While both Donald Trump Junior and Novak Djokovic were granted visas to enter Australia, the stark difference in how the two cases were managed highlight the difference in approaches of the Albanese and Morrison Governments to controversial visitors. Australia’s immigration system has long used the Movement Alert List (MAL) to manage controversial visitors. By listing Continue reading »
Immigration, refugees
While the boom in unsuccessful on-shore (ie non-boat) asylum applications started in 2015 when Peter Dutton was Home Affairs Minister, as time goes by it will be Dutton and the Murdoch press that will try to make it Labor’s Achillies heel. In May 2023, primary asylum applications were 1,896, the highest monthly level since international Continue reading »
Earlier this year, I wrote on the potential risks of the new Pacific Engagement Visa (PEV) that will provide a lottery-based pathway to permanent residence for nationals of Pacific Islands and Timor Leste. With the visa starting on 1 July 2023, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), which has policy responsibility for the Continue reading »
Since international borders re-opened, asylum applications at the primary stage steadily grew from a low of around 618 in February 2022 to 1,786 in March 2023. While this was well below the peak in 2017-18 of around 2,500 per month, it would have been worrying the Albanese Government given the entry of the Coalition and Continue reading »
Exploitation of migrant workers in Australia is rife, a new Grattan Institute report has found. The report, Short-changed: How to stop the exploitation of migrant workers in Australia, shows that recent migrants are twice as likely as long-term residents to be underpaid, and up to 16 per cent of recent migrants are paid less than Continue reading »
While minds turn to an overhaul of Australia’s migration policies, anti-sex work sentiment may have created a parallel policy reality for some. System design to prevent migrant worker exploitation has yet not been fully explored in Australian politics, perhaps because orthodoxy dictates (rightly or wrongly) that a strong-arm criminal justice approach will be more popular. Continue reading »
In his opening statement to the recent Senate Estimates hearing, Department of Home Affairs (DHA) Secretary Mike Pezzullo again proved he does not understand immigration policy or administration. At the hearing, he said: “I wish to advise the Committee that the average visa refusal rate for the six-year period from 2001-02 to 2006-07 was 1.8 Continue reading »
In the May 2023 Budget, Treasury caused a ‘big Australia’ furore by increasing its net migration forecast for 2022-23 from the 235,000 it published in the October 2022 Budget to 400,000. Net migration is the number of people, irrespective of citizenship or visa status, who arrive in Australia after being outside the country for more Continue reading »
The Government has announced the 2023-24 migration program will be set at 190,000 places – in headline terms a 5,000 place reduction on the 2022-23 migration program. Note the permanent migration program counts visas granted irrespective of whether the person is already in Australia or not. It is very different to net migration which counts Continue reading »
As the two major parties continue to debate which of them is pursing a policy of ‘big Australia’, Treasury has quietly forced both of them to accept its preferred long-term net migration target of 235,000 per annum – net migration, that is the difference between long-term arrivals and departures, is the key driver of Australia’s Continue reading »