Location: Melbourne
It's often been said that there's nothing more Australian than a migrant, as everyone or their ancestors came from somewhere else, aside of course from indigenous Australians.
So as we reflect on matters migration – fundamental to modern multicultural Australia – I also acknowledge Australia's indigenous heritage, core to our national identity, and acknowledge the Traditional Owners the Wurundjeri and Bunnurong peoples of the Kulin nation.
I say right upfront, very genuinely, that I value enormously the work that you and other Migration Institute of Australia (MIA) members do. Indeed, my local community literally would not function without you.
My electorate of Bruce in south-east Melbourne covers much of Australia's most multicultural Council– Greater Dandenong – with people from every part of the world. (I can say "the most multicultural" as while I stand by the claim, it's Friday and Tony Burke is not here from Western Sydney to contest it!)
Visa queries and problems are by far the most common reason people contact my electorate office for help.
We do as much as humanly possible to assist but have very limited resources and are always mindful we are not trained migration agents. So one of the most common referrals my staff and I make is to the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority (OMARA) website encouraging people with complex matters to seek professional, expert assistance! (We do NOT recommend individual agents!)
More broadly, for the millions of Australians who are globally connected to family, loved ones and business activities overseas, a properly functioning visa system is critical infrastructure. Core to the patterns of everyday life: facilitating family reunion; visits for special occasions or emergencies; trade and business; or helping loved ones fleeing war, persecution and violence.
As an open, trading, multicultural nation, an orderly, fair migration system is not an optional extra – it's as important as any other major government function whether the ATO, Medicare, NDIS or the NBN.
The visa system though is inherently and in aspects unavoidably complex. The Department of Home Affairs has done terrific work building a really informative website, now with On-Demand-Translation into 16 languages. But Australians, businesses and applicants continue to rely on the work of professional, skilled migration agents, especially for more complex matters.
If you'll forgive me the market terminology, you are 'critical intermediaries' between consumers and a complex, dynamic regulatory system. As I explain to people locally who demand detailed advice, I would not presume to provide health, financial or tax advice and neither would I provide detailed migration advice on which major life decisions or outcomes may rest.
Permit me a moment of catharsis to note, notwithstanding my high regard for your work, a few irritations I see in my electorate work.
- Firstly, sometimes it's kinder to be direct and honest – if cases are hopeless then some agents should be more upfront and tell clients not to waste their money. I appreciate the Code pushes agents to do this but not lawyers who too often take money for hopeless cases.
- Secondly, I have a particular irritation when I see agents or lawyers taking money for humanitarian or protection cases that clearly have no prospect of ever getting a visa. I've been close to referring some to OMARA for unconscionable conduct. Please don't do it.
- Finally, too many agents tell their clients that somehow an MP can help if only we would write a letter or wave a magic wand that doesn't exist. Please don't mislead people. MPs letters do NOT change a case's priority, and it is impossible and unreasonable to expect MPs to write letters on routine visa applications.
Take all this as feedback – as I say to my staff, all feedback's a gift!
Overwhelmingly, your work is valuable and should be valued. So warm congratulations to the winners and nominees of the MIA Awards for Excellence in Migration, which were held last night. It's important that excellence is recognised.
Rather than drown you in detail, let me share a few broader reflections and updates of relevance to agents before taking questions.
Since 1945, more than six million migrants have chosen to make Australia their permanent home. Every town, every region, every suburb, every sporting club has been touched by generations of migrants.
Migrants are our relatives, neighbours, friends, work colleagues — business leaders, small business owners, researchers, workers.
And 2025 is a year of significant anniversaries and milestones of relevance to migration. 2025 marks the 80th anniversary year of the establishment of the very first Department of Immigration in Australia by the Curtin Labor Government, looking ahead to post War nation building.
This November marks the 50th anniversary of the Whitlam Labor Government's Racial Discrimination Act, having just abolished the last legal vestiges of the old racist White Australia Policy. Laying the legal foundations for the miracle of modern multicultural Australia we enjoy today and our proudly non-discriminatory migration policies. 2025 also marks the 50th year of Vietnamese migrants helping to build modern Australia.
40 years ago, in 1985, the Hawke Labor Government's requirement for Access and Equity strategies commenced. To ensure that all Australians could access programs and services that work for them on an equitable basis whatever their background or language abilities.
In future years speakers here may remark that it was in 2025 that the Albanese Labor Government established the Office for Multicultural Affairs (OMA), bringing together national multicultural policy, investments and settlement services.
And forevermore, people will look back on 2025 as the year that our nation welcomed the one millionth humanitarian migrant since WWII. This incredible milestone will soon be reached, showcasing our generosity as a nation and a moment to reflect on the contribution of refugees to building our country over decades.
Our human diversity today is both our nation's defining characteristic and greatest strength.
While a small, loud minority may protest our multicultural, migrant character – protesting against reality and often their own family histories – we can be confident that the vast majority of Australians cherish our multicultural nature. We see this in the research and the experience of daily life – in our schools, workplaces, and communities and especially our multicultural suburbs.
A critical part of welcoming and integrating people is to ensure the migration experience and settlement journey is a positive one. From the moment they start their visa application process, often with your assistance, to the support people receive to adapt to Australian life.
Making the system work requires a properly crafted migration strategy operating in our national interest, coupled with efficient visa processing and settlement support.
On the question of strategy, as you know, the Government inherited a shocking mess from the previous Government. There was basically no coherent migration policy. Thousands of staff had been cut from Home Affairs which had become a black hole of over 1 million visa and citizenship applications backlogged. Multiple independent reviews showed shocking misuse of the visa system by criminal syndicates with little or no enforcement.
So I'm pleased to confirm to you that our Government has now implemented most of the reforms in the Migration Strategy, including:
- improving the quality and integrity of international education and sensibly manage the size and shape of the onshore student cohort
- introducing the new National Innovation and Skills in Demand visas, and
- offering Pacific engagement visas to our Pacific family via ballot.
Just last week the Australian Border Force used our new laws to tackle migrant worker exploitation, placing the first business on the Prohibited Employer Register. Rogue employers can damage the reputation of the entire migration system, and we've sent a strong message that they won't be tolerated.
Digressing for a moment, a quick plug to all agents for a fantastic resource: The Workplace Rights Guide strong>. It has information about workers' rights and how to report exploitation. A practical tool you can give to clients, it's available on OMARA's website in many languages.
Other migration strategy reforms underway include:
- reviews of regional migration settings and the points test
- data matching of temporary skilled visa holders with the ATO to detect underpayment and exploitation; and
- consultation on settings for lower paid workers with essential skills.
Giving the States and Territories a greater say in migration planning is a key reform direction given their responsibility for infrastructure, housing, services, settlement, as well as education and training.
I chair the Ministerial Council of State and Territory Ministers on Migration and we are working to finalise this year's allocation of State and Regional nominated visas.
Work on State Migration Plans is continuing along with a transition to State and Territory led Designated Area Migration Agreements, or DAMAs, to help address regional labour shortages. We want more migrants working in regional Australia to support industries and employers.
Staffing levels in Home Affairs have been boosted including in enforcement. While processing pressures will always be present in areas, the system overall is vastly better shape than the mess we inherited just three years ago.
Yet despite this sensible, orderly work, continuing to clean up the Liberals' mess, the politics around migration has become increasingly toxic.
So let me now address the elephant in the room.
Contrary to ridiculous claims including by: actual Nazis; most of the Liberal Party including some who are regurgitating extremist and racist talking points; and also many decent people sucked in by misinformation, Australia does not have or suffer from mass migration.
Australia's borders are tightly controlled, and our migration system is highly targeted, orderly and operates with very high levels of integrity.
This year's permanent migration program has been held steady at 185,000 places – exactly the same as last year – a pretty normal level. Many, including States and Territories, actually argue this is a conservative level given our ageing population, strong labour market and family reunion pressures.
Net Overseas Migration (NOM) is also falling – by over 40% since its peak – though NOM is a statistical not a migration concept. It is not something any modern government fully dictates due to the vagaries of Australians who choose to leave or return to Australia, as well as the important demand driven parts of the temporary visa system.
As Michael Willard the Deputy Secretary of Immigration has observed, we are long past the 'ocean liner' era of migration where boatloads of permanent migrants arrived neatly and that was that.
We are a globally connected society and many people come and go on a temporary basis – Australians leave to work overseas; Australians return from overseas; Australians fall in love with people from overseas and have a right – in my view at least – to bring their loved one and children here and build a life together.
The global war for top talent continues. And Australia's population continues to age: In the early 80s there were approximately 6 workers for every retiree; yet today there are only around 3.5 workers for every retiree. And that retiree to worker ratio is projected to worsen further.
Regional Australian economies across the nation would literally collapse without the contribution of Working Holiday Makers in agriculture, hospitality and other critical sectors.
International students are our fourth biggest export sector, building Australian soft power across our region, supporting over 250,000 Australian jobs and helping to fund our higher education system, freeing up scarce taxpayer dollars for other priorities.
Yet Net Overseas Migration has also fallen rapidly towards pre-COVID levels, exactly as the Government said would happen. To explain: NOM plummeted during COVID when the borders were closed, then predictably spiked rapidly after the borders opened as Australians, partners, students, working holiday makers and skilled workers returned.
The rise in NOM was a bit higher than anticipated not as the Liberals and extremists pretend because of out-of-control visa grants, but because fewer people departed than expected due to Australia's very strong labour market. These temporary visa holders are now departing in larger numbers contributing to a rapid fall in NOM.
As an aside, it's worth noting that the conservative obsession with NOM is both recent and rather peculiar. It was never much talked about during the Liberals wasted decade. Only recently has the extreme right, the Liberal Party and their media cheer squad latched onto NOM – not as it's a genius policy concept but as for 2 to 3 years after the borders reopened it has conveniently given them Big Scary Numbers to add up and shout about and frighten people with in a grossly misleading way.
Australians have every right to query or debate migration policy.
But shouting and lying is not a debate; and nor are racist and offensive remarks about Australians of Indian heritage or whichever group the Liberal Party have chosen to offend week to week.
Policy in the national interest must be informed by evidence. Responsible political parties and leaders deal in facts not fiction and Australia is best served by a competent government, which we have, and a functioning Opposition, which we do not have.
The last few weeks have revealed that starkly. Fresh from an historic election loss where the Liberals literally ran out of groups to offend, they're now tearing themselves to pieces including a race to the bottom on race and migration, which is profoundly against our national interest.
Plaudits at least to Shadow Minister Senator Paul Scarr who has admitted that Australia does not suffer from mass migration as most of his colleagues falsely claim. Paul is a decent person, but the problem is that the Liberal Party of today is not the Liberal Party of old. It's not just a few extremists or populists – Hastie, Price and their cabal blowing the dog whistle now: the Liberals are all taking the coward's route.
Both terrified of yet cuddling up to One Nation, calling for "massive" cuts to migration, but never saying how or where that should occur. Pauline Hanson now lives rent free inside their heads. This is today's Liberal Party, it's who they are now.
As people in this room know well, there's no magic pudding. Q: What exactly are the Liberals planning to cut and will they be honest about the impact on Australians and the economy?
Q: Are the Liberals going to tell Australians they will no longer be free to fall in love with people from overseas as they slash Partner and Child visas?
Q: Exactly which regional economies, industries and services will they cripple first? Horticulture? Agriculture? Hospitality and tourism?
Q: Which nursing homes will they close in which suburbs and towns?
Q: Which rural areas will they tell people "no more GPs or nurses for you"?
Q: Which taxes will they raise or services will they slash to find billions for higher education if they were actually stupid enough to smash our globally significant international education sector?
Q: Which infrastructure or defence projects will they cancel without the required skilled workers?
You get the point. Anyone who wants to be taken seriously as Australia's alternative government actually has to have answers and solutions based on facts, not grievances and grudges that trade on lies and fear.
Australia is not Europe. Australia is not the USA. Our migration program is orderly and our borders are tightly controlled.
Yet the Liberals are so bereft of values, policies or ideas that they've got nothing else but trying to import foreign conflicts and culture wars. Australians deserve better.
Just a few words before we move to questions about matters that affect you.
The Nixon Review found that most RMAs do the right thing and provide a professional and ethical service to their clients.
However, a few corrupt agents pose a very high threat to Australia's visa programs. A group of facilitators, including scam operators and a small, organised group of RMAs were abusing the Australian visa system.
This is not a fringe issue – this abuse creates real victims—people being trafficked and exploited for profit. It is tantamount to modern slavery.
This sort of abuse has no place in this country, nor anywhere in the world for that matter.
This Government will not stop working to rid your sector of those scam providers who participate in criminal activity and wreak misery on, and entrap, vulnerable people.
Of course, the overwhelming bulk of RMAs are desperate to separate themselves from the bad actors and support government action to help protect their reputations and to weed out the bad shonks.
We have increased the number of inspectors, and a major multi-agency effort is currently underway to crack down on scam migration agents who have ripped off vulnerable visa applicants of more than $1.4 million.
There are teams right now focusing on scam agents who are providing people with unlawful protection visa advice—charging exorbitant fees and encouraging applicants to make false claims for bridging visas with work rights.
We are also looking at strengthening the registration process for RMAs, including better identity verification, and boosting financial penalties for the provision of unlawful immigration assistance.
Four legislative instruments which set the legal parameters than OMARA uses to regulate RMAs will sunset on 1 April 2026, which means they cease to have effect after this date.
They include the Migration Agents Regulations 1998 and the Migration Agents Registration Application Charge Regulations 1998.
Other requirements are also being re-tooled including:
- courses a person must pass to become an RMA
- English language proficiency standards
- matters relating to continuing professional development.
The Department has and will continue to consult with the MIA on the measures considered for inclusion in the new rules.
Thank you again to the MIA for inviting me in this year of anniversaries and milestones, and for the ongoing professional, constructive dialogue.
Of course we won't agree on every issue, but this Labor Government will always listen to you and engage respectfully. As the peak body for 33 years, we value the MIA's role and insights in helping to shape and improve Australia's migration program and visa system.
Migration has been and will continue to be a mighty player in building Australia's wealth and prosperity.
Migration has also dramatically shaped our identity and will continue to bring families together, to build a life in Australia.
Migration is life and nation changing.
Your work is important work to the people whose lives you touch and to our country.
