I noted earlier this week how the Albanese Government has already lifted net temporary visas arrivals to pre-pandemic levels:
Driven by a record increase in temporary student and work visas:
This week education minister Jason Clare told The Australian there was still “a lot more work to do” to drive international student numbers higher, and that Labor “are rebuilding our international education sector [by] breaking the back of the visa backlog”.
Clare is certainly not lying, with The AFR reporting that Australia’s so-called ‘visa backlog’ is on track to fall by almost 360,000 by the end of the year:
The backlog stood at 962,000 active non-humanitarian applications when Labor came into office, which included 571,000 temporary visas, almost 150,000 skilled visas, and 232,000 family applications…
Immigration Minister Andrew Giles… revealed on Wednesday the federal government had made inroads into reducing the visa backlog, which is on track to fall to 600,000 by the end of the year, down from almost 1 million before the federal election…
Mr Giles said there were now 300 more staff processing visas than before May’s federal election.
Giles also said that Labor will offer more pathways to permanent residency for temporary visa holders, claiming that’s what Australians want:
“Modern Australia has been built on an approach to immigration that has involved a speedy transition to permanency and … to citizenship. That somehow changed at some point in the 1990s without a considered public debate”…
Actually, Australians overwhelmingly want lower levels of immigration – be it temporary or permanent. Nor was the rapid increase in immigration thrust upon Australians in the early 2000s delivered after “a considered public debate”.
“A considered public debate” is exactly what Australians need on immigration. Yet Labor was deafly silent on its ‘Big Australia’ immigration plans during the recent election campaign and will soon deliver the biggest migrant flows this nation has ever seen.
In turn Labor will further stress the rental market, squash wage growth, and crush-load everything in sight, delivering another lost decade for Australians.
