Tony Burke has promised to make Labor’s existing migration policy work better rather than announcing a dramatic cut in numbers, arguing that populist promises to slash net overseas migration will “trash Australian services and trash the Australian economy”. The home affairs minister’s message was immediately endorsed by employer groups, who over recent days have made it clear that steps to arbitrarily slash migrant numbers would compound already severe skills shortages and hurt businesses, especially those in the regions. We just need to make sure that it is targeted for the needs of Australia in numbers and across the different categories that work for our economy,” Burke said in his long-awaited address to the National Press Club on Thursday.
It’s pretty hard to get a house built without having a plasterer involved. In both Sydney and Melbourne, close to two-thirds of the plasterers we have were born overseas.” Bran Black, the chief executive of the Business Council in Australia, welcomed the government’s efforts to “restore integrity to the migration system”, even as he argued against new rules that would limit the length of stay for most backpackers. That translates to not enough workers building homes, caring for us in hospitals and aged care homes, delivering infrastructure and powering the energy transition.
That is the challenge that any migration policy should be looking to solve.” Labor has taken a long time to come up with its policy prescription to fix the country’s migration settings which, after the post-pandemic surge in new arrivals, have become a source of growing popular discontent. Spurious claims of “mass migration” have fanned the flames of this discontent, but few would argue that our system is working well and in the best interests of the country – or in the best interests of a ballooning number of people trapped in a kind of temporary visa limbo that has strained public infrastructure and patience. Alan Gamlen, the director of the ANU’s migration hub, said Burke appeared to have announced the right mix of measures that would give the government the capacity to regulate an out-of-control temporary visa system without damaging the economy.
In comparison, Burke stuck to the government’s forecast of 225,000 people by 2027-28. He did, however, acknowledge that there was now a public expectation that the government would pull the levers necessary to get there. Last couple of years, people have talked about it as a budget target,” he said.
But given that we have the challenges we have with housing in Australia at the moment, I do think we need to be able to have these additional tools to make sure that what is published and forecast is reached.” With business groups already suffering from skills shortages even at a time of high immigration, the home affairs minister articulated why he believed the government can win the political argument against those competing to announce the lowest targeted Nom. Burke pointed out that denying skilled foreign workers the opportunity to bring in family members – as proposed by One Nation – would not free up more visas for more workers. Instead, that approach would slash the number of foreign doctors, tradies, nurses and aged care workers willing to come to our country.
How many construction workers come with family attached to their application? 50%. How many nurses and aged care workers come with family attached to their application? Two-thirds.” Whether Burke and the Albanese government can convince the public its measured approach is enough is an open question.
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