I’m going to have a detailed conversation right now. I’m going to play it to you, because this issue of immigration, and there’s a frustration from so many people saying, well, why can’t you just cut the numbers, and we know that at the moment permanent migration, the program says 185,000 people coming into the country. Most of those people are already here, but on top of that, and we have, in conversations we’ve had here going through, there are uncapped UK working visas. There are the New Zealand arrangements. There are all these arrangements where people have the right to come in. There’s no cap on the numbers, and they’re like these pipes coming from everywhere, and the government has no idea how many people are coming in, to the point where it’s between 60 and 100,000 above what they would like it to be, or what they’re forecasting it to be right now. So, on the Coalition side, Paul Scarr, he’s been the Shadow Immigration Minister, and he’s taken on the job, and people have been saying, why can’t he just say, we’re going to cut it by this much. Look, he’s saying, well it’s a bit more complex than that. So, I got onto him late today. He’s in Parliament there. He’s been looking at all of this. He’s been delving into all these numbers, which could drive you mad if you try and get across it. I’m astonished that it’s such a rickety, messy system, and no one knows how many people are coming in from this place or that place, or this visa or that visa. So, how do you then nail down what’s happening, so you can try and cut the numbers down. This is the conversation I had with Paul Scarr earlier this evening.
Senator Scarr
That’s a good summary, John, but great to be with you again and your listeners.
John Stanley
The government doesn’t really have an idea, does it, it’s kind of guessing how many people are coming under some of these categories that are uncapped, like the UK working visas, the bridging visas, you’ve got the Pacific Engagement Visas that aren’t counted in the permanent migration program, and you’ve got people coming across from New Zealand as well. Then you’ve got the whole student visa thing as well, where no one’s sure how many of those are coming, and then what they do when they finish their course and then move on to the graduate visas.
Senator Scarr
No exactly John and in terms of the working holiday visas and similar visas are in that vein. One of the issues that has developed as Australia enters into free trade agreement negotiations, which is all well and good, but quite often a clause in that agreement will provide these extra visa categories, working holiday visa categories, or there’s a scheme with India called the MATE Scheme, under which the young people can come to Australia to work, and there’s a proliferation of these arrangements entered into under all these treaties, and it’s demand driven, so it’s very difficult to control, and it does raise the question as to whether or not we need to really take a deep breath and say, let’s think about it before we enter into any more of these arrangements, creating new visa categories.
John Stanley
People say they want to hear you say that we’re going to cut the numbers. We are going to cut it by this much. You’ve worked in law firms, and you must have dealt with a lot of complexity, reading contracts that have made your headache. So, since you became Shadow Minister, have you been surprised by how many different strands there are in all of this? It’s like herding cats, isn’t it?
Senator Scarr
It’s more difficult than herding cats. I haven’t got a metaphor at the tip of my tongue that can really say how complicated it is, and I think that’s one of the issues, John. In terms of cuts, we have consistently said that the current number is too high, and the 10-year average before the COVID 19 pandemic was 216,000 Net Overseas Migration a year. The year to 31 March 2025, the figure was about 316,000, so we’re still 100,000 above what the figure was on average in the 10 years before the COVID pandemic. There was also research that’s been done, and I can’t remember if I referred to this before, but some demographic experts think the best way to deal with an aging population is net overseas migration somewhere in that range between 160,000 and 220,000.
John Stanley
So that 216,000 was the long-term average up to the pandemic. Now, it’s 316,000. I think the government itself is suggesting, I think in the Budget Papers, they wanted to get it this year down to around, around 260,000, and then start dropping it again next year. So, right now, they’re 50,000 to 60,000 above what they thought they’d be getting in, they are 100,000 above the long term average, and so if you’re 50,000 or 60,000 above what you thought was coming in, if you’ve got whiteboards somewhere saying, well, this is how many people are coming in, and then you contact the states and you say, this is what we’ve got. This is how many people, this is who you might have to accommodate. Well, that blows the whole thing out, doesn’t it?
Senator Scarr
It makes it difficult. I’ve asked the Minister. Do you have a target? What are the targets? Do you have a target range, and they keep coming back to us and saying, we just announced the permanent migration intake for the current year. They won’t give us figures beyond this year, and they won’t commit to having target ranges in terms of the Net Overseas Migration. So, the figures John that you referred to, the 260,000 for the current financial year, 225,000 for the three years following the current financial year, these are forecasts. These are forecasts from the Centre for Population. These aren’t Government targets. These are just forecasts. So, the question is, well, what is the government’s target? What is their target range, and they refuse to answer that question.
John Stanley
I understand the permanent migration intake is made up of partner visas which is part of that, and there’s a requirement, the government is legally required to give partners those visas, and then a lot of those other people are already in the country. Because they’ve already been here, they’ve come here as students, they’ve come here on working visas, and then they’ve applied, and they’re now going to transition becoming permanent migrants or citizens. So, they’re already here with homes, and whatever they might be doing. But it’s the students that are coming in that then get a graduate visa in something which they might not actually be able to work in. They might do a cooking course for 12 months, there might not be a cooking job for them. They might be working in Ubers, and we haven’t even got that program with the students tailored to the skills we need, have we?
Senator Scarr
Well, one of the other issues is we have people who graduate, and they’ve had a right to get what’s called a temporary graduate visa, and many of them are getting jobs which are below their skill level. So, they’ve graduated in a particular course, with a particular degree, but then they get what’s called a temporary graduate visa. They can’t get a job in their actual specific field that they’ve studied, and they are in other jobs.
John Stanley
There was a cyber security course or something like that, where you might think, all right, well, we need a lot of that, but there’s a lot of people doing that already, and so they do that course. From what I understand. I was reading some of the commentary around this, it might be an easy course to do, and then if you’re doing it at an educational training college, you know this, some of these have had their licenses cancelled because they’re not really giving the people the education they need, so they end up driving an Uber, and then they apply for permanent residency, and then they’re on the 400,000 list of people on bridging visas, waiting for their application to be heard.
Senator Scarr
Correct. This is a real issue, and we’ve got tens of thousands of people in the country who’ve applied for student visas, and they might have already been on a student visa, and they’ve applied for another student visa, they’ve now applied to the Administrative Review Tribunal to have their matter heard on appeal, and there are tens of thousands of them in this queue now. It’s extraordinary, but whilst they’re in that queue, under the current system, they can go on a bridging visa, and whilst they’re on a bridging visa, then they can also work. So, this is a real issue.
John Stanley
I want to take a break because there’s a lot of detail here, but I’ll play the rest of this interview, all these numbers just so many of them. It just begs the question, and I know a lot of you say, so why can’t you just say we’re going to cut it to this number. There are so many different treaties and legal arrangements, which means you can’t just turn the tap off. You go out and renegotiate a whole range of treaties, and you’ve got to then deal with people’s legal right to a visa. It’s an absolute mess. So, I’ll bring you the rest of this with Paul Scarr because I think it’s important. One of you saying here, didn’t he bring in 80,000 overseas students in September? They have loosened the restrictions on overseas students, and this is now suggesting that might see that Net Overseas Migration number that is in the low 300’s starting to track back up again. Another person is saying that the immigration system is computerized, so you can see where all these numbers are. I think they’re worried about pulling all those numbers together, because when you add them all up, it’s not going to look good.
John Stanley
Paul Scarr is the Shadow Immigration Minister. I just gave you those numbers that 400,000 people are on bridging visas. So, these are people that have done finished their graduate visa, having finished as students, that’s the largest number of them, and then they’re applying for something else, and because their application is being held up, might have been knocked back, they might be appealing it. There are 400,000 bridge visas alone, and that’s part of this overall number of people washing around the system. Here’s Paul Scarr again.
Senator Scarr
It’s an extraordinary issue and extraordinary number, and the problem is all those people are then in the pipeline of having to have their cases assessed by the Department of Home Affairs, but then also the Administrative Review Tribunal and then subsequently by the courts. So, you’ve got this huge backlog which is almost producing this outcome of residency by persistence. People are becoming residents by persistence, by simply just staying in the system so long.
John Stanley
So, you’ve got to produce a policy, and people are going to want a number. You are saying that your preferred option will be to go back to that number Pre-COVID, which was around about 216,000 per year. But, to get to that, you’ve then got all this backlog there. You’ve got the backlog in the partner visas. You’re already 100,000 over that a year, just in Net Overseas Migration. The permanent migrations program is 185,000, so if you say 216,000, you’re then going to have people saying, all right, you’re going to cut students. You’ve got the National Party saying, well, you’re going to cut these visas we need for people to work on various properties. So, that’s the problem for you, isn’t it? Because I think spelling out that 216,000 would be a clear one. But then people are going to say, what’s the detail behind that?
Senator Scarr
If I can throw another ball into the air, just to make it more complicated, and we’ve previously spoken about the Trans-Tasman Agreement, whereby New Zealanders have arrived, our New Zealand brothers and sisters have a right to come to Australia at any time, just as Australians have the right to go to New Zealand. So, when the economy is soft, as it is currently in New Zealand, the job market is tight in New Zealand, or wages are low in New Zealand, it provides a great incentive for New Zealanders to come over to Australia, and there’s a huge influx of New Zealanders coming into Australia. I think the last financial year that we’ve got figures for, that New Zealand contingent contributed something like 18,000 to the Net Overseas Migration figure. So, it’s a huge number.
John Stanley
So, if you were to say 216,000. Say, something massive happens like a political implosion, and suddenly you’re in government. You are the Immigration Minister. You say, well look, I’m going to get it to 220,000 today. You’d then have to look at negotiating a different arrangement with New Zealand, because you’d need to negotiate a treaty, a legal change there. You would have to do the same with the UK, I’m assuming. The Pacific workers that are coming in from the Pacific would have to be looked at as well, and I guess there’s a huge range of things, aren’t there?
Senator Scarr
There are treaties with all sorts of countries which provide for these reciprocal work and holiday visa arrangements, and these are treaties which Australia has entered over a few years, and this is the problem. There’s just been a proliferation of these arrangements which have been entered. This goes to the heart of the matter, John. There hasn’t been there hasn’t been disciplined, medium- and long-term planning. There hasn’t been the coordination between all the different government departments, in the federal government, with the state and territory governments, to have an actual coherent, population management strategy, a way in which to manage these issues, and now we’re seeing the results of that. It’s not good enough.
John Stanley
People listening to this, I know they’ll be screaming saying – why can’t he just say, “I’m going to cut it to 220,000”, and that is the reason that I’ve had this conversation, because I’m sure you’d love to do that. You have said that’s what you’re aiming for.
Senator Scarr
Well, I provide these historical figures and also the results of researchers, benchmarks, really, so people can appreciate we’re looking at all of these benchmarks and understand that the current rate and Net Overseas Migration is too high, and it is 100,000 higher than it was in the 10 years before the pandemic.
John Stanley
That’s every year the 100,000, and you’ve got to find in state governments, councils and others that are trying to work on this. The only thing they’ve got to go on with is those numbers and those forecasts and they are out. So, no wonder we’re struggling.
Senator Scarr
The long-term forecast that the Centre for Population uses for the next three or four years is 235,000, and they use that forecast for the next 30 years. So, doesn’t that just demonstrate the lack of long-term planning?
John Stanley
Well, that’s right. That’s what they’re, that’s what they’re putting forward, and yet you’ve got working visas pouring in. Youell and the different arrangements, different countries, got the partner visas, got the bridging visas, and all the students that are coming in, because the government has loosened that up again, and they’re coming in as well, and adding to the numbers. Well, good luck with it. You’ll have to produce a number and a target, but you need to get some answers on how all of this can be rationalized.
Senator Scarr
We shouldn’t be in this position, John. We shouldn’t be in this position. I mean that’s the other conclusion that I’ve come to over the last six months since taking on this role. There’s just been a total lack of long-term planning, and a total lack of management, and a total lack of explaining the situation to your listeners and to the Australian people, and you know, to be frank, your listeners deserve better.
John Stanley
Do you think the government’s relying on the complexity of all this, because I’ve described it, like herding cats or a spaghetti diagram. They are relying on the complexity of it to think most people should be turned off as they hear all of this and think they’ll move on to something else.
Senator Scarr
The fact of the matter is that we are putting pressure on them with respect to the current numbers, with respect to their lack of planning, with respect to their inability to provide any target or forecast beyond the current year, and the fact that they’ve gotten all these forecasts so wrong, and there’s no transparency. I come back to the point I made, I think previously, when they announced the permanent migration program for the current year, that 185,000 positions, they did it in an announcement with three sentences, and less than one hundred words. It’s extraordinary.
John Stanley
Just three sentences. That was it.
Senator Scarr
Yes, extraordinary.
John Stanley
It’s good to talk to you, and again, as I say, we need detail on all this so we know what we’re talking about, and that is quite important, and you and I will stay connected. Thank you so much.
Senator Scarr
Anytime. Thanks, John.
