‘Gutsy’ immigration review flags bigger industry role
Skilled occupation lists could be axed and hundreds of visa sub-categories slashed to make way for a demand-driven immigration system where businesses have a greater role in determining what jobs are in short supply.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil says every idea is on the table as Labor launches the biggest shake-up to the immigration system in decades on Monday, amid a historic worker shortage.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil says Australia’s processing system is making it harder to attract much-needed talent. James Brickwood
Ms O’Neil says an overhaul of the “Byzantine mess” of rules and processes is badly needed as leading economies ramp up the fight for global talent, naming three policy and business experts to review the immigration system ahead of the May 2023 federal budget.
However, the panellists will not venture into politically contentious debates around population size, and the inquiry will not examine whether Australia’s one-off increasein the permanent migration intake to 195,000 should be extended.
Promising an ambitious rethink, Ms O’Neil told The Australian Financial Review the government wanted to boost economic growth and productivity, secure the nation’s geostrategic influence and strengthen sovereign capability
Unions and industry are expected to play a key role in the review, which has been tasked with finding ways to protect workers from exploitation.
Former public service chief Martin Parkinson, University of Adelaide law professor and temporary labour migration expert Joanna Howe, and former Deloitte partner John Azarias will present recommendations from the review to the Albanese government by February, allowing proposals to be considered for the May 2023 budget.
‘We’re having a big, gutsy review’
The September jobs summit heard from frustrated employers trying to bring skilled workers to Australia, only to lose talent to rival destinations amid visa processing wait times as long as 15 months.
Ms O’Neil said Australia’s sclerotic processing system was making it harder to attract much-needed talent.
“If people have got real choices about where they are going to live, and the wait time to get into Australia is two years or the wait time to get into Canada is five days, then we’re not in with a chance in that contest,” she said.
Unions and industry are expected to play a key role in the review, which has been tasked with finding ways to protect workers from exploitation.
Former public service chief Martin Parkinson, University of Adelaide law professor and temporary labour migration expert Joanna Howe, and former Deloitte partner John Azarias will present recommendations from the review to the Albanese government by February, allowing proposals to be considered for the May 2023 budget.
‘We’re having a big, gutsy review’
The September jobs summit heard from frustrated employers trying to bring skilled workers to Australia, only to lose talent to rival destinations amid visa processing wait times as long as 15 months.
Ms O’Neil said Australia’s sclerotic processing system was making it harder to attract much-needed talent.
“If people have got real choices about where they are going to live, and the wait time to get into Australia is two years or the wait time to get into Canada is five days, then we’re not in with a chance in that contest,” she said.
Asked whether Labor would consider proposals from the Grattan Institute and the Productivity Commission to abolish the skills list and replace it with an $85,000 wage threshold for permanent skilled migrants, Ms O’Neil said everything was on the table.
“That’s why we’re having a big, gutsy review, so we can ask big, powerful questions about how the system functions, and consider whether these concepts are serving us any longer as a country,” she said.
Proponents of the policy say abolishing the skills list would speed up processing times and more accurately identify workforce shortages, which are more likely to emerge in jobs where there were high skills and high wages.
The review is also likely to consider the $53,900 temporary skilled migration income threshold, which is the minimum salary threshold for sponsoring a temporary skilled migrant.
Labor has said it will increase the threshold, which has been frozen since 2013 and remains well below the $65,000 it would be if it was indexed to wage growth over the past decade.
Ms O’Neil said the review would help deliver an efficient system capable of attracting and retaining the best talent from around the world, with rules that are simple for migrants and employers to use and that complements the skills of Australians.
Currently the system is much too complicated, hugely bureaucratic and takes enormous amounts of time to get decisions and outcomes,” she said.
“It’s expensive, and it’s hard to use. It’s not working for workers, it’s not working for businesses, or families, and it’s not working for the country.
“We want to build out of this a system that is simple, clear, fast, definite, and sees the massive opportunity that this program is for our country. We’ve got this beautiful migrant nation.”
‘This system is a Byzantine mess’
Australia has more than 70 unique visa categories, each of which have their own criteria and subcategories, while there are also hundreds of labour agreements.
“This system is a Byzantine mess,” Ms O’Neil said.
“Every time a new need arises, someone’s slaps on a new visa category. That’s how we ended up where we are. It’s incrementalism, and that’s what we want to put an end to.”
The federal government wants the system to be easier and quicker for employers, and for migration to more effectively grapple with post-pandemic skills shortages.
Cutting visa categories and reducing the wait time for skilled visa applicants would speed up immigration-based employment and help make Australia a more attractive destination for overseas workers.
The expert group has been commissioned to revisit and define the purpose of Australia’s migration program, and propose changes to enrich productivity, population, and participation, address sovereign capability gaps.
The hardline Operation Sovereign Borders policy on boat turnbacks and other functions of Australian Border Force are specifically excluded from the review’s scope.
Ms O’Neil said the terms of reference did not extend to debate about the size of Australia’s population in decades to come, describing that as a political distraction.
It means the review will not be tasked with recommending whether to extend the government’s one-off increase in the permanent intake to 195,000 into future years.
“We set the permanent skilled migration program on an annual basis, based on the conditions in the labor market, and that’s not going to change,” Ms O’Neil said.
But the make-up of the migration program will be in scope, including the mix between temporary and permanent migrants.
“The system as it’s currently designed preferences temporary, lower-skilled workers over permanent high-skilled workers, and that’s not serving the country well in my view,” Ms O’Neil said.
With the Albanese government promising temporary migrants more pathways to permanent residency, Ms O’Neil said the review would also canvass ways to keep international students in Australia for longer after they graduate.
“Is it the right thing to train these people up as best in the world trainees, give them first-class Australian degrees, and then essentially require them to leave the country and go and use those skills elsewhere?
“I think there’s a real question about how we can really capitalise on having this amazing export industry in our country.”
‘A once in a generation opportunity’
John Azarias, Dr Joanna Howe and Dr Martin Parkinson will spearhead the sweeping review.
The panel will present interim findings to the government on February 28 next year. A final strategy will be presented by May, with the option for the group to extend its work and support implementation if their recommendations are adopted.
Broad consultation is expected with the public service, state and territory governments, eminent Australians, academics, economists, and civil society groups.
Dr Parkinson, a former head of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, said the review was a once in a generation opportunity.
“Our migration system needs to support a national transition to a more productive, resilient and diverse economy, one characterised by innovation and which delivers enhanced sovereign capabilities.
“Taking a strategic approach to migration, and getting the right skills to support Australia will boost productivity over the coming decades.”
Dr Howe has previously called for the Albanese government to support expansive labour migration in a way that does not produce a race to the bottom in standards.
She has described wage theft and exploitation among migrant workers as “endemic” and called for equal representation of industry and unions on the Ministerial Advisory Council on Skilled Migration.
As the chairman of the National Agricultural Labour Advisory Committee, Mr Azarias led recommendations to the Morrison government for better regulation of labour hire companies, including to eliminate unscrupulous and unethical practices.
His December 2020 report called for a reorganisation of temporary worker visa programs, and a one-off regularisation of undocumented workers in Australia.
Ms O’Neil said improving Australia’s immigration system would require a costly investment in the Department of Home Affairs’ IT systems.
“The order of reforms is design a good system, implement that through changing the law and the processes, and then design an IT system around the strategy,” she said.
“This visa processing backlog is in large part a function of the catastrophic failure of the former government to address this issue.”
Coffee chain fined $475k for ‘stubborn’ exploitation of visa workers
A Taiwanese coffee brand has been fined almost half a million dollars for its extraordinary exploitation of visa workers through purported internships and 70-hour work weeks.
The Federal Court issued $475,200 in penalties against 85 Degrees Coffee for paying eight overseas workers less than a third of the award minimum between 2016 and 2017, with each worker underpaid an average of almost $54,000.
One of the allegedly underpaid students worked at 85 Degrees’ cafe on George Street, Sydney.
Even the smallest underpayment was more than the most senior full-time employee on the award would earn in an entire year, Justice Robert Bromwich said.
The penalties are the fifth highest secured in a Fair Work Ombudsman case and were handed down despite the franchisor’s defence that it had been compliant with Taiwanese law, if not Australian law.
“Its most senior management must have been aware, or at least plainly should have been aware, that Australian law applied to the employment here,” Justice Bromwich said.