​Subjects: Migration Hub at ANU, Pacific Engagement Visa, reduction of visa backlogs, measures to address the exploitation of migrant workers, NZ direct pathways to citizenship, pending Migration Strategy, integrity of the asylum framework, and the Multicultural Framework Review.

Firstly, I acknowledge the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, the Traditional Custodians of the land on which this event is taking place today. I pay my respects to Elders past and present, and extend those respects to any First Nations people here today. 

Thank you Brian Schmidt and congratulations on your tenure as the Vice Chancellor of ANU.

I’d also like to acknowledge the other speakers today, Amy Pope, the recently elected Director General of the IOM, Hass Dellal, Chair of the Multicultural Framework Review, and Joanna Howe, member of the recently completed Parkinson Review.

Thank you to Professor Alan Gamlen for the kind invitation to address this forum for the second year in a row. I’m so glad to see the Migration Hub at ANU is growing – hosting events, promoting research networks, and contributing to the public debate.

Your submissions to both the Migration Review and the Multicultural Framework Review demonstrate the rich expertise found at the ANU on migration, informed by decades of deep research.

I might not agree with every idea suggested but as a Government, we are much better placed to consider what comes next when it’s informed by the rigour so evident in these pieces of work – and, as a society, indeed democracy, we are so much the better through such dialogue.

So, I’m also heartened to see a host of officials from the Department of Home Affairs here today. There is so much potential for close collaboration between government and civil society, including researchers.

This collaboration can produce much more than simply the sum of the parts. But it requires constant work, including making the time to listen and further our collective knowledge. 

I know there are many excellent researchers associated with the Hub. But I’d like to quickly draw attention to one example, demonstrating how a sustained contribution to the public debate can shape and inform policy decisions.

For a long time, the Pacific was an afterthought in relation to Australia’s social, economic, and geostrategic interests. Clearly, this is no longer the case. The Pacific is at the forefront of Australia’s foreign relations.

Before our collective shift to better recognise the Pacific, there were those exploring questions one day we would seek answers to.

This group included the Development Policy Centre at the ANU, whose research about the Pacific is both rigorous with regard to evidence and methodology, and digestible for a general audience via their well-read blog.

In particular, the research on labour mobility and migration stands out. Professor Stephen Howes and his team are leading thinkers in this area.

As you may be aware, last month the Parliament passed a Bill to amend the Migration Act which will facilitate a new visa, the Pacific Engagement Visa.

This is a permanent visa, designed for Pacific citizens, with the explicit aim to grow the Pacific diaspora in Australia.

In a first for Australian migration policy, the visa will rely on a ballot and proved more than a little bit controversial to secure passage in the Senate.

However the Parliament passed the Bill and now, each year, up to 3000 additional Pacific citizens will make their life in Australia. My friend and colleague Minister Pat Conroy tells me on good authority that this visa would not exist were it not for the Development Policy Centre, who have shaped both the policy thinking and the public debate on this topic. 

The Development Policy Centre is a credit to the ANU, an important voice on migration policy, and a testament to how public policy can be shaped by the combination of good research and effective communications.

I want to talk a little bit about the public debate on immigration.

Australia is a majority migrant nation.

Over half of us were either born overseas, or have a parent born overseas.

Migration has helped build modern Australia. And we have done this through citizenship, not guest worker arrangements.

Over one in five of us speak a language other than English at home.

We are a proud multicultural society, where almost nine in ten Australians say multiculturalism is good for Australia.

This work remains in progress, but multiculturalism is the greatest success of modern Australia.

These facts have been understated in our political conversations.

It’s also important to recognise and to listen to different perspectives found across public debate, to attempt to reconcile them.

I hear from State Premiers and business leaders almost every week about the need to address skills gaps in the labour market and the critical role migrants are playing right across the economy.

I hear from communities how important family connection is, to maintain links while making a new home in Australia.

I also hear from those concerned about where people will live when they come to Australia.

For some, there is an apprehension about the potential environmental effects of more people living in Australia.

For others, concern about would-be economic displacement.

It is legitimate for people to hold these views and I will be the first to listen and engage with those who are concerned or worried. 

I’m not interested in shrill populism, which is a road to nowhere. A dead end.

Nor will I get into tit for tat debates with people seeking to promote division, giving them exactly what they are after – validation and standing. 

But I am interested in a proper debate, a respectful debate where the distance between different perspectives can be bridged by listening and learning from each other.

As Australia’s Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs my aspiration is to participate in these conversations, while helping to build, manage and maintain a visa system that;

• works to support our national prosperity and living standards;
• recognises our humanitarian obligations; and,
• builds a stronger society in which our diversity is realised as our greatest strength.​​
  
  

It’s through these principles that I have approached my work over the past 18 months. The Albanese Government inherited a visa system with backlog after backlog, delays and waitlists.

The former Liberal government deprioritised and devalued the administration of immigration, particularly within the Department of Home Affairs.

And something I’ve discovered in these 18 months is that good administration – the ability to provide certainty – is at the heart of a well-functioning, and reform-minded immigration system.

Put simply, you cannot reform your way out of a dysfunctional visa system. You can only work hard, take one step at a time, and address the delay and uncertainty.

With this in mind, the Albanese Government has added more than 680 additional staff to support the visa system since May 2022.

The number of temporary visa applications waiting to be assessed has reduced by about 70 per cent. Visa applications for teachers and nurses are being turned around in a matter of days – whereas it previously took over seven weeks. 

The time taken to assess citizenship applications have halved, and for the first time in over six years there are fewer than 100,000 applications in the system.

We have increased the Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold, or TSMIT. After a decade of wages being deliberately held down, we are doing everything to promote wage growth.

We have progressed a substantial package of measures to address the exploitation of migrant workers. Unfortunately there is structural exploitation of vulnerable workers in this country, and far too often those workers hold a temporary visa.

We have provided more resources to enforcement, ensuring employers who do the wrong thing and mistreat workers in a vulnerable position are found, and sanctioned.

We cannot have a race to the bottom on wages and conditions.

There is legislation currently in the Senate to create criminal penalties for exploitative behaviour and new enforcement tools to send a message to those employers who flout the law.

We have sought to promote permanent residency and address the growing number of those ‘permanently temporary’ in Australia.

This is why the Albanese Government has created a direct pathway to citizenship for New Zealand citizens, instead of leaving them in limbo for decades.

Already over 20,000 New Zealanders have sought Australian citizenship since July.

By the end of 2023, the restrictions on pathways to residency for temporary skilled visa workers will be lifted.

And the pending Migration Strategy will further enhance these approaches.

These changes matter. They affect lives each and every day, and in so doing shape our community.

Perhaps closest to my heart are the changes we have undertaken to Australia’s approach to humanitarian migration.

We have put forward a series of reforms built around three principles:

• Offering more refugees the chance to rebuild their lives in Australia;
• Creating safer pathways to resettlement, in place of dangerous and uncertain journeys, and denying people smugglers their trade; and
• Forging cooperation with regional and global partners in an appreciation of shared interests and imperatives.

Earlier this year, I tabled regulations in the Parliament to permit those who hold a Temporary Protection Visa or a Safe Haven Enterprise Visa (SHEV) to transition to a permanent visa.

Around 10,000 have made this transition, with more applications processed each day. I am proud to end the needless limbo for people’s lives in Australia, where they have been found to be owed protection.

We have begun to address the integrity of the asylum framework. During almost a decade of neglect, under-investment and mismanagement by the former government, backlogs were allowed to grow exponentially.

This happened across the entire migration system however delays in processing and reviewing onshore Protection visa applications, in particular, blew out. 

It is crucial that Australia’s asylum framework function effectively to provide certainty to those in need.

We have recently invested over $160 million to improve protection visa assessments and increase capacity at the AAT and in the courts to hear these matters.

Our protection system and the backlogs will take time to fix. But as a result of these investments, those in need of Australia’s protection will be provided certainty about their future sooner, allowing them to focus on building their lives in Australia.

Those who are seeking to exploit the system and are applying simply to extend their stay in Australia will be swiftly refused. 

And lastly, I’m so proud to be part of a Government that has increased the humanitarian program – to 20,000 places this year and for each year into the future.

The former Liberal government cut the humanitarian program. Once under Prime Minister Abbott, and then again under Prime Minister Morrison.

Australia has resettled almost one million refugees since the end of the Second World War. It’s one of our greatest national stories, the contribution and enrichment of our society by those who fled persecution.

And just last week, we saw how these pathways can change over time. The Falepili Union – between Australia and Tuvalu – recognises that as climate change impacts worsen, the people of Tuvalu deserve the choice to live, study and work elsewhere.

Australia has committed to provide a special pathway for citizens of Tuvalu to come to Australia, with access to Australian services that will enable human mobility with dignity.

These are life changing decisions. And the Labor Party has an aspiration to keep going, by building stronger community sponsored pathways and other complementary forms of protection. 

In December, I will lead Australia’s delegation to the Global Refugee Forum, seeking to formally re-engage with the world on these questions and showcase Australia’s leadership on humanitarian migration. 

I am seeking to deliver a much needed global humanitarian dividend, for more resettlement, and additional complementary pathways.

There are more people displaced today than at any point in human history. We must seek – and lead – to provide more support for durable solutions given the scale of forced displacement across the world.

I want to finish by speaking about one of my priorities for next year.

I recently commissioned a review of the multicultural framework of our country. 

The Review is exploring ways government and the community can work together to support a cohesive, multicultural society.

How to advance a vibrant and prosperous future for all Australians.

I appointed three reviewers and a reference group. Hass Dellal is the Chair, supported by Nyadol Nyuon and Christine Castley. The Reference Group include representatives from peak bodies, business, and the community.

Recently, I was reminded why this Review is so important.

The former Prime Minister, John Howard, made appalling comments about Australian multiculturalism. Comments which demonstrated how out of touch he is with modern Australia.

I was unsurprised to hear these comments. John Howard called for a ‘slow-down’ in Asian migration as Opposition Leader in the late 1980s.

His own colleague, Philip Ruddock, crossed the floor of the Parliament to vote with the Hawke Government to reaffirm a non-discriminatory approach to Australian migration. 

John Howard deprioritised institutional frameworks to support our multicultural society, such neglecting the Office for Multicultural Affairs.

The Howard Government’s first Budget systematically eliminated funding to anything related to multiculturalism. 

Our conversation about multicultural Australia needs to be better than this.

We need to draw our diverse community together, not seek to divide.

I look forward to receiving the review next year to consider.

Thank you once again for having me at your conference.

I look forward to witnessing the Migration Hub at ANU continue to grow, and thrive, to help inform our public debate.

[ENDS]