MichaelWest.com.aupublished the below ad from an outfit named Sydney Migration International spruiking the sale of Significant Investment Visas (SIV) to wealthy investors seeking multiple residency and tax regimes:
The number of millionaires streaming into Australia has surged to 7260 in the past year…
Visa applications in the Business Innovation and Investment Programme, which includes investors with more than $1 million in business assets, jumped by 74 per cent in 2016-17 up from 5781 to 9051. Of those 7260 were approved, compared to 6484 in 2014-15…
The “significant investor stream” asks investors to stump up $5 million for Australian bonds, shares and venture capital projects. By March 2018 up to 2000 had been approved…
Australia had a net-inflow of 10,000 millionaires in 2017… “That is the highest net migration of millionaires to any country last year in absolute terms, let alone correcting for population,” said Grattan Institute chief executive John Daley…
China accounted for 90 per cent of all high-net worth investors coming to Australia in 2016-17…
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Despite the Productivity Commission (PC) explicitly calling for the abolition of the Significant Investor Visa (SIV) in its 2016 Migrant Intake Australia report, noting they are likely to be used as pathways for money laundering:
Because there are no English-language requirements for the Significant Investor Visa and Premium Investor Visa, and no upper age limits, it is likely that these immigrants will generate less favourable social impacts than other immigrants. Further, compared to other visa streams, investor visas are prone to misuse and fraud. Concerns about visa fraud played a part in the Canadian Government’s decision in 2014 to scrap its investor visa scheme…
There is a risk that SIV and PIV might be used as a pathway for investing ‘dirty money’ in Australia, an issue that has been raised for other similar schemes (Sumption and Hooper 2014)…
Overall, the case for retaining the Significant Investor Visa and Premium Investor Visa streams is weak and the Government should abolish these visas.
Clearly, Australian Citizenship is up for sale to anyone with enough money to pay. Few questions are asked, there’s no rigorous background checks on the persons or the source of their money, there’s no requirement to speak English, and there’s no requirement to work or contribute to society.
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Now compare and contrast these visas to genuine humanitarian migrants who are treated by our policy makers as if they have the plague.
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness.
Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.
