Clare O'Neil, Minister of Home Affairs, pledges an overhaul of Australia's 'broken' and 'backwards' migration system.
And she’s right. It’s archaic, slow, and downright backwards.
In a landmark speech to the Workforce Summit 2023, Ms. O’ Neil said that, “Australia's migration system is broken, it is not strategic, it is complex, expensive, it's slow” and that the new government is working on business-friendly solutions to critical worker shortages.
"It's not delivering for business, it's not delivering for migrants and it's not delivering for the nation” she said.
Ms. O'Neil said the government was considering "eight big changes" that would drive a new model for migration and hoped that an “architecture document" would be complete by April in that regard.
As a start, I have a few ideas:
- Radically reduce processing times: using whatever resources that requires.
- Eliminate the current processing backlogs: using whatever resources that requires.
- Open permanent residence options to ALL OCCUPATIONS in ALL REGIONS.
- Remove the requirement for local employers to advertise and pay exorbitant levies to hire from abroad.
- Increase and return the age cap back to 50, to afford more experienced applicants the opportunities too.
These are just off the top of my head, but there is a lot that can be done to get Australia to the top of the immigration heap and fix the current skills shortage.
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