The Significant Investor Visa (SIV) program is a ‘fast-track’ residency scheme that can lead to Australian citizenship, and requires participants to spend $5 million over four years on complying investments in order to receive citizenship.
Since its inception, the SIV program has brought around $11.6 billion into Australia. However, it was criticised by the Productivity Commission (PC) as prone to fraud and money laundering, with the PC recommending the SIV program be scrapped altogether:
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.
Around 90% of SIV visas granted since it was introduced by Labor in 2012 have come from China. An investigation has revealed that some Chinese applicants have tried to use gambling wins to meet the $5 million threshold, along with using “bogus documents and false claims” in applications:
Over the 2019 financial year 34 per cent were withdrawn because prospective migrants failed to prove the source of their money, provided “bogus documents or false claims” in applications, or were found to have “unacceptable business and investment activities”…
A raft of documents obtained under Freedom of Information laws reveals ongoing concerns with the program raised by the Department of Home Affairs and the consulate-general in Hong Kong…
The visas have also fallen under scrutiny amid the collapse of property group iProsperity, owned by Michael Gu, which had sourced much of its $130 million from wealthy Chinese investors participating in the visa scheme, likely funnelled through migration agents.
Another recent report published in The AFR also noted that migration agents have concocted “non-genuine” applications for wealthy Chinese investors to gain SIVs.
These ‘Golden Ticket Visas’ are often marketed by migration agents to wealthy investors seeking multiple residencies and tax regimes:
For these reasons, the United Kingdom in 2018 abolished their version of SIVs because they were being used for money laundering purposes and were not providing net public benefits.
Strangely, the Morrison Government in December 2020 tightened some business and investment visas, but left the ‘golden ticket’ SIV untouched:
The so-called “golden ticket” Significant Investor Visa (SIV), which requires at least $5 million in Australian investments in exchange for a permanent visa, will remain in place under the latest changes…
Demand from Chinese for the visa has been rising in the past few years from 312 millionaires in the 2018 financial year to 384 in 2019 and 383 in the COVID-hit financial year of 2020.
As such, the Morrison Government effectively endorsed a visa program where Australian citizenship is for sale to almost anybody with enough money to pay. There are few questions asked. There are minimal background checks on the applicants or the sources of their funds. There is no requirement to actually speak English. And there is no requirement for the SIV applicants to work or contribute to Australian society.
What makes these money laundering visas especially galling is that they are also taking the place of stranded Australian citizens desperate to return home.
The Morrison Government’s tacit endorsement of SIV visas illustrates the corruption flowing through its veins.
