Behind every political debate, whether it’s migration numbers, border security or aged care, there are human stories, families searching for a home, older Australians waiting for support that never comes, communities feeling stretched and uncertain about the future. Senator Paul Scarr, Shadow Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, is with you now. He’s been a strong voice on permanent migration rates, the Nauru arrangement and the crisis in aged care. But beyond the politics, I want to understand the bigger picture. How do these decisions ripple through people’s lives? What do they reveal about the kind of country that we want to build, and what happens when governments fail to plan for tomorrow while people are struggling today? Senator, welcome.
Senator Scarr
Good to be with you again and with your listeners for one of my favorite times of the week.
Cheralyn Darcey
It’s mine too. Let’s get into Canberra Conversations for this week. First up, oh, it’s the hot topic, isn’t it, the permanent migration rates. Labor confirmed a permanent migration intake of 185,000 places for the year. Why do you believe that number is too high for Australia right now?
Senator Scarr
I think we need to have a manageable level of immigration that takes into account the legitimate concerns raised around housing, infrastructure, the provision of services, and when we conduct this debate, we need to make sure we do it in a really measured and considered way. And I’ve made that point in your program before. When Labor introduced their first budget after they won the 2022 election, they estimated that net overseas migration, which is different from the permanent migration intake, and I’ll explain the difference in a minute. But they estimated net overseas migration would be 235,000 in 2022-23. The actual result was 528,000. In the same budget, they estimated 235,000 for 2023-24, the actual result was 446,000. Now, whilst there was a dramatic fall during the covid pandemic, because our borders had to be closed to a substantial degree, what you find if you go back and look through the statistics in the 15 years up to the covid pandemic, the average of net overseas migration was 216,000. So there’s a big difference between those numbers we saw in 2022-23 and 23-24. Now when we talk about the permanent migration intake, it is important to note that that figure includes people who are already in the country on temporary visas. So they could be people here on temporary skilled visas, and they move from that category across to permanent residency, So, that isn’t new people coming into the country. Having said that, in our last budget before the 2022 election, our permanent migration program was about 160,000 and the election commitments we took under Peter Dutton was 140,000 for this year, where under Labor, it’s 185,000. And we’re looking to maintain that 140,000 for a few years before taking it back up to that 160,000, which was the figure which we had in our last budget. So this is an ongoing issue. We need to have this debate. It needs to be conducted in a respectful fashion, a considered fashion, and we need to come up with a migration policy that is sustainable and takes into account the issues around housing, infrastructure, etc. One of the other points I’d make, and this is a really important point to make – the government’s own strategic review into migration in 2023 talked about the need for long term planning, and I am a strong advocate for that. So, we can look at infrastructure requirements around the whole country, recognize the differences between our major metropolitan centres and also regional centres, which are crying out for certain skills and occupations, as we know. So that’s another issue. But you need to have that long term planning process, and I think that’s absolutely crucial in terms of government explaining to people what the long term plan is. In terms of this permanent migration program for 25 to 26, it was released two months after the year started. It was released in September, but it relates to the period commencing 1 July. And from that perspective, from my point of view, that’s just emblematic of the fact that the government isn’t managing this policy area the way it should be.
Cheralyn Darcey
What’s the message that you’ve got for families who feel the migration system isn’t being managed well enough at the moment?
Senator Scarr
What I’d say to families, is this issue is now well and truly on the national agenda. There’s no question about that. And that the concerns that many Australians have been heard. And I think that it’s now really, really important that as we address these issues, we make sure that all parts of the Australian community are part of a considered discussion, and that no one feels targeted. I just can’t emphasize that enough, because there are people in our multicultural communities who were very disturbed by some of the scenes we saw in particular from Melbourne in relation to Neo Nazis on the steps of parliament, and that has caused a lot of concern in a lot of our communities. So we’ve got to make sure we conduct this debate in the right way. I just can’t emphasize that enough. We can’t allow the extremists in the community like the Neo Nazis, etc, to come in and get a foothold in this debate. We’ve got to make sure that we conduct the debate into these issues in a considered manner.
Cheralyn Darcey
Senator, let’s move on to Nauru then, and the border security issue. You’ve welcomed the Nauru arrangement, but say it doesn’t go far enough. What exactly should the government be doing differently?
Senator Scarr
A concern I have, and I think I’ve talked about this concern on your program. We’ve got this cohort, the NZYQ cohort, we talk about, which are people who came to this country, some of them on humanitarian visas, who had their visas cancelled on character grounds, and this cohort, this group of people, includes murderers, people who’ve committed vile sexual offences and a whole range of different offending so they’ve had their visas canceled because under our law, once that determination is made under the character test, we can cancel visas, but we haven’t been able to return them to their country of origin because of the circumstances in their country of origin. So the Nauru arrangement provides an ability for the government to deport people to a third country, and the government has entered into arrangements with Nauru to allow that to happen. The main issue that the Coalition has with respect to the management of this is we passed legislation about a year and a half ago, a bit over that that allows for the government to make community safety order applications to the court, community preventative detention orders, applications to the court, but the Government hasn’t made a single application under that legislation that was passed by the parliament and which would enable better control on these people, especially those who’ve committed violent offences. So that’s our major concern with how the government has managed this issue, and we’ve seen crimes in the community committed by members of this cohort.
Cheralyn Darcey
Aged Care is also a hot issue this week, Almost 5000 older Australians have died waiting for care. It’s a horrible, horrible fact to look at in our news feeds at the moment. When you hear that number, Senator, what goes through your mind?
Senator Scarr
Well, for me, it isn’t just a number. I get people contacting my office who are either older Australians or their fathers, their grandparents are trying desperately to get access to these aged care support services, these Home Care Packages, because they want to stay in their own home. They don’t want to go into aged care necessarily. And people are desperate to get this support. And it’s just heartbreaking. Some people are in this queue for such a long period of time that they pass away before they actually get the support. This is the parliament doing its job. This is what we get paid for by the Australian people. The pressure from the Senate, including my good friend, the Opposition Health and Aged Care Minister, Senator Anne Ruston, has meant that the government has now agreed to immediately release another 20,000 Home Care Packages. So that’s 20,000 people who would otherwise not get these Home Care Packages who are now going to receive them. Plus there’ll be a further 20,000 Home Care Packages released by the end of the year. And, the balance of 83,000 promised by the end of the next financial year. So, 30 June, 2026,
Cheralyn Darcey
That should be enough to cover us then?
Senator Scarr
Well, it will make a substantial difference. This priority waitlist has blown out, just to give you some of the figures, it’s blown out to more than 108,000 in just two years. So that 83,000 being delivered will bring that priority wait list down substantially, and it couldn’t come soon enough.
Cheralyn Darcey
How did we get to such a crisis point?
Senator Scarr
Well, I think they’ve sat on this issue for too long. The Albanese Labor Government has sat on this issue for too long. We went to the last election and they promised these 83,000 new packages at the last election. They were meant to come into effect from 1 July this year, so quite a few months ago now. But they simply didn’t release them until it’s just become urgent and more urgent. So at least we’re following the sitting in Parliament this week, we should start to see some movement. So to your listeners, and you will have listeners who are either seeking age some of these aged care packages or or their parents or their grandparents, I really do hope that your loved ones start to get the benefit of these aged care packages, because we need to support our older Australians, including those older Australians who want to stay in their home and get the benefit of that care,. And there’s quite a number of Australians in that category. So I really do hope this makes a meaningful difference.
Cheralyn Darcey
Thank you, Senator, thanks for joining us this week.
Senator Scarr
Okay, thanks, Cheralyn.
