My name is Lily Madden and I'm a proud Arunda Bungelung Calcottin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Straight Island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Good morning and welcome to the Daily os It's Wednesday, the thirteenth of December. I'm Sam.
That day, I'm Zara.
Thank you.
The federal government has unveiled its new migration plan in an effort to quote fix Australia's broken migration system.
When we arrived in government, we found a migration system in tatters. We are going to make sure that we bring numbers back under control and perhaps most importantly of all, that we build a program that delivers for the national interest.
Now, under the new plan, the government will make it harder for some international students to live and study here in Australia. So we're going to outline what's going to happen and how it will happen in today's deep Dive. The first Sam, It's making headlines.
An independent report into Australia's education system is calling for better funding in public schools to close the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students. An expert panel made several recommendations to improve student well being and performance and increase support for educators. Recommendations included introducing standardized literacy and numeracy testing for year one students and measures to help senior students
transition to life after school. The report's findings are expected to inform how schools are funded under a new agreement to be decided next year and implemented from twenty twenty five.
New sexual harassment laws for Australian workplaces have come into effect. Under the legislation, employers will be responsible for implementing a proactive approach to prevent harassment from occurring in the workplace, rather than a reactive response after the incident occurs. Workplaces could be investigated by the Australian Human Rights Commission if they fail to implement measures to prevent sexual harassment.
The CEO of Netball Australia, Kelly Ryan, has resigned, effective immediately. It comes as the sport's peak body negotiates a new collective player Agreement pay deal. Ryan said the timing felt right to hand over the reins. Since Ryan became CEO in twenty twenty one, the Diamonds won gold at the Commonwealth Games and the Netball World Cup. Executive General Manager Stacy West has been appointed Netball Australia's acting CEO.
And the good news three Aussies are in the running for a Golden Globe Award. Margot Robbie, Sarah Snook and Elizabeth de Bickie have all been nominated. Robbie is up for Best Female Actor in a Comedy for Barbie, whilst Snook has been nominated for Best Female Actor in a TV Show for her portrayal of Shivroy in Succession. Debicki is up for Best Female Supporting Actor in a TV Show Award, and that is for her performance as Princess Diana in The Crown. The ceremony will take place on
the seventh of January. So Sam, Yesterday we uploaded a story on Instagram about the government's new migration plan and the very first comment we got was from someone called Jess, who commented, would love a deep dive on the pod, Suggess. If you are listening your wish is our command and today we are going to deep dive into that topic. So it's the government's new migration strategy and it came as a result of a review of our country's migration system and basically maps out where to from here.
How good is that for a feedback loop with the audience that you can request a deep dive in the comments and the next day here it is. So I'm keen to dive into this. Why was there a review in the first place.
So, as we all know, migration to Australia during COVID nineteen all but stopped. We had, of course, those hard borders closures and very very strict rules for letting people into the country, so not many people arrived from overseas
between twenty twenty and twenty twenty one. But then naturally, as the borders opened and Australia kind of re emerged from COVID, we had waves of people coming into the country and in the year to March twenty twenty three, net migration to Australia grew by more than four hundred and fifty thousand people.
Give me a sense of where that fits in terms of the usual average.
So it's a lot. The average in the years before COVID was about two hundred thousand a year, so wow, double that and then some. And essentially what the government is saying is that those migration levels are unsustainable. Home Affairs Minister Claire O'Neil went so far as to say that the migration system here is broken, and she said that the government needed a plan to bring migration numbers back to normal.
When we arrived in government, we found a migration system in tatters. It was a system that it wasn't working for workers, that wasn't working for business, and that was not oriented towards meeting our national interest. Our government has picked up this really ambitious reform project and what will be launching to you today is a plan that will
see us address those major challenges in the system. We are going to make sure that we bring numbers back under control, that we build a better planned system around essential things like housing, and perhaps most importantly of all, that we build a program that delivers for the national interest.
So here's the problem as the government sees it, and this was what was set out in their strategy. I think there are like five main problems, but i'll just summarize them Essentially, the reason that they think that there needs to be a new strategy is there are too many instances of migrant worker exploitation, There are loopholes in the system that are allowing people to stay in Australia
longer than they should be. There is quote insufficient regard for pressures on housing and infrastructure in Australia, and skilled people are being turned off by what they call a very complex and cumbersome migration system. So according to the government, that is why they have released this new strategy. They say that all needs to change in order for Australia to move forward.
And I think we can all agree that trying to change a system is complex and as in demand as our migration system is really ambitious. And the government sets some pretty ambitious goals and even labeling that problem and trying to overcome it, how are they going to actually fix the system?
Yeah, So, I mean, there are a few elements to the plan, but I want to start with international students because I think that that probably overlaps quite significantly with the people listening today. So international students make up the largest share of what's called permanently temporary, which sounds like an oxymoron migrants, so that describes those who have lived
in Australia for years but without permanent residency. This year, nine hundred thousand international students are enrolled to study in Australia. That's two point five percent higher than before COVID and more than one hundred thousand students and graduates have lived in Australia for more than five years. And the government has said that students in this category are vulnerable to exploitation and are often working below their skill levels.
And how is that going to change that?
So essentially it's going to be harder for international students to come to Australia. So students will need to get a higher minimum result on a standardized English language test, so they'll have to complete that test and get a higher result in order to come study here. The government is also going to roll out something that's called the Genuine Student Test, and that will determine whether a visa applicants primary intention is to work rather than to study.
I think it's fair to say there were some strong opinions about that in our comment section yesterday. I think not everyone agreed that that was the best way forward. Those aren't the only reforms in relation to international students, though the government will also target what's called ghost schools, where some students are allegedly enrolled in study to get
a visa without actually attending classes. So now the Home Affairs Minister will have the power to deem education providers as high risk and essentially what that means is that visa applications from those providers will be subject to more scrutiny before being granted and they'll take longer to process.
Okay, So moving away from international students, what else did the government announce to reform the system?
So the government said that it is going to target the sponsorship program. So sponsors are employers who employ a migrant worker and in exchange, they vouch for them, and it's a system that's seeing temporary migrants come to depend on one single employer because when you're sponsored, you're kind of limited in changing workplaces because they're the reason that you're in the country or that you can stay in the country. Rather, the government says there have been some
cases of workers being exploited under this ship's system. So it's setting up an approved list of employers that can sponsored temporary migrant workers and they'll have to update details like how many migrant workers they employ and so on. The government's also bringing in this thing called a Skills in Demand visa, which it says will give some workers a path to permanent residents. And remember we said that there was this skills shortage that the government had identified,
so that is their way of rectifying that issue. Not everyone agrees those Shadow Immigration Minister Dan tian So, the coalition's immigration spokesperson, so that changing the sponsorship system could adversely impact the amount of temporary migrants working in hospitals and schools, working in regional areas, and he said the government's treated regional Australia as an afterthought.
What else has been the response to the announcement.
Well, Dantean said that the government had quote opened the doors to record migration when Australians were suffering from housing shortages and a rental crisis. And there's certain may emerged as a bit of a talking point in politics this week, this idea that because we have high numbers of migrants coming into the country, that that is directly impacting the housing crisis that we're experiencing in the country at the moment. The Greens, as expected, did not agree with the Opposition
on this one. They accused Labor of blaming migration for the crisis and said there's very little difference between the major parties. According to Nick McKim, who is the Greens' immigration spokesperson, he said Australia's housing crisis has been caused by forty years of deliberate underinvestment in social housing by both major parties. So the Greens, they're trying to kind of dismantle this argument that migration is somehow directly impacting
the housing crisis. The government did acknowledge the strain on housing and infrastructure, as I mentioned at the top, but it certainly seemed to be part of this broader migration strategy that they're looking to bring in. So it's a major chain to our system and it'll be really interesting to see how that unfolds and what it looks like and how it actually impacts those migration numbers and who is coming into the country in the years to come.
So this is one of the last kind of major reforms we're going to hear about this year from Australian politics. Politicians take a bit of time off over December and January, so we'll expect this conversation to ramp up again when Parliament returns in the new year. That's all we've got time for today on the Daily OS. Remember this whole episode was based on a comment that we got on Instagram from a listener. But you don't have to hop over bit to Instagram if you don't want to. You
can actually just comment in Spotify on this episode. Give us your thoughts, send us in the direction of the conversations you want to hear, and we'll do our best to chase those stories down for you. We'll be back again tomorrow morning. Until then, have a wonderful Wednesday.