Minister for immigration and citizenship Chris Evans talks to Business Spectator’s Isabelle Oderberg about:

• Whether the tough financial climate will lead to a cut-back in immigration
• Why he is looking at adjusting the skills list for those wanting to come to Australia on a skilled migrant visa
• The issues faced by recent graduates from overseas that want to stay in Australia as skilled migrants but are disadvantaged by poor English language skill

Isabelle Oderberg: There seems to be a little bit of confusion . On the one hand we’re saying that immigration is positive for our economy and can be of help, but on the other hand we’re sort of possibly looking at cutting back the numbers amid the global crisis. I was wondering if you could just give us some clarity.

Chris Evans: Well, migration of skilled migrants is very much a positive, both for the budget in terms of taxation, etc, but also in terms of the contribution more broadly to the community. We had some work done by Access Economics last year that I released, which showed the impact on the budget of skilled migrants because their employment outcomes are even higher than Australian residents’, so they have good employment outcomes and therefore contribute very strongly to the economy.

But the skilled migration program in particular is linked to the employment and skills needs of the economy. We have about 70 per cent of our migration is in the skills categories, so clearly there’s a very close link between the state of the economy and the skilled migration program and when we framed the budget in May, we went for the largest migration program ever because of the enormous skills shortages in the Australian economy, the fact that the economy was growing and that skills shortages was a real capacity constraint on the economy. Projects were being delayed or hindered by the lack of the appropriate skilled workforce and also we took into account unemployment projections, etc.

Now, all I’ve said publicly is that clearly, given the strong link between, you know, our skilled migration program and the skills needs of the economy, any change in unemployment projections particularly any suggestion of a sizeable rise in unemployment, you would sensibly look at the size of the migration program and while that focus would obviously be for next year’s budget, clearly if there was a major downturn in the economy, you’d also have a look at this year’s program and all I said is that when MYEFO (mid-year economic and fiscal outlook) comes out, I like most of the other ministers will have a sort of mature and sensible look at the programs they run and see whether any adjustments need to be made.

IO: Obviously the possibility of cutting back the numbers has been discussed in the public arena. Has that decision been made yet, or is that something you’re going to wait to make?

CE: No. Well, certainly I want to have a look at MYEFO because as I say the growth forecast and the employment forecast are critical there and I’m also consulting with industry. I met with the Western Australian business community in a meeting organised by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and I hope to do a similar thing in Melbourne and just generally talking to business about their expectations.

I mean, one of the problems of course is that people aren’t quite sure yet what the impact of the international financial crisis is going to be on their businesses. But certainly the message in Western Australia was all fairly upbeat that their projections for employment remain strong and their projections for their skills and labour needs remain strong. Now as I say they’ve got to make judgments about that as things develop, but they were very keen to send the message that particularly in Western Australia, they expected to continue to have reasonably strong economic growth and still had a very serious need for skilled migrants.

You know one of the things I’ve been looking at developing is a program much more sensitive to the various economies inside the Australian economy. There’s no doubt that the, you know, the Queensland and Western Australian economies have been developing at different speeds, driven by different things than some of the Eastern states or Tasmanian economies and I think we’ve just got to be much more sensitive to the skills needs in different sectors of the economy acknowledging that they won’t be the same at the same time.

IO: Is there a way, if you were for instance to put specific intakes on particular states in terms of allowances, to put restrictions on once the migrations have come to Australia where they actually have to make themselves a resident?

CE: No. You can’t. You can’t do that. Clearly, if they’re sponsored by employers and as a requirement for them to work where the sponsoring employer requires them, but effectively you can’t bond people to stay in a particular region. I’m not so much talking about giving allocations to states, but giving them more flexibility. People can only come in under the nominated skills and some of the states are saying to me that some of the people they want to bring in aren’t on the skills list, that they need more flexibility and I’m working with the state governments on giving them a bit more flexibility and making sure that the skills list better reflects the skills needs in the economy. I think the current system is a bit inflexible and a bit slow responding to those needs and also I want to prioritise the skills we need at the moment. People come in on the general skilled migration program on which the order they applied and I think they ought to be coming in the order of the needs of the economy.

IO: I will come back to specific skill-based visas, but I just want to ask about employment statistics. What are some of the other economic indicators that you’ll be looking at in terms of writing policy?

CE: Well, I mean the overall economic picture’s clearly, you know, the broad thing when we want to look at… that includes the economic growth forecasts and obviously the unemployment forecasts. It would be very hard to run the large migration programs if there was, you know, increasing and serious unemployment.

Now, having said that, of course you know the people you might want to bring in might have a different skill base from those who are facing unemployment or downturns in their industry and it’s about getting that balance right. We still have a serious need for doctors and nurses and unemployment saying the manufacturing industry won’t alleviate that need, we’ll continue to need and want to bring in doctors and nurses under the skilled migration program, so there’s not necessarily a direct correlation, but clearly the public are very sensitive to migration in a lot of times of rising unemployment and clearly, you know, there will be people looking into either retrain or get employment in other sectors so it’s about just looking at all those issues and making a judgment about how we make sure the migration program’s meeting the economic needs of Australia.

IO: How do you respond to people who see this issue in a fairly sort of one-dimensional way, that say ‘there are fewer jobs and if we have more migrants then there are fewer jobs for people who are already here’? It seems to me that it’s a fairly simplistic way to look at it. Do you agree and how do you deal with that sort of argument? CE: Well, they’re certainly very simplistic and I think as I’ve been explaining I don’t think that’s a correct way to view it, but it’s obviously easier to run a simplistic argument than a complicated argument and already have a number of sort of commentators out there running anti migration lines and a number of conservative commentators who don’t seem to take any notice of what business is saying about their needs. Business are much more ‘pro’ the migration program and there are some other sectors of the community, but I think one of the things is there’s just no real understanding of what’s changed in the migration program over the years.

Most people don’t realise that more than 40 per cent of the permanent migration program is from people onshore, but when you say you’re bringing in a skilled migration program of 133,000 over 40 per cent are already here. They’re on 457s or are students and some other categories, but predominantly students or 457 holders, so you’re not actually bringing in 133,000. Secondly, of the 133,000 that includes spouses and dependents, so the actual numbers of primary visa holders… about half of the, you know, sort of headline figure. But that’s the sort of complexity that’s not broadly understood.

Every speech I make I try and educate people about the realities of the program. I must admit that until I took up the portfolio I wasn’t aware of how much the program had changed, but increasingly people are coming onshore, trying and seeing how they go. If they like Australia and we like them in terms of their employability, some of them then look to stay. It’s not the same situation as when you used to sort of line up at Australia House in London and make your application for permanent relocation to Australia never having been to the place. That’s less and less the experience and I think within a very short period of time more than 50 per cent of the program will be people, you know, converting to permanent under the permanent migration program who are already onshore.

IO: Obviously politics is a highly emotionally charged sort of area in a lot of sectors, but immigration surely has got to be one of the more emotionally debated areas. Do you find that and do you find it’s a difficult sort of thing to deal with?

CE: Oh look, the thing about immigration is it’s a people portfolio and we have, you know, a migration of about 200,000 a year. That’s 200,000 people. We have further numbers of people come into Australia with work rights each year of about 500,000. That’s students and temporary workers and holiday makers. So, you know, you’ve got any one time, you know, 700,000, 800,000 to a million people who all have a personal experience and a personal story and it’s easy to dramatise any one of those stories and some of them are dramatic. So because it’s a people portfolio, you know, it’s always going to be quite emotive. The recent case of the doctor in Victoria is a classic and as you know a lot of the experiences of refugees, etc have been highly…I’m not decrying that. They are strong personal stories. I’m not for a moment pretending that they aren’t emotive – they are and that’s just the reality of the portfolio. But I think sometimes there are elements of race and culture and religion and sometimes… it’s very easy to play on the fear card, particularly at times of rising unemployment.

IO: You mentioned that business is asking for migration numbers to be maintained or skilled programs to stay in place. What are the particular areas that can be helped at the moment by migration and skilled migration at that? The mining sector is one that is sort of traditionally called on, but are there any others that you could give us as examples?

CE: No, no. There have been increasing numbers in construction trades and if we’re going to bring on fast track infrastructure programs and some of the major mining developments go ahead, there’ll be a shortage in construction trades particularly in regional Australia and those are great issues of course, because sometimes labour’s not mobile within Australia. So sometimes you might have tradesmen in Sydney who are underemployed, but are not prepared to work in the northwest of WA or the Cape York Peninsula sort of thing, but construction trades is another area.

The health area still remains the largest area certainly of temporary migration. We still bring in lots of doctors and lots of nurses and lots of other health professionals because we just don’t have the skills in the numbers we need and that’s a reflection on our failure to train over the last sort of 15 years, but nevertheless there’ll be an ongoing demand in the health sector. The largest employer of 457s certainly up until recently, I haven’t checked recently, was the New South Wales Health Commission, so people I think have got to understand that the health workforce is a huge part of the migration program. The IT area is another area where there’re have been large numbers of people coming into the country to meet IT skills needs and then there’s a fair cross section, you know, across industries.

IO: If you do decide to cut back any numbers later in the year or in the future, what are the likely areas where that will be? 457s are actually one of the more controversial, or there’s also the humanitarian area. I’m just wondering where those cutbacks are likely to appear.

CE: Well if the argument that is impacting on you is the question of unemployment and maybe reduction in economic activity, then you’d think the first area you’d look is the skills program, in the sense that the family and humanitarian program aren’t as strongly linked to the economic circumstances.

For instance, about 50,000 of the program is family reunion, mainly spouses. I don’t think it would be acceptable or desirable to say to Australians that they can’t bring, you know, having lived overseas bring their wife or husband into the country. A lot of people fail to understand those persons are actually often skilled migrants themselves, but you know they’re coming into the country primarily on the basis of their relationship. Now, that’s been an uncapped program for many years and I say I don’t think we’d want to be looking at capping, you know, saying to people they can’t live with their partner because we’ve cut back on the migration program for next year, so that’s a classic example.

Humanitarian as well seems to be that’s a program where we commit to the UN and other agencies to take so many humanitarian refugees each year. I wouldn’t expect we’d look to cut back on that, because again, it’s not as closely linked to the skills needs of the economies. So I think if you were going to look at any changes, you’d start at the area of skilled migration and one of the things I’ve been talking about is just better targeting that program. I think it’s not as targeted and responsive as it needs to be and we may well find by targeting we’re actually getting a better result. It’s not just a numbers game, but about bringing the right skills in.

IO: So the 457 program’s likely to stay uncapped and in place?

CE: Well, certainly my preference would be for that to be the case, so there’s been no consideration of capping it. It seems to me that the economic theory and I’d be interested to see how this works in practice, but the economic theory is that employers will only recruit 457 workers when they have the need and they’ll return them when they don’t. It’s sort of directly linked to the economic activity of the employer and their skills and labour needs, so while it’s been growing at a very rapid rate while the economy’s been growing at a very rapid rate, you’d expect a fall off in applications for 457 workers to be brought into the country if the economy slackened, so it’s directly linked to economic activity and should be much more responsive to any change in the economic activity.

IO: You mentioned also that a lot of the migrants that take up places in these programs are actually already here, for instance students. If students take up places in skilled migrant programs, I understand that there is no way to actually track that they are actually working in the profession in which that they nominated to work when they’ve applied for the visa. Is that true and if so, is that something we should be looking at?

CE: Look, first of all it is true, but effectively you can’t not allow that to occur. You can’t, for instance, say well, you’re a journalist but someone offers you $200,000 to work as a, you know, office worker in a mine in the northwest, I can’t say well you can’t take it, you’ve got to work as a journalist. You can’t bond people in that way, so that’s the first point.

But the criticism about students actually being ready to work in the profession they nominate I think is a reasonable area of concern. The previous government looked to try and lift the responsiveness in terms of English standards and giving them some work experience and I’m looking to do a few further things in that regard. One of the problems we have is good quality graduates graduating and getting entry to the general skilled migration program, but whose English isn’t quite good enough to be necessarily employed in that profession because of their language skills, ability to deal with clients. The classic is accountants, where a lot of students with really good qualifications and reasonable English are not necessarily employed by the large accountancy firms because they take the view their English isn’t quite good enough for customer relations, etc.

So I think making sure we get, you know, good standards of English is important and also making sure that the courses people are studying in order to get general migration to Australia are directly linked to our skills needs and there have been some examples where people are following the sort of easiest course, with a view to getting permanent migration that doesn’t necessarily match the skill requirement of the nation and I’m keen to tighten that to make sure that if they get a chance to permanently migrate, they’re actually meeting some of our skills needs, not necessarily just getting the easiest path through the system.

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