DIMA Annual Report 2000-01

Reports on performance outcome one

Like most developed nations Australia faces a dual reality. On the one hand, we must continue to:

• attract skilled and business migrants to meet our economic needs
  
  
• offer re-settlement assistance to those refugees and others in greatest need
  
  
• support key export industries such as tourism and international education by streamlining visa processes.

On the other hand, we must prevent the entry of people who pose a danger or unacceptable cost to the community (eg, in terms of health, law and order, etc). The balancing of these two realities is the task of Outcome 1: Lawful and orderly entry and stay of people.

Non-humanitarian entry and stay

The department's migration and temporary entry programs seek to benefit Australia by:

• nation-building, in that migration contributes significantly to Australia's overall population size, structure and skills base
  
  
• supplementing Australia's short and long-term skilled labour force needs
  
  
• attracting business investment and innovation to Australia
  
  
• supporting key export industries such as tourism and international education.

In pursuing these critical objectives, the department is acutely conscious of a rising level and sophistication of fraud and malpractice associated with people movements. The challenge is to maximise the beneficial impact of people movement to Australia while minimising entry and stay by people who are either seeking to mislead us as to their intentions (with a view to obtaining a benefit to which they are not entitled) or pose a health, law and order or security risk.

Nation-building

Like most developed nations, Australia has a below-replacement and declining fertility rate. This means that without a sizeable level of immigration, our population would eventually go into perpetual decline.

Australia's immigration intake is critical to sustaining our population. But research commissioned by the department and others shows that to have a positive economic, budgetary and employment impact, the intake must have a sizeable level of highly skilled and young migrants with good English-language ability.

The research shows that changes in the make-up of the Migration Program in favour of the Skill Stream have already delivered such benefits and will continue to do so for many years.

This is reflected in the 2000-01 Migration (non-Humanitarian) Program, where 44,730 people, or 55 per cent of the total program, were visaed under the Skill Stream, including 4,450 in the Skill Stream contingency reserve. This compares with 35,330 people, or 50 per cent, under the 1999-2000 Migration Program. Fig. 1 demonstrates the increasing skilled intake.

In research commissioned by the department, the economic consulting company Econtech estimated that current migration program settings would deliver a younger and more highly skilled population and, by 2007-08, a $264 per head improvement in living standards (or a total of $5.3 billion) over and above what would have prevailed had the 1995-96 Migration Program continued (see Fig. 2).

ACCESS Economics modelling indicates that the 2000-01 Migration Program will contribute a total net gain to the Commonwealth Budget of $23.6 billion over 2000-01 and the subsequent 10 years. For new arrivals, this modelling indicates that the impact on the budget of a cohort of migrants is positive. It also reflects the high proportion of skilled migrants in the Migration Program (see Fig. 3).

Research by the National Institute of Labour Studies shows that independent skilled migrants arriving in 2000-01 had an unemployment rate of around 10 per cent six months after arrival and were participating at greater levels in the labour force than they were in the mid 1990s, when the corresponding unemployment rate was approximately 28 per cent. In addition, unemployment rates aggregated across all visa categories, including humanitarian, halved (Fig. 4).

Other commissioned research indicates that business skills entrants are making a significant contribution to the economy by bringing to their industries (mainly wholesale, manufacturing and business services) globally-efficient management practices as well as established business networks from their places of origin and competitiveness within the global market place.

This contrasts with concerns in Canada and the USA about declining skill levels, the poorer employment performance of immigrants and the possible contribution by low-skilled immigration to income inequality and poverty.

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