Visa squeeze on families and skilled workers under Morrison’s population pitch
Families and skilled workers are being targeted in a hard line on visa approvals that could drive Australia’s permanent migration intake below 160,000 new residents next year, as the Morrison government prepares a crucial election pitch on population and congestion.
Aspiring migrants are being forced to wait longer for decisions on family reunion and other visa programs, in a tougher approach that has kept permanent migration well below the 190,000 cap of previous years.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison is preparing a significant policy to be unveiled early next year after he meets state and territory leaders on December 12 to discuss ways to cut arrivals in Sydney and Melbourne while encouraging them in other regions.
The government will not adjust its official migration cap in the mid-year budget update next month but is facing a potential $1.9 billion cost over four years when it goes ahead with the lower intake in its election plan next year.
In a dramatic new stance on population policy, Mr Morrison declared on Monday that Australians were telling him “enough, enough, enough” on population growth because their roads were clogged and their buses were full.
While Mr Morrison raised the idea of cutting the permanent intake by 30,000 a year, some within the government believe a bigger cut will be possible based on current trends.
“It could go lower,” said one source of the mooted 160,000 target, while another cautioned that the government wanted to hear from state premiers next month before deciding where to make any cuts.
Immigration Minister David Coleman said the policy would be shaped by the “carrying capacity” of different regions, but he played down cuts to the skilled worker intake or the overseas students at Australian universities.
“We do have this anomaly at the moment where we’ve got very high levels of growth and congestion in Sydney and Melbourne and south-east Queensland, and then I’ve got people in my office from regional Australia saying ‘we want more migration’,” Mr Coleman said.
Employers have sponsored about 48,000 of the permanent migrants in previous years in a visa category that is being shielded from significant cuts, given the concern about a hit to the economy if companies lose skilled workers.
“Anything we do in this space will have a very, very sharp focus on skilled migration,” Mr Coleman said.
The government is looking closely at whether to tighten the rules on a separate 44,000 permanent migrants who enter Australia in a “skilled independent” program, where newcomers get residency on a points system without having any employer sponsorship.
The family stream is also being examined because it makes up about 57,000 of the intake forecast in a discussion paper issued on the intake for this financial year.
Former Immigration Department deputy secretary Abul Rizvi told Fairfax Media the government was on track to keep permanent migration down this financial year, in line with the intake of 162,417 in the year to June 30.
“That will require the government to again artificially hold back visa grants in the family stream and spouses in particular,” Mr Rizvi said.
Families could bear the brunt of the change because spouse visas make up 47,825 of the projected intake but would have to fall significantly to achieve the government’s objectives.
A Labor analysis suggests that waiting times for spouse visas keep getting longer, with the wait time for 90 per cent of applicants stretching out from 22 months last November to 24 months.
The Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme has seen similar delays, with 90 per cent of applicants waiting 19 months according to statistics last December but now waiting 24 months.
The fact that fewer applicants gain permanent residency does not necessarily mean fewer people are in Australia, given that so many applicants are already in the country on other visas while they wait for decisions.
The Labor analysis suggests the number of migrants on bridging visas was 197,798 people in September, up by 85,000 since the government took office in 2013.
Overseas students are not counted in the permanent migration intake but can be included in a different measure, net overseas migration, which includes any visitors who stay for 12 months or more during a period of 16 months. Net overseas migration increased by 27 per cent to 262,500 in the year to June 2017.
Mr Morrison and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton have held sharply different views on the migration program over the past year, while former prime minister Tony Abbott has called for a cut in the permanent intake to 110,000.
Mr Morrison said in February said he expected the intake to moderate but that Mr Abbott’s target would cost the budget between $4 billion and $5 billion over the next four years.
“But a permanent cut to the permanent intake, it’s very hard to look at the data and see that that’s actually the problem,” Mr Morrison said in February.
Mr Rizvi told Fairfax Media that the Prime Minister’s own estimates suggested that a cut of 30,000 would cost the budget $1.87 billion on a pro-rata basis.
Labor immigration spokesman Shayne Neumann said the Prime Minister’s latest declaration was a “cheap trick designed to get a headline” when there was a blowout in the number of people in the country on bridging visas.
“Morrison’s record is clear. He locked in Australia’s annual permanent migration intake at 190,000 during his time as immigration minister and then as treasurer. If he was wrong about that, he should explain why he was wrong,” Mr Neumann said.
“Labor has said we will work with the government on a bipartisan solution because we believe Australia’s population policy should be above politics.”
