That was a Murray Watt answering, he gets those notes from the Immigration Minister, but it’s a non-answer, because the number is still about 100,000 higher than the long-term forecasts from Treasury, and they haven’t spelled out how many people are coming in. They haven’t spelled out how many people are coming in different categories. So, I thought in that context, and there’s a lot of detail here and detail is important, because if you understand how the system works, you can then say, well this is where we can try and start reducing the numbers. I spoke with Paul Scarr, who’d been asking those questions earlier this evening.
Senator Scarr
Good Evening, John, to you and your listeners.
John Stanley
When people say to us that the whole system is based on kind of guesswork and hope, that’s true, isn’t it?
Senator Scarr
I think there’s a lot of truth in that. A lot of truth. I asked, as your listeners have heard, I’ve asked questions of the Government in relation to, what’s your short term target or range, your medium term, your long term, and the Government doesn’t have answers to these questions, and you’ve got the Centre for Population in the Treasury Department, which makes long term forecasts, and then you’ve got Department of Home Affairs sitting somewhere else, which sets the visa settings, etc., under their Minister, and you ask, well, are they talking to each other? Where’s the long-term coordination and planning?
John Stanley
We’re going back as far as conversations I had here two or three years ago with Former Liberal MPs, who were saying that Treasury produces numbers, other departments then get told what the numbers are. Then, you’ve got other categories of visas where there’s no actual cap on some of these numbers, and this goes back to the previous government as well. But they’ve been there for four years now. They promised to rein this in. It seems to be now, even though the numbers were starting to come down, they started to go back up again.
Senator Scarr
Well, exactly, and we’ve gone backwards in terms of commitments to that long-term planning, which we need. So, the Government as part of its migration strategy released in December 2023, committed to multiyear planning, what they refer to as multiyear planning for permanent migration program. So, that means John, you put out the figures for the current program year, and then you put out nominal figures for years two, three and four. The whole idea was to be open, be transparent and help all three levels of government to plan. Now we have the Immigration Minister come out and say, well, I want to be flexible, so I’m only going to give you this year’s program. It’s not good enough.
John Stanley
That comment that he made, it was a couple of weeks ago, seemed to get lost in the wash, which was an acknowledgement that they haven’t got control of these numbers. How would they get control of a system where you’ve got different working visas, where there are no caps, and then you’ve got the partner visa, where there is a massive backlog. There are also 400,000 people on bridging visas in the country right now. How do you acknowledge that the thing is completely out of control?
Senator Scarr
I think you’ve got to be open and transparent with the people, and I think you’ve got to do the work to go through each single cohort of visa, and work out what are the policy levers that are available to Government, and set some targets or ranges, so that we can plan and then you need to explain that to the Australian people. So, for example, there’s over 700,000 New Zealanders on a Special Category Visa in Australia, and we’ve got free migration between New Zealand and Australia. Well, that’s not going to change, but what we find is when the labor conditions in New Zealand are soft, people understandably come over to Australia, and that’s an example of one segment of that migration story, which the Government really doesn’t have policy levers to have a material impact on. But another example is Working Holiday Visas. So, Governments enter these treaties with all these different Governments around the world and say, well, that is a good idea. We’ll have a reciprocal arrangement. You can have five hundred working holiday visas each year, and we’ll have reciprocity, we’ll get five hundred to come to your country. But who’s keeping track of all this? Who is doing the arithmetic?
John Stanley
In fairness, if you go back to the period post covid and the Morrison Government, for instance, expanded those working visas for people coming from the UK, I think up to thirty it was, they took it up to thirty-five. People at the time were screaming for more people to come into the country, but once the surge started, there was an opportunity there to say, hey listen, this is getting out of control, but no one seemed prepared to do anything about it.
Senator Scarr
Again, you’ve got different departments. So, you’ve got the Department of Trade dealing with a lot of these arrangements with other countries, because quite often they’re put into free trade agreements, etc. You’ve got the Department of Foreign Affairs also involved. We have something called the Pacific Engagement Visa now, and I’m not sure your listeners would be aware of this, but we issue 3000 Visas to people from across the Pacific who enter into a lottery system, a bit like the green card system, which the United States has. So, you’ve got all these people across the Pacific applying for this Pacific Engagement Visa so they can come to Australia, which is understandable. But how does that fit into the scheme? Especially when you’ve got PALM workers here who are already here and have established working relationships with employers.
John Stanley
There was an Abul Rizvi piece a couple of weeks ago. I keep citing him, but he seems to write a lot about this, and I think that was the one that he mentioned, where you’re entitled to permanent residency if you get that visa on a long term basis, but it’s not included in the permanent migration numbers for some reason.
Senator Scarr
I think he’s got a point there. I need to check that. Bu, I do carefully read everything he writes, I can assure you, because he does do particularly useful analysis.
John Stanley
I read what you were saying, because people are saying, we need to cut the numbers, and they talk about house prices, congestion, whatever it is, and you were saying, well, if we’re going to do this, we need to understand how the system works, and the problem with that is people say, well, just cut the numbers. But, you’re saying, if you’re going to cut the numbers, you need to understand how the system works, and if the bureaucrats and the departments don’t understand it, and if some of these cohorts have legal obligations applying where people are entitled to come in, no one quite understands how you would cut the numbers.
Senator Scarr
There are categories like that. We’ve spoken about the Trans-Tasman Migration. Another example is under our Migration Act, someone who applies for a Partner Visa or for a Children Visa, so that part of family reunification, those places are not capped under our migration act. So, someone who’s a wife, or a husband or a partner of an Australian Citizen has a right to that visa, depending upon whether they’re a genuine partner. But if they are, that’s not capped. So, it really depends upon how many people make that application. But, at the same time, I think most Australians would recognize, well, if spouses want to reunite in Australia, then they should have that right, provided it’s a genuine relationship.
John Stanley
The question then is, there’s a huge backlog of those, and I think John Howard tried to introduce some controls over those about 20 years ago, and it was knocked back by the courts. So, that just goes to show you, it seems like a leaking sieve with all of these bits where no one quite understands, and Tony Burke’s figuring, well, rather than try and tackle the problem, he’s saying, oh, let’s just be flexible about it. I won’t set any numbers.
Senator Scarr
Exactly, and I don’t think that’s good enough. I really don’t think that’s good enough. I don’t think it’s good enough in the environment where a lot of Australians feel very strongly, and the polls are telling us this in terms of immigration numbers, I think in that environment, you’ve actually got an obligation to go out there and provide more detail, more explanation. There needs to be more long-term planning.
John Stanley
You mentioned the New Zealand one, all the people coming across from New Zealand, they’ve got a right to do it under the arrangements we have. So, in New Zealand, we’ve seen house prices flatten, and in some cases even going down, because their population growth is significantly crimped because of economic conditions and people leaving the country there, but they come to Australia.
Senator Scarr
When you look at temporary visa holders, there’s a cohort of about 25% of New Zealanders who were treated as a special category. We’ve got over 700,000 New Zealanders living in our country who have every right to do so, and we’ve got such a close relationship with New Zealand, but that’s an example of one category of visa where it really does depend, in that case, on what the economic conditions are in New Zealand. So, if the labor market’s soft, people will leave New Zealand, come to Australia to get a job. If the labor market’s soft in Australia, they go home. That’s something which is obviously outside the control of government.
John Stanley
All right. Paul Scarr, I appreciate the detail in what you’ve said today in the Parliament, and with us, we’ll keep in touch with you, because ultimately, the detail and the facts are really important in this debate, and we’ll hear more from you, I’m assuming and hoping in the months ahead. Thank you.
Senator Scarr
Good on you. Thanks, John.
