or Y group to be
22:14
S4: pushed out. He's he's been focused on numbers, as you say.
22:17
S1: Paul, thanks so much for your analysis as always. We'll
22:20
S1: let you go to your very busy day.
22:22
S4: Thanks, guys. Have a good day.
22:31
S1: I want to keep you here a little longer to
22:34
S1: talk more broadly about the migration program. It's been an
22:37
S1: issue that's really captured our readers this week, particularly on
22:40
S1: social media. And I can only imagine it's because when
22:43
S1: we move from rhetoric to policy, you know, saying, we'll
22:46
S1: cut this visa over here, you'll have to go offshore
22:48
S1: to reapply. Your partner can't come. It starts to become
22:51
S1: much more real for people. So many Australians have parents
22:54
S1: born overseas, and if it's not parents, it's partners, friends, employees, colleagues.
22:59
S1: So we've collected a bunch of comments and questions that
23:01
S1: people have left on our pages this week, and I
23:03
S1: was hoping you could talk us through them broadly. One
23:06
S1: sentiment that comes through is there are a lot of
23:09
S1: people who feel that migrants are being made the scapegoat
23:11
S1: for the country's problems. And we're seeing backlash to immigration
23:15
S1: not only here but across the Western world. As Paul
23:18
S1: described this post Covid high inflation environment. Do you think
23:22
S1: it's pure politics? Are we having this debate because migrants
23:25
S1: are an easy target, or are there problems with the
23:28
S1: migration program that are overdue for debate?
23:33
S5: There are undoubtedly issues with the migration program. The visa
23:37
S5: system is struggling. It is clogged. Processing rates are slowing.
23:43
S5: The system is in trouble. So there's no question things
23:47
S5: need to be fixed. No question about that. Having said that,
23:52
S5: about a week and a week and a half ago,
23:55
S5: the ABS put out some data that I thought would
23:58
S5: capture everyone's attention, but actually ended up being completely ignored.
24:02
S5: What the data said was that it tracked every single
24:07
S5: permanent migrant who has come to Australia since the year
24:11
S5: 2000 and is still in Australia. And what their circumstances are. Every.
24:17
S5: This was not a survey. Every single permanent migrant who
24:22
S5: has come to Australia since 2000 was tracked. And it
24:26
S5: was tracked not just in terms of the census, but
24:29
S5: it was tracked in terms of things like their visa category.
24:32
S5: It was tracked in terms of the taxes they've paid.
24:36
S5: It was tracked in terms of the income they earn.
24:38
S5: It was tracked in terms of the health services they used.
24:42
S5: It was tracked in terms of their employment rates, etc..
24:45
S5: And what it showed was that on average, an average
24:49
S5: is always can be misleading. But on average, a permanent
24:53
S5: migrant to Australia since the year 2000 is one significantly
24:58
S5: more qualified in terms of a post-school qualification, two far
25:04
S5: more likely to be employed, three far more likely to
25:08
S5: be earning a higher income. Four far more likely to
25:11
S5: have started a business far less likely to be unemployed,
25:15
S5: far less likely to be using health services. In other words,
25:20
S5: from an economic perspective, they have been remarkably successful. The
25:25
S5: question that you have to ask is, well, why is
25:27
S5: immigration being blamed for low productivity if the migrants themselves
25:33
S5: are performing so well economically?
25:36
S1: And what is your answer to that question?
25:39
S5: The answer is the problems with our productivity rate lie elsewhere.
25:44
S5: We're blaming the wrong people.
25:47
S1: But then going back to, you know, you you do
25:51
S1: think and you did say to me just before this
25:53
S1: podcast started recording, it is a valid debate. It's always
25:56
S1: a valid debate. So where would you focus the public
26:00
S1: conversation and the policy conversation when it comes to immigration?
26:04
S5: I think my focus would be on addressing the problems
26:07
S5: in the system. The first problem is net overseas migration
26:11
S5: at 300,000 per annum. It's actually about 292 at the
26:15
S5: moment is too high. If you want to reduce the
26:19
S5: number of people stuck in immigration limbo, large numbers of
26:23
S5: people stuck in immigration limbo is a problem. So net
26:27
S5: migration has to fall. If we are going to reduce
26:31
S5: the rate at which we are creating more and more
26:34
S5: people in immigration limbo. It is certainly the case that
26:37
S5: we can target our our program better in terms of
26:43
S5: the temporary graduates and students who are coming through the system.
26:46
S5: We can target them much better, such that, for example,
26:50
S5: if a student has done something like nursing or or
26:54
S5: engineering or something that's in long term demand, that is
26:58
S5: a person we want to keep the coalition policy of saying, no,
27:03
S5: we're going to abolish that. If you've done engineering at
27:06
S5: Sydney University, we don't care. Get out of here. And
27:09
S5: if you want to come back, apply later. Well, if
27:12
S5: you've done engineering at Sydney University, the odds are you
27:15
S5: have options. They will go elsewhere. Uh, the people we
27:20
S5: kick out, such as, for example, if you've done a
27:22
S5: diploma in management or a diploma in leadership or some
27:26
S5: course like that, they're the ones who you kick out
27:29
S5: will probably want to come back. The engineer will lose.
27:34
S1: There's been a lot of focus in the political debate
27:37
S1: on this cohort of temporary migrants, and this fact that
27:40
S1: the number of temporary visa holders in Australia at the
27:42
S1: moment is nearing 3 million, which is a record high.
27:45
S1: There are obviously many elements to the temporary scheme and
27:50
S1: there are many different temporary visas. Could you walk through
27:53
S1: for our readers what you know, politicians and like commentators
27:58
S1: mean when they're talking about this 3 million temporary migrants
28:03
S1: and what the kind of policy issues or problems to
28:07
S1: solve there are.
28:08
S5: Okay, so the first big first and biggest cohort of
28:11
S5: temporary entrants are actually New Zealand citizens who move in
28:14
S5: and out of Australia quite freely. Um, there are over
28:18
S5: 700,000 and no, none of the policies that are being
28:23
S5: put forward, including policies by one nation, would significantly reduce that.
28:27
S5: So they are will probably be left largely unchanged. The
28:31
S5: second biggest group are overseas students. And the labor government
28:35
S5: is reducing the number of overseas students in Australia. The
28:38
S5: coalition wants to reduce them much more significantly. And one
28:42
S5: nation essentially wants to abolish the industry. Now reducing the
28:47
S5: overseas students somewhat makes sense as long as it's done
28:50
S5: in a targeted way. And I'm not convinced the labor
28:53
S5: government has done it in a particularly targeted way. Reducing
28:56
S5: the number of students as dramatically as the coalition is
28:59
S5: proposing will put a large number of our universities in
29:03
S5: serious trouble. They will need taxpayer funded bailouts. And when
29:08
S5: the coalition is confronted with the option of really big
29:11
S5: taxpayer funded bailout or allowing more overseas students guess which
29:16
S5: one they tend to choose from the one nation's perspective,
29:20
S5: they're saying abolish the industry. Well, that would that would
29:23
S5: just kill our universities, whether they have a plan to
29:27
S5: do something about our universities when they're in such a
29:31
S5: budget trouble. I don't know. They may just say, well,
29:33
S5: we don't care. Just go under. Well, what that will
29:36
S5: mean is that fewer and fewer Aussie students can study,
29:40
S5: because the cost of study would have to escalate to
29:43
S5: be able to make up for the hit on university budgets,
29:45
S5: from taking universities, overseas students away. I'm not sure One
29:50
S5: Nation has thought through what they're proposing.
29:52
S1: And going through the rest of that temporary.
29:54
S5: Okay, the next group is working holidaymakers. The labor government
29:58
S5: says it's going to reduce. And there are about 250
30:02
S5: odd thousand a bit less, The Labour government says it
30:05
S5: wants to reduce that quite significantly because they are at
30:08
S5: record levels, and that is part of their contribution to
30:11
S5: reducing net overseas migration. The coalition says it's going to
30:16
S5: reduce that a little bit by by raising fees. I
30:19
S5: think that'll have a marginal impact. One nation is saying
30:23
S5: it loves working holidaymakers. It'll just let them run how
30:27
S5: they how one nation is going to get to negative
30:29
S5: migration by letting one of the biggest cohorts and contributors
30:32
S5: to net migration just run. I don't know the arithmetic
30:35
S5: I have troubles with, I. I did pass primary school
30:38
S5: arithmetic and it just doesn't work for me. Um, the
30:42
S5: next group is temporary graduates. And as I've said, there
30:45
S5: is a great deal of merit in tightening temporary graduates,
30:48
S5: particularly those who have studied in areas where we just
30:51
S5: don't need them long term from a skills perspective. But
30:54
S5: booting out the engineer who's just completed a degree at
30:57
S5: Sydney University, when we desperately need engineers to help with
31:01
S5: our construction industry helped with data centers. All the rest
31:04
S5: of it. I can't see the logic of that. And finally,
31:08
S5: you've got skilled temporary entrants. We've got about 270,000 of those.
31:14
S5: The coalition's actually saying it wants to increase the number
31:16
S5: of those by 100,000, whilst at the same time reducing
31:20
S5: net overseas migration with the biggest cut in our history.
31:24
S5: I'm still struggling with the maths on that too.
31:27
S1: And as you said, the kind of issue with that
31:30
S1: ballooning number of temporary migrants is the fact that there
31:33
S1: aren't enough places in the permanent program for them all
31:36
S1: to move on to. And so you end up with
31:37
S1: this kind of giant backlog, which creates unintended consequences all
31:42
S1: around the system, and also kind of makes the government
31:45
S1: lose grip over its control of population numbers and so forth.
31:50
S1: Another question the government for this problem is copying the heat.
31:54
S1: Whose fault is it that.
31:56
S5: That we're in this.
31:57
S1: Position?
31:58
S5: The fault lies in both major parties. Which is which
32:01
S5: is convenient for One Nation, I guess. Mhm. Um, essentially,
32:04
S5: at the end of Covid, the coalition government was under
32:07
S5: enormous pressure from the business community who was shouting labour
32:10
S5: shortages at the rooftops. And I'm not just talking about
32:14
S5: skill shortages. They were shouting labour shortages. Anyone who can
32:17
S5: pack shelves do anything they wanted. And so the coalition
32:21
S5: stomped the foot on the immigration accelerator in a way
32:24
S5: that no government in Australia's history has ever done before.
32:28
S5: They made changes that were just astonishing. Not surprisingly, in
32:34
S5: a hot labour market, the numbers went up very, very
32:37
S5: rapidly to 538,000 net overseas migration in 2223. Initial response
32:44
S5: from the Labour government was, oh, that's just catch up.
32:47
S5: Don't worry about it. Another line was, oh, that's just
32:50
S5: net overseas migration. And we don't manage net overseas migration.
32:53
S5: That's not our job. Apparently it's somebody else's job. Um,
32:57
S5: later on they came to lines like our net overseas
33:01
S5: migration is just a statistical measure. You don't need to
33:03
S5: worry about it. Well, so is inflation and unemployment. There
33:07
S5: are statistical measures too. And then, um, Tony Burke came
33:10
S5: up with ah, there is no magic number. Eventually earlier
33:16
S5: this year, the Prime Minister said we're going to deliver
33:19
S5: the the non forecasts in the budget. That changed everything.
33:23
S5: All of a sudden all the ministers had to say, oh,
33:26
S5: the Prime Minister is serious. We shall we shall obey
33:30
S5: and observe.
33:31
S1: Another question, you know, from some of the commentary being
33:34
S1: made by Coalition and One Nation, you might think that
33:37
S1: anyone can just walk into the country and never leave
33:40
S1: and set up a life here, elsewhere on social media.
33:43
S1: You've got other people describing how hard and how expensive
33:45
S1: it is to bring a partner to the country, for example.
33:49
S1: What's the truth of it? Like, is it that cheap
33:51
S1: and easy to migrate here permanently?
33:53
S5: No. Our visa fees are are staggeringly high. We we
33:58
S5: beat everybody on the planet when it comes to visa fees.
34:02
S5: We lead the world. We have very strict processes that
34:08
S5: you have to go through in order to get a
34:09
S5: visa to Australia. We were the first country in the
34:12
S5: world to introduce a a universal visa system. That is,
34:17
S5: anyone who's not a citizen must have a visa in
34:21
S5: order to enter the country. We are very strict in
34:24
S5: that space. We track people coming in and out of
34:27
S5: the country in a way no other country does. Our
34:30
S5: movement's database is absolutely exceptional. So our ability to manage
34:36
S5: this is really good. It's a question of whether we
34:39
S5: have the will to actually get on with implementing some
34:42
S5: good policies.
34:44
S1: And perhaps the last one for today. You know, the
34:47
S1: general argument we hear for why Australia does have such
34:49
S1: high levels of migration is that we need people to work.
34:53
S1: Several comments kind of get to this. You know, one,
34:55
S1: as a business owner, how am I supposed to keep
34:57
S1: my projects moving and get work done without backpackers? Another
35:00
S1: person this is going to put pressure on service roles.
35:03
S1: Who's going to look after the oldies? Another person. The
35:06
S1: birth rates below replacement. Who's going to cover the tax shortfall?
35:09
S1: Can Australia's economy function? Can the budget survive? Is there
35:12
S1: a world, you know, a version of of modern Australia
35:16
S1: that exists and thrives with the lower migration rates that
35:19
S1: the Coalition and One Nation are proposing?
35:22
S5: All of those points are legitimate. Um, the big one
35:25
S5: I would point to over the long term is demography.
35:31
S5: Australians need to understand that if you lower the rate
35:34
S5: of immigration, net overseas migration, and you lower it so
35:38
S5: far that it becomes negative, what you do is bring
35:42
S5: forward the point in our future where deaths exceed births. Now,
35:47
S5: if you're comfortable with the idea that deaths exceed births,
35:51
S5: then you'd be happy with a very low numbe. Fair enough.
35:55
S5: The other thing that happens, if you have a really
35:58
S5: low num, is that the portion of older Australians relative
36:02
S5: to working age rises. In other words, we age faster
36:07
S5: and the people available to support that older population becomes fewer.
36:13
S5: And so you have to take on a greater burden
36:15
S5: in terms of contribution to the economy over the long term.
36:19
S5: Every developed nation on the planet is facing the same situation.
36:23
S5: Everyone is headed towards a point at which deaths will
36:27
S5: exceed births at levels of net overseas migration of around 200,000.
36:33
S5: We would still be the last developed nation on the
36:37
S5: planet to reach the point where deaths exceed births. Everyone
36:41
S5: will get there faster than us, which in my view
36:44
S5: is actually a good thing. On the other hand, you
36:48
S5: don't want to run migration at a rate that puts
36:51
S5: enormous pressure on infrastructure, on housing, on service delivery, etc..
36:55
S5: So there is a sweet spot here, and I think
36:57
S5: that's what we should be talking about.
36:59
S1: I think that's a great note to end on. Thank
37:01
S1: you so much for coming in and joining us today.
37:04
S5: You're welcome. Thank you, I enjoyed it.
37:14
S1: You can read all of our political news on our websites,
37:17
S1: theage.com.au or smh.com.au. Today's episode was produced by Kai Wong
37:23
S1: with help from Debbie Harrington. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills,
37:27
S1: and our podcasts are overseen by Lisa Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick.
37:31
S1: Before you go, follow Inside Politics and leave a review
37:34
S1: for us on Apple or Spotify. I'm Natasha Chrysanthos. Thank
37:39
S1: you for listening.