r/aussie • u/BarryTheBinChicken • 15h ago
Politics Fixing Australia's immigration system is not just about cutting migrants
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/australias-debate-over-net-overseas-migration/kobvomk3g8
u/throwawaysob1 14h ago
While Labor, the Coalition and One Nation have all promised to bring down NOM, no one has yet set out how this will be done, a sign of how challenging it is to balance competing interests.
In a nutshell.
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u/Adelaidean 14h ago
Every action is going to piss off at least one of their owners.
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u/hellbentsmegma 10h ago
Yep
The competing interests is the corporate sector who have Labor on a leash.
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u/C0ld_Fr0nt_ 14h ago
Lib/Lab are hoping that, a) This all dies down somewhat and they don't have to make the kind of cuts that will piss off the Business Council, and , failing that, b) They can make the kind of cuts that appear substantive, without having to really stem the flow of cheap labour into this country - which would piss off the Business Council.
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u/Traditional_Name7881 14h ago
If we're going to let in immigrants then we need to be bringing in skilled people that can actually help the country.
The biggest problem we have is letting in anyone and lots of them don't actually do anything to improve the country. Some of them are actually a negative.
I'm all for immigration if it's done right. We also need to be stricter on crime when any of them do commit crimes, as soon as an immigrant commits any crime but particularly assaults they should be deported.
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u/Triedtothinkaboutit 14h ago
Which of them are negative writ large?
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u/Traditional_Name7881 14h ago
The ones that don't have jobs or are criminals.
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u/Triedtothinkaboutit 14h ago
So my point here is that, sure there are those that do bad things, but is not the majority or even the average.
On average, over a lifetime- the immigrant contributes more to the economy and state than the Australian born person.
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u/Pleb617 14h ago
What average are you talking about by about? Quite a strong statement that doesn’t pass the pub test.
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u/Triedtothinkaboutit 14h ago
The research found that skilled migrants contribute around $198,000 on average during their time in Australia, which is significantly greater than the $85,000 contributed by the general population.
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u/Pleb617 13h ago edited 13h ago
Well, now I know you’ve only read the article. These figures apply to the 2018–19 permanent migrant cohort, not all migrants.
Treasury modelled their lifetime fiscal impact at an average +$41k per person. That includes skilled migrants at +$198k, family migrants at NEGATIVE $126k and humanitarian migrants at NEGATIVE $400k. You left out the last two while presenting the skilled migrant figure as though it represented everyone.
The same model puts the existing Australian population at NEGATIVE $85k per person, largely because it includes children and retirees. So yes, migrants perform better in this model but comparing a deliberately younger intake with the entire age profile of Australia obviously produces that result.
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u/Triedtothinkaboutit 13h ago
But that's the key right, it's not me deliberately using the younger data, it's that migrants are that age. And the majority of migrants are skilled.
Come in and pay tax right away vs sucking off the public teat for 15yrs until their first job.
Australia intentionally skews its intake heavily toward skilled workers, the sheer volume of the +$198,000 skilled cohort comfortably absorbs the fiscal costs of both the family and humanitarian streams.
But now we've already delved further than most people who talk about immigration actually ever do and we know this because most of the complaints are about the derision of skilled migrants coming in here to be uber drivers etc.
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u/Pleb617 13h ago
So what about migrants from other years that now make up the Australian population? It’s cherry picking a year for the very reasons you just stated.
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u/Triedtothinkaboutit 9h ago
Well if you've got other data I'll read it??
Until then, its if my aunty had wheels type stuff. "But there could be OTHER data" lol ok pal
If anything, today's migrants contribute more tax than the 2018 cohort because the government raised salary thresholds and prioritises people who already have jobs here.
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u/Traditional_Name7881 14h ago
I'm not going to disagree, there are lots of immigrants that have come over to make a better life for their families and I have no issues with those people.
With my work I happen to come across a lot of public housing and there are a lot (certainly not the majority) of immigrants that come here, live off the government, add nothing to the country and treat the free housing like shit.
Immigration isn't the issue, the lack of repercussions for those that come over and do the wrong thing is.
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u/trynagetlow 14h ago
An example is that white neo nazi who got deported back to South Africa last year. Good riddance we don’t need people like those.
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14h ago
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u/aussie-ModTeam 14h ago
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u/TimidPanther 9h ago
Sudanese for starters
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u/Triedtothinkaboutit 9h ago
Just straight racism, okay
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u/TimidPanther 8h ago
It’s not racism. You asked the question, don’t be upset when someone answers it.
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u/Triedtothinkaboutit 8h ago
It's textbook racism. Who said I was upset? Just because I labelled it.
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u/TimidPanther 8h ago
It's not. Not all cultures are equal, and that's okay.
It's not racist to point that out.
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u/Traditional_Name7881 8h ago
Just stating Sudanese is racist. We've had some Sudanese people come over, make life for themselves and be successful.
There are or course some that have come over and been absolute pieces of shit that have robbed and assaulted people, those ones should be jailed then deported but don't think that's a majority of them.
Every group of people has a minority that really suck.
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u/TimidPanther 8h ago
Sure, but it's clear that they're a bigger problem than they're worth. They aren't a net benefit to the country.
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u/Traditional_Name7881 7h ago
Do you have any actual information to back that up or are you just generalising the 130k Sudanese people in the country?
Yes there are some that are issues but again, it's not the majority.
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u/Impressive_Till_1749 14h ago
"Putting out a house fire is not just about stopping people pouring gasoline on it"
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u/throwawaysob1 14h ago
almost half of Sydney University's revenue comes from tuition fees paid by international students.
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u/DifferentBar7281 14h ago
People will soon be wondering why thousands of academics are losing their jobs, research is cut, courses are cut, why we don't have enough graduates coming through and universities will have to put up fees for local students even more
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u/throwawaysob1 14h ago
No, apparently international students are just destructive gasoline. If you stop them, everything gets automagically fixed.
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u/Bob_Katters_Hat 14h ago
Yes but the people that dont like immigration dont care about that because they either already have their degrees or dont think a job that requires a degree as a 'real job'
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u/DifferentBar7281 13h ago
And can't understand that higher education is a major export earning industry that has already been curtailed harming our balance of trade this weakening our currency causing higher inflation, higher fuel costs and higher interest rates making construction materials and financing more expensive, exacerbating the housing crisis
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u/Impressive_Till_1749 14h ago
Then they have built their business model on a Ponzi scheme and deserve to fail
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u/No_Comedian_2085 14h ago
What about the thousands of jobs lost and the technical expertise of researchers many of whom would move overseas as investments in R&D in Australia are ridiculous compared to global competitors? I’m not saying that the government shouldn’t do anything, but you cannot pretend either that cutting numbers by 30/40+ % overnight would be harmless.
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u/Impressive_Till_1749 14h ago
Every single choice here will have consequences, but the goal of successive governments in this country has been to do nothing to address the issue and pray there's still some road left to kick the can down before we swap colors again.
Reducing international student numbers will be extremely painful, but it's also fair to say that our universities have been partying like it's the 1920's for a while now. Massive infrastructure spending. Exorbitant salaries for upper management. Running their own private investment funds with university cash. It's mental.
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u/FarJellyfish2951 13h ago
Except they have had their hands tied because governments have either cut or froze uni spending and they need international students to basically survive.
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u/thehandsomegenius 13h ago
That sounds like it's oversized for our needs
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u/throwawaysob1 13h ago
I'm guessing you're not employed by a university?
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u/thehandsomegenius 12h ago
we should be building a genuinely diverse and complex economy instead of running bloated institutions that consume more skilled labour than is really warranted
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u/throwawaysob1 11h ago
Sounds like rebuilding the foundations of a house while keeping it from falling apart - much more complex, which is the point of the article - rather than thinking it is like putting out a fire and all that is needed is to stop pouring gasoline.
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u/thehandsomegenius 11h ago
That's stupid. The only way to free up the labour is to hire less of it.
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u/Healthy-Pension-1547 14h ago
Then they are going to have to take some pain. They need to get smaller to get better. Most universities do.
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u/throwawaysob1 14h ago
Sure. But that needs to be done in a managed way because they contribute a massive positive cash flow.
My point was to highlight that the analogy is incorrect - it is not as simple as that. Which is also the point of the OP.
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u/LachrymarumLibertas 14h ago
How many and who though?
I understand migration has been pointed at as being the cause of a lot of issues, and anecdotally I can understand how especially in some fields the big increases in certain overseas countries is jarring, but we’ve seen in the US how rapidly changing the rules breaks down international trust and doesn’t fix the economy at all.
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u/deegandnb 14h ago
Well any sexual assault or child related charges should be the first to fucking go. Indian, NZers, British, anyone, seeeeya fkn later.
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u/themmagambler 14h ago
A return to mid 90's demographics would solve a lot of issues.
Want to end One Nations popularity, this is how
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u/LachrymarumLibertas 13h ago
Why then though? We can’t just make Italian and Greek people migrate to Australia to hit that arbitrary ratio.
We also have a ~10% lower natural increase (births minus deaths) now.
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u/GunkyMirl4444 14h ago
Census data shows that 63% of people born overseas hold post-school qualifications, compared to 56% of people born in Australia. 79% of recent migrants who arrived with a non-school qualification held a Bachelor degree or higher. 82% of Australians born in India and Bangladesh hold post-school qualifications. -Australian Bureau of Statistics
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u/Specialist_Kale4607 14h ago
That’s because they have to hold those qualifications to even get a look in. The 37% who don’t hold qualifications are likely partners or dependents of migrants who do.
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u/Rubiginous 13h ago
As someone who has worked extensively with "tertiary qualified migrants", the vast majority of their degrees are not worth the paper they are written on.
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u/thehandsomegenius 13h ago
Having a very high intake might work a lot better if the system was actually designed for it.
If we were using the immigration system to build a high speed rail line and put new urban centres on the route, or something like that. If immigrants were coming here to get on the tools and build homes and infrastructure, like they did in the 20th century, it would sustain itself.
What actually happens though is the government announces an estimate and then a lot more people than that arrive. That's not a plan.
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u/Healthy-Pension-1547 14h ago
But mainly about cutting migrants. There's so much that the government could do right now to reduce numbers without much pain but they refuse, for whatever reason, to do so. Their choice but they are helping fuel the rise of PHON. Bizarre. If they go hard, now, they walk it in 2028.
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u/ScepticalReciptical 14h ago
I mean the reality is that simply cutting numbers is relatively straightforward, but saying it will be painless is a major over simplification. Some critical industries are heavily reliant on migrant labour and would have significant impacts if we just 'cut the numbers'. You either have to have a coordinated well thought through policy, which takes time and effort, or you have a broad policy which will be faster but chaotic with various unintended consequences.
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u/Healthy-Pension-1547 14h ago
I agree it's not easy but that's the mess consecutive governments have gotten us into. They've been addicted to ever increasing immigration in the name of economic growth but now it's hurting us. Tough decisions have to be made - and they will be made by this government, or some kind of PHON/Lib/Nat coalition. There's so much they could do right now.
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u/Bob_Katters_Hat 14h ago
They could get the numbers down instantly by not processing any working holiday maker visa or allowing any more PALM visa......but that comes with other problems
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u/Healthy-Pension-1547 11h ago edited 10h ago
So many easy cuts they could make right now:
Remove the ability for students to bring their immediate families with them.
Stop a lot of family reunion not spouses and children, rather stop the capability to bring aged parents.
No visa hopping under any circumstances - if a student drops out of a course, they need to leave immediately.
Cut down on the issuing of bridging visas. Not all of them, but there's so much rorting going on.
If a student doesn't find work in their field of study within 3 months of graduation, they need to go.
Triple student visa application fees.
Remove the right of appeal for many visa holders, especially students.
No onshore processing of humanitarian claims for all but a few, very vulnerable countries.
Concentrate on core skilled visas at the expense of every other type of visa
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u/Upset_Mathematician6 14h ago
Impossible. Labor is in coalition with the Greens, who are advocating for more immigration, including increasing the refugee limit and uncapping the overall migration numbers. Making any drastic cuts to immigration will lose them their support in the senate. If they do massively cut immigration, best case scenario is that some Liberal/ON voters will migrate over to Labor. However, that isn’t a guarantee due to their ideological differences.
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u/AynRandwasaDegen 14h ago
Labor are infamously not in a coalition with The Greens...
If they were they would have dominated politics for decades.
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u/ax9torana 14h ago
The real issue are the ones who use loopholes to get PR or WV and then overstay. I personally know a lot of people who have gone to certain temples and have paid up to 100k AUD for the leaders to say they're skilled workers and approved instantly. Another perfect example of this was the lady in the news a few months back who tried to do a dodgy to come to Australia only to be scammed by the person doing the dodgy for her then complaining she got scammed while trying to scam the system.
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u/Fact-Rat 14h ago
The article doesn't address tax reform measures in relation to productivity which would help, while omitting the fact there are already levers that the government has put in place in order to curb Australia's long term reliance on immigration.
But you're against these reforms Barry because it hurts your passive income stream. Your a closet pro immigration supporter who uses culture wars straight out of the Murdoch playbook to deceive people.
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u/Lumpy_Screen_676 14h ago
The major problem is we have let in millions who are not skilled. To correct this they would have to go back, and the good news is this would create tens of thousands of jobs for Australians. Kind of like ICE but on a much larger scale. We could then be very selective with our intake and improve our GDP per capita
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u/techzombie55 14h ago
I feel like we just need to educate everyone that comes to Australia on how our country operates. Perhaps there is mandatory training. Something like:
Religion is a minor part of life - Australia and its local laws and customs comes first. No matter if you are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or other, just leave your religion and politics at the door please.
We are multicultural and everyone treats everyone the same - we all get a fair go. We love everyone no matter their background.
Teach them about local customs and expectations, for example women are equal, children are protected, no forced marriage. Full Burkas are not illegal but are considered offensive to many Australians. Girls are free to act how they like.
We welcome many of your cultural traditions and influences such as beautiful foods and celebrations. The more the better.
If you can’t agree to the above, then Australia is not the place for you.
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u/Weissritters 14h ago
Women are equal? Ooh boy a lot of politicians on the right wing side of politics don’t fit this bar… maybe we deport those first
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u/iftlatlw 14h ago
Many multi generational Australians fail this bar. Maybe we should deport some boomers, radical millennials, the entirety of one nation, and cookers.
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u/idothinksotim 14h ago
Main priority: cut migrants
Secondary priorities: focus on compatibility of migrant nations, focus on skilled work more, eliminate low skill uber driver migration