As ballyhooed , you'd think Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil's Migration Strategy was epic reform. It's a limp report, of procedural tweaks.
Meanwhile Albanese was bugling the real strategy – the lie that migration would be "halved" – via his pet media chooks and immigration influencers.
What's in the strategy
In the Strategy, O'Neil and Immigration Minister Giles assert immigration is "broken" with "insufficient regard" for housing and infrastructure. They've done "extensive consultation" to get it back to "normal".
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Their idea of "consultation" is donors and stakeholders, like the select 146 of Jobs and Skills Summit.
They disdain ordinary Australians, who consistently oppose mega-migration. Cynically, their "normal" is the pre-COVID 220,000-plus. Nothing like the truthful long-term average of about 80,000 per annum.
Absurdly, 100 pages of "Strategy" ignores net migration – the driver of our relentless population growth.
Under fibbing Albanese, said migration has topped 500,000. Maybe "falling " to 375,000, in 2023-24.
Yet O'Neil's Strategy is a turgid "roadmap" of eight "actions" under an anodyne "vision".
Which will "raise living standards…ensure a fair go…build stronger communities". Orwellian doublespeak.
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O'Neil's potholed "roadmap" derives from her dodgy Migration Review. Here are her top-five pettifogging "actions":
Targeting temporary skilled migration.
Government had already raised the wage threshold for temp "skilled" migrants to a puny $70,000.
Now they're introducing "Skills in Demand" Visas, Specialist and Core Skills "Pathways", a "tripartite" approach to skills needs, a "modernised" accreditation pathway.
The fine print claims, temp skilled workers constitute only 9% of all "temporary migration". So why such obsequious mechanisms? Why not just get real, about the wage threshold?
Reshaping permanent migration.
Here, the main ploy is adapted from the earlier Review – a "reformed points test" for skilled migrants.
The pseudo-science of our "points" test has wowed US and UK politicians. The recalibration proposed here is ho-hum. First, we must endure the ANU "discussion paper".
Integrity of international education.
These measures are classic bureaucracy - so ministers look ministerial. Test for language, apply greater scrutiny, bolster integrity unit, strengthen provider requirements. A "Genuine Student" Test – hilarious.
This mashup could have been crafted by Universities Australia itself. For whom, too much migration is never enough.
Greedy universities like clipping lucrative overseas-student tickets. And love the Labor deluge – 850,000 student/graduate visas.
Tackling [migrant] worker exploitation.
Similar story. The lame propositions – extra penalties, protections, regulations – could have been written by Business Council or woke ACTU.
Clare, if you want to squawk about "exploitation", don't be an odious hypocrite. Don't admit 2.2 million on temporary visas, with 850,000 on student/graduate visas.
Getting right skills in right places.
The claim is, migration "planning" will fix things, by "working with" the states. Jobs and Skills Australia (JSA) will use "evidence" to define the "what, where" of skills needs.
No, they won't. States, industry, developers, employers, universities, will always demand More Migrants Please. JSA just becomes a rubber-stamp.
Migration should be set relative to environment and existing population, not by crony stakeholders. The existing populace should decide.
What's not in the strategy
Strident, overbearing, O'Neil is already touted as a "future PM". Why not, Labor being a party for corporate and educated elites.
They don't represent ordinary people. They smear them as racists, for nixing The Voice.
Unequivocally, Labor bravado – not Coalition "breakage" – has escalated net migration past 500,000.
Recall, we never once exceeded 200,000, before 2007. And note, OECD population growth is less than 0.5%. But Albanese has pushed our growth well past 2%. Crazy.
Among wealthy OECD nations, only "liberal" Canada enforces a similar onslaught. No wonder Alb-eau and Trudeau enjoy such a steamy bromance.
Even if (as parroted by media chooks) Albanese were to "downsize" to 235,000 by 2026-27 – unlikely – that's three times higher than real-normal.
And 235,000? That's Treasury long-term (intergenerational) migration target, that Albanese copied from Scott Morrison's target of 2021.
Such numbers reinforce inequality, lowering wage and living standards, institutionalising the rental/housing crisis. Immigration will continue to crush, professed Labor goals for "betterment of environment" or "net zero emissions".
Better recommendations.
The recommendations being vapid, alternates suggest themselves. Sure, some are aspirational. Others are not so difficult.
Curb the immigration propaganda
It's bad enough, that Treasury and "stakeholders" dictate terms. Must they also insult voters' intelligence, with repetitive immigration porkies?
This Strategy brims with them. We must always be "migration nation". Migration fixes skill shortages - boosts productivity. Decentralisation fixes migration. Migration keeps us young.
Now add the new saturation-coverage media lie - 235,000 immigration is Normal Australia.
Admit that net migration is a Treasury target.
The earlier Review, though led by a former Treasury chief, fibbed that officials can't control net migration, only permanent. Treasurer and Home Affairs Minister too, insist net migration is "not a target". Liars.
Instead of being hidden in a Budget appendix, Treasury's addictive population-plan should be written up clearly, in every Budget Speech and Overview. Stop the misinformation.
Restrict visa and student-visa numbers.
This Strategy dodges responsibility for the astounding visa (2.2m) and student/graduate visa (0.85m) numbers. To reduce the latter, it recommends that students (and providers) confirm their "genuineness". Yeah right.
Embedded media loves this nonsense. But COVID proved the effectiveness of this continent's border controls. We can turn the numbers around quickly. Let's start, by halving the visas.
Taper net migration towards 0.3% of population.
Gosh, chorus "experts", if only we had a population plan (we do) or long-term migration target (we do). Let's introduce another population agency (meh) or a referendum (meh).
The long-term average of net migration is about 0.3% of population, roughly 80,000. Unless and until some "unicorn" leader heads back in that direction, Australia's unsustainable population will never stabilise.
Wouldn't it be great, if ruling classes relaxed their immigration war on voters? Gave "migration nation" a much-needed rest. More likely, "United Nations" Albanese has cemented that 235,000, as our "floor" for migration.
Manage net/permanent migration honestly.
Ignoring government's net-migration plan, the Strategy also says little of their permanent migration "plan". 190,000 places for 2023-24. Allegedly, 137,000 "skilled".
While ABS net-migration reports are dishonest in their covering remarks, Home Affairs permanent-migration reports verge on farcical.
Against a 195,000 "plan" for 2022-23, they achieved 195,004 "outcomes". World-class bean-counting, eh?
Well disguised, is that most of their "outcomes" were already camped in Australia. They don't explain, roughly half the "skill" stream would be family, not principals. Stop the misinformation.
Clean up "skilled" migration follies.
The migrant wage-threshold of $70,000 is a joke. It should at least be, average fulltime earnings ($95,844, as indexed). It should be higher. The top 10% of employees are on $141,440.
As the Strategy itself proclaims, "insect farming specialists" weren't on immigration's "combined skilled occupation list". Hullo, of course they're not. JSA squadrons (economists) tracking occupational shifts will always be behind.
Solution – just require every "skilled" migrant to have an employer nomination on a high wage. Halve their numbers – put local workers first.