In announcing the outcome of the migration and humanitarian programs, immigration ministers have traditionally provided extensive details on outcomes against planning levels by visa category, as well as other relevant information (see here for examples of such reports for past years). For the 2017-18 outcome, Peter Dutton rushed to get the news out via an exclusive for the front page of The Australian around a week before the Longman by-election. But unlike past years, Dutton held back the details. The report on the 2017-18 outcome is still under embargo almost a month after the exclusive for The Australian. Dutton is unlikely to release the report until at least after the next Senate Estimates hearings in October. (more…)
Abul Rizvi
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ABUL RIZVI: Business migration should focus on establishing businesses not passive investment
While Eryk Bagshaw’s article of 8 July 2018 screams Millionaires stream in, the Sun Herald’s editorial of the same day is a bit more sanguine about the benefits and risks of the Business Innovation and Investment Programme that facilitates entry of business migrants and investors. This Programme and its predecessors, while superficially attractive, have a chequered history as recognised by the Productivity Commission in its 2016 Report on the Migrant Intake and Minister Alex Hawke’s decision to initiate a review of the Programme. (more…)
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ABUL RIZVI: Pezzullo’s Dark World View is Paralyzing Australia’s Immigration System.
In a recent speech to heads of international border agencies, Mike Pezzullo, head of Australia’s new Home Affairs Department, again highlighted the dark world view that, together with the policies of Peter Dutton, is paralyzing our world class immigration system. (more…)
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ABUL RIZVI. Will Dutton’s high stakes gamble wrong-foot the Treasury?
Peter Dutton is gambling with a long-standing pillar of Australia’s economic and budget success. By making the biggest cut to permanent skilled migration since the recession of the early 1990s, combined with a throttling of skilled temporary migration, Dutton will significantly reduce net migration and therefore our population growth rate. The 1.6% per annum population growth assumption in the recent Budget could be too high by between 12% and 25%. (more…)
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ABUL RIZVI. Inter-generational inequality, the fertility rate and population ageing.
Australia’s fertility rate continued its steady decline in 2016-17 and fell to 1.732, close to the level when Peter Costello rang the alarm about low fertility accelerating our rate of population ageing. It is also a level well below that assumed in the 2015 Inter-generational Report (1.9) and in the ABS’s 2012 population projections (1.8). (more…)
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ABUL RIZVI. Is Bob Birrell Right on Australia’s Skilled Migration Program?
Australia has tentatively begun a debate about immigration – both the size of the annual intake and whether the country is choosing the right migrants. It’s a vital debate, but one that is open to misunderstanding, to producing more heat than light. With such a sensitive topic, the facts are critical. (more…)