Subjects: Net overseas migration, Skills in Demand visa, release of detainees from immigration detention.
SARAH HARRIS: In a move aimed at tackling Australia's crippling housing crisis, the government has today announced moves to slash our migration intake in half. But will it backfire?
CLARE O'NEIL: I'm confident that we've caught this problem in time.
SPEAKER: The problem: Record levels of migration, net overseas migration surpassing 500,000 last financial year, the largest in Australia's history, fuelled by international students who accounted for more than half of arrivals.
DAN TEHAN: It's pushing up house prices, it's pushing up rental prices, it's making it harder to see the GP, it's making congestion issues worse.
SPEAKER: A new poll finding 62 per cent of voters think migration is too high.
DAN TEHAN: They've created a mess, a complete mess. They always create a mess when it comes to immigration.
CLARE O'NEIL: When we arrived in government, we found a migration system in tatters.
ANDREW GILES: There were almost a million visas waiting to be processed. There was no plan.
SPEAKER: The government today vowing to slash the nation's net migration in half within two years. Back to pre-pandemic levels by tightening the screws on foreign students. The plan: Raising the bar for English language tests, rejecting applicants who look like they're only coming for work, as well as cracking down on onshore visa hopping and dodgy employers importing low skilled workers.
CLARE O'NEIL: Don't, frankly, create a free for all where we see young people coming to our country who should be getting a great education and having a great experience, but actually find that they're a victim of a labour scam.
SPEAKER: The government also unveiling a new Skills in Demand visa to lure in highly skilled workers.
BRAN BLACK: Australia is facing major skills deficits. Nurses, psychologists, childcare workers, aged care workers, accountants, data scientists, practically every category of engineer that you might care to point a stick at.
ABUL RIZVI: So, the government's got to manage this decline in net migration whilst not negatively affecting the ability of Australia to attract skilled workers in those key areas. That's a very difficult balancing act.
SPEAKER: So, with Australia a magnet for much needed migrants, has it got the balance right?
DAN TEHAN: Everything they are doing does not have a timeline. There is no final outcomes, apart from some predicted lowering in about four or five years time. This is all talk and no action.
SARAH HARRIS: Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil joins us now. Minister, the Opposition argue you're not going far enough. Are your cuts too cautious?
CLARE O'NEIL: Well, I don't take huge creed in what the Opposition says because this is a system that they broke and up until very recently they were saying, bring more migrants faster. So, I just want to set their views aside for a moment.
What I would say is that it's very important that we bring this system back to a sustainable size. And that's because there's really big pressures at the moment in our major cities, in particular, on housing, on our infrastructure. But also the reason that migration is this special source of our great country is because the public have always supported this program and they'll only support it if it's sustainable in size. That's why our government is taking what are pretty drastic cuts to the programme, effectively cutting migration in half over a two-year period. And this will bring our program back to basically what is historically normal after we had that big shutdown during COVID.
SUSIE YOUSSEF: Australia is dancing on the brink of recession and migration has always been a strong driver of economic growth. So, is cutting the numbers now risking lunging us into one?
CLARE O'NEIL: Look, no, but it's really important for us to just understand who is in this community of people who are coming to help us with our national endeavours. One of the things that's not working about our program at the moment is that the very people we most need in the economy right now, those really highly skilled people, our doctors, our psychologists, our cybersecurity specialists who are going to help us build our national wealth, are actually finding it incredibly difficult to use the system at the moment. And while that's been occurring, we've allowed side doors and back doors to be opened, principally through our international student system, that have allowed a very large number of people to come into the country who are very vulnerable to exploitation. The blueprint that we're releasing today basically puts a fix in for this, creates better pathways for those people who are going to create huge wealth, create jobs, build businesses that will employ other Australians, but deals with those big integrity system issues that are creating a lack of trust in the community at the moment.
HAMISH MACDONALD: Minister, how can you be so certain, though, that this won't push Australia into recession? You're talking about the mix of migrants there, but you are also going to reduce, in your own words, by half the total intake. I think our GDP growth is just above 0 per cent at the moment. Won't this do damage to our economy and maybe make the cost of living crisis worse, as well as maybe the housing crisis?
CLARE O'NEIL: Jim Chalmers, our Treasurer, is going to do a really big update on the budget on Wednesday. And so the numbers will show there what our migration forecasts are, but also what our growth forecasts are. So, that will show you really the answer to your question about whether this will produce a recession and the best Treasury evidence is no. But I just say to you, Hamish, I live in Melbourne, I'm 43. People my age in my city and anyone younger right now think that owning their own home is a pipe dream. They can't get into a rental. So, we've got those big economic numbers that you're talking about there that are important, but we've got a housing crisis in our country that is not being helped by what is a very large migration intake. We have to address this, Hamish, and we need to do that hard work on housing that our government's been doing for 18 months, that 1.2 million houses that we want to see built in our country over the coming five years.
HAMISH MACDONALD: Minister, you've obviously been at the centre of this crisis that's engulfed the government in recent weeks following the release of some 148 detainees from immigration detention. You've now said sorry for what's happened since their release, so you are taking some responsibility, but there are calls for you to resign. Will you?
CLARE O'NEIL: Well, no, I won't. And I think the government's actually handled this very well. I accept that some of you on the panel may have a different view about that, but could I just point out to your viewers, we received a High Court decision just over a month ago. Within a month of that High Court decision being made, we'd followed the law. We'd created bespoke visas for each of these individuals, we'd put in place appropriate conditions, we'd created an entirely new regime to do so, and we've now created a preventative detention model. That is very swift action from an Australian government over a month.
HAMISH MACDONALD: Given that there's already been issues with at least six of these individuals since they've been released, how can you possibly claim that your government's handled this well. I mean, I remember you and your Immigration Minister in the days immediately after the High Court ruling assuring us in the community that everyone would be safe.
CLARE O'NEIL: Hamish, the reason that these people were released from detention was because the High Court of Australia, which gets to govern our constitution and our legal system, demanded that the government do it. And I have said repeatedly that if I had any legal power to keep these people in detention, they wouldn't be out in the community. And my job now as Home Affairs Minister is to make sure that I do everything within my legal power to protect the safety of the Australian community. And that is why we have launched a $255 million police response while we've created a preventative detention regime, while we've created that system of ankle monitoring tracking for those individuals, and why we are doing everything we can to try to protect the community.
HAMISH MACDONALD: So, with those new laws that you have in place, how many of those that have been released are you going to try and put back behind bars?
CLARE O'NEIL: That will be a decision for courts, Hamish, and I don't want to get -
HAMISH MACDONALD: But it's a decision for government as to how many applications they make to the courts to do that. So, you should be able to answer that question.
CLARE O'NEIL: So, I'm not going to get into the legal detail, nor is it appropriate for me to pre-empt those decisions. What we will do is make applications to a court. A court will get to decide. The whole crux of the High Court's decision here is that I, as a minister, no longer have legal power to detain people. We have now given courts that power. And of course, that's a power we'll be seeking to use.
SARAH HARRIS: Minister O'Neil, thank you so much for your time tonight.
CLARE O'NEIL: Thanks so much, guys.
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