The opposition’s immigration policy was long-awaited, so it’s disappointing that it finally arrived dripping with the rhetoric of Donald Trump and Nigel Farage. In his launch of the Coalition policy this month, Liberal leader Angus Taylor identified the “problem” as “mass migration”. He echoed the far-right leaders’ rhetoric of “taking our country back”, despite there being no real parallels between our circumstances and those of either the United States or Britain.
The opposition’s contribution to the race to the bottom that immigration policy has become was a purely political speech, largely in response to the posturing of One Nation leader Pauline Hanson. Any reasonable approach would have addressed immigration in terms of other key policy areas such as productivity, the labour market, the care sectors, housing – especially construction – skills development, higher education and, of course, the broader monetary and fiscal framework in which they all operate. However, this macro context is mostly still a vacuum when it comes to the opposition parties. It’s just a competition of numbers for different migrant categories, with vested interests in various sectors screaming out that it doesn’t do the job from their point of view.
The logic behind the opposition’s stance seems to have been to position themselves between the government and One Nation, while aiming for a big populist headline: “The largest cut in immigration in our history” – that is, a cut in net overseas migration (NOM) by two thirds.
If elected, the Coalition has pledged to slash NOM to 100,000 annually in the first two years of government from the current 292,000, before levelling out at 160,000 in year four. This is to be achieved by a crackdown on visa hopping, the abolition of temporary graduate visas and capping the number of new arrivals in line with housing approvals. They are aiming for a total reduction of 650,000 over four years.
Although the Coalition would have us accept that the suggested changes are in Australia’s national interest, you are left to guess just how, especially when cost of living is the dominant political issue and the economy is teetering on the brink of a possible recession.
Unfortunately, the current debate’s focus on numbers is oversimplified. NOM is easily manipulated to suit an argument because the data is inherently volatile – a residual of arrivals and departures, many of which governments, at least those in our democratic system, cannot directly or rapidly control. As demographers Alan Gamlen and Peter McDonald note, NOM is best monitored as an indicator, not as a “target to control”.
Beyond the big headline, there was some duplication of what the government announced recently: in relation to “visa hopping”, restricting international students’ ability to bring their partners or family members, and limiting onshore applications for student visas. The one major difference was the decision to abolish temporary graduate visas that allow some vocational and most higher education graduates to remain in Australia with full work rights for 18 months or more.
Most of what the opposition has announced are merely objectives with, as usual, very little detail about how they should be met. Not surprisingly, this has precipitated widespread criticism from the Business Council of Australia and key sectors of our economy, specifically, education and those concerned with labour supply, especially the care and construction sectors. This underscores that the opposition is yet to do their homework to have a credible and deliverable policy.
On labour supply, for example, you might reasonably have expected some assessment of the numbers and skills likely to be needed in specific sectors over the decades to come, with an explanation of just how immigration would match these needs. While the opposition is always critical of the links between the unions and the government, the relevant unions are most likely to quantify projected needs – cooperation here is essential.
We will get our economy in a real mess if we fall for the rhetoric and continue to accept a simplistic argument. Housing is influenced by a multiplicity of factors besides migration ... For the opposition it is just a politically convenient connection to make in the absence of any carefully considered policy.
Similarly, the need for the opposition to be consulting and working with the universities and the broader education sector can’t be overemphasised, especially given the significance of the sector to both our domestic economy and exports. No doubt there has been an excessive reliance on foreign students to fund Australian universities, so to cut that number requires a commitment for more direct funding from government and probably business. The private sector has been particularly concerned with enabling those foreign students to work in Australia after completing their degrees, such that our economy and society gets some benefit from the skills and knowledge that we have cultivated. Just cutting foreign student numbers and graduate visas will do serious damage to our global reputation as a quality educator.
Probably the most contentious element of the opposition’s proposal is the link with housing. Their concerns here are both exaggerated and simplistic. They have not provided the evidence necessary to validate their proposals. Migration is only one element of the housing crisis that has been decades in the making in this country. It is also a very complicated connection, as migration can affect both the demand and supply sides of the property market. While migration can add to the demand for housing, improving supply will require more construction workers to be brought into the country.
We will get our economy in a real mess if we fall for the rhetoric and continue to accept a simplistic argument here. Housing is influenced by a multiplicity of factors besides migration, including interest rates and credit conditions, tax settings, land supply, council approval processes and construction costs (which the Morrison government blew up with its naive response to the pandemic). For the opposition it is just a politically convenient connection to make in the absence of any carefully considered policy.
The opposition’s approach to immigration is dressed up as a necessary “clean-up of Labor’s mess” as part of a key strategy to simply undermine the integrity of the Albanese government on as many fronts as they can. However, as with so much of what they assert about the government’s performance, this is just another convenient fabrication. As pointed out by Gamlen and McDonald from the Australian National University’s Migration Hub, “Australia’s post-COVID migration surge and subsequent decline reflect delayed system adjustment after a global shock, not a loss of policy control or uniquely Australian policy failure”. Many countries globally have struggled with a similar experience, having closed their borders and applied restrictions in response to the pandemic.
Taylor’s announcement was little more than a hit on the government’s alleged “failure” and “mismanagement”, without specifics, simply repeating the claim that “under Labor, the numbers have been too high and the standards have been too low”. There was no recognition of the consequences of the Coalition’s main initiative when last in government – namely to close Australia’s borders during the pandemic – when net overseas migration to Australia turned negative for the first time in many decades.
The pandemic highlighted the complexity of the migration issue, and to my mind has made careful modelling for any proposed changes particularly important, especially when the decisions are driven by desired numbers as outcomes rather than well-developed, detailed policy. It should come as no surprise that the recovery from Australia’s border closures led to an increased intake to get back to pre-pandemic levels. This was hardly driven by ideology or a desire for a “big Australia” or some sort of “vote catching”, or indeed any of the other supposed motivations put forward by the opposition parties.
Overall, the focus seems to be a desire to take back control of permanent migration. Deputy Liberal leader Jane Hume in her statement to media threw around some larger numbers, saying that since Labor was elected, “1.5 million more people have been brought into Australia … One in 10 people here is now on a ‘temporary’ visa. While Labor puts politics first, we are putting Australia first.”
It was disturbing to me that Taylor didn’t rise above opportunistic pointscoring to focus on Australia’s very successful multi-ethnic, multi-faith society, which is indeed the envy of many countries around the world. He might have detailed the immigration policy in those terms as a work in progress that needs to be nurtured in its development. He might have emphasised this achievement, building on the foundation of the world’s longest-surviving continuous culture. That in turn would have offered the opportunity to also tie in policy development for First Australians, and how they will work to close the gaps that create or perpetuate disadvantage. This would clearly be in our national interest.
The debate in which we now find ourselves is not only disappointing but potentially dangerous – it is too shallow a political contest for an issue so defining of this nation.