Peter Mares: While public attention has been focused on asylum seekers arriving in boats in recent weeks, fundamental changes to Australia's skilled migration program have gone almost unnoticed.
The changes affect tens of thousands of people, many of whom are distressed and angry. Having shelled out thousands of dollars in costs and fees to apply to migrate to Australia, they've now been told that it will be years before applications are even looked at.
Affected applicants within Australia must wait until at least the end of 2011 before their cases are processed; migrants applying from overseas must wait until at leas the end of 2012.
As we reported two weeks ago on The National Interest, their cases are on indefinite hold because of new priority processing arrangements put in place by the Immigration Minister, Senator Chris Evans, who joins me now from Perth. Senator Evans, thanks for your time.
Chris Evans: My pleasure.
Peter Mares: How many people now have their cases on hold?
Chris Evans: Look I don't agree with most of the characterisation of the introduction Peter. They're not on hold, what people do is they apply for permanent migration to Australia, and they're assessed, and we determine based on the needs of Australia, and our priorities, who gains permanent migration. We operate a scheme in support of the national interest, so people may well be facing longer waits in some occupation, and of course others are getting quicker treatment if they're in the occupations which are necessary for the growth of our economy. So I don't actually agree with the characterisation you put in your introduction.
Peter Mares: Well your Department's put out some information when you made changes to priority processing on 23rd September this year, and in those changes it says to people they will have to wait if they're onshore applicants, and they're not on what's called the Critical Skills List, and they're not sponsored by an employer, they will wait until the end of 2011 before their application is processed at least. And applicants from offshore will wait until at least the end of 2012 before their applications are processed. Now if that's not being on hold, I don't know what is.
Chris Evans: Well they've always had to wait. We determine the size of the migration program. Quite frankly, if we decide it's going to be 10,000 people next year, they might be waiting for 20 or 30 years. The point is, we're trying to give them an indication, on the current policy settings, and current levels of migration, about when they're likely to have their application considered. But applying to migrate to Australia doesn't give you a right to migrate to Australia.
Peter Mares: Understood. But when people applied they had a fair understanding of the length of time it would take; they were told nine, perhaps twelve months was the amount of time. These are people who have amassed the 120 points on the Skilled Migration test for migration to Australia on the points level; they are qualified to migrate to Australia, they were given every indication that Australia wanted migrants, that it was welcoming migrants, they paid fees of $2,000 to $2,500 to apply to come to Australia. They've been asked to do health checks and police checks, so they've paid thousands of dollars in migration agent fees, thousands of dollars perhaps, or hundreds of dollars in getting medical certificates and getting their qualifications assessed, and you're saying to them they might wait 20 or 30 years now.
Chris Evans: What I'm saying to you Peter is that while I know you're sympathetic to their cause, it's not an accurate description of what occurs. The situation is, and has been for many years, we have more people apply for migration to Australia than places available, and the Australian government reserves the right to set the annual migration intake. Now what we've seen in the last year or two in particular, is a large increase in people seeking to migrate to Australia, out of countries that are often having economic downturns, and when we had our own downturning economy, we reduced the size of the migration program. So that's going to have an impact on waiting times. All we do is try and predict for people when they're likely to be processed. Now I accept that people pay fees etc. and I've actually asked my Department to have a look at whether we can't do something in terms of people who've paid fees and application fees and then seek to discontinue their application because I do think the current system doesn't do well in that area. But we're not going to take in more migrants to this country if we don't think they're going to have good economic outcomes, or they don't meet the national interest of Australia, and while there may be people in the queue and they may be impacted, I'm not going to make a decision that says We're driven by the number of people in the queue as to how many people we allow to migrate to Australia.
Peter Mares: Let me come back to my first question then, and re-phrase it: how many people are now in that queue?
Chris Evans: We think at the moment I think there's about 30,000 onshore and about 105,000 offshore, but of course we get applications every day so the -
Peter Mares: So the queue's getting longer.
Chris Evans: Yes, it may well be. Obviously the last figures I had was about 30,000 onshore and 105,000 offshore. But people make a decision about whether they choose to apply, and obviously they take their chances in a sense, that we might run a bigger migration program next year if the economy was on the up, and that might see people get through more quickly. Equally, if the recession was to bite more deeply, we might run a smaller program, and that would lengthen people's wait.
Peter Mares: People of course do take their chances, but they were given indications about how long it might take, and many people have already been in the system 18 months, and some were at the top of the queue, they had case officers assigned, they were asked for the final health checks, these are people offshore. In other words, they were a couple of weeks away from a visa on all normal indications. Now they're told they're back at the bottom of the queue. I mean you can understand - I mean do you make an apology to those people for what's happened?
Chris Evans: No, I don't apologise. I mean I accept that there are some cases where people feel aggrieved, and they've not fared well out of the changes, but you've got to have a cut-off date. If you make a change, you've got to make a change on a certain date, and what we did is, we said 'We want to better prioritise which skills come into the country. We can't to actually do it in the national interest. What we had is, under the previous system, we had hairdressers being processed in front of doctors and engineers, because of the date of their application, when we were crying out for medical professionals. And when I came to government, I just thought this is crazy, we're not prioritising the people we need, we've got a queue based on, if you like date of application rather than based on the needs of Australia. And we are trying to reconfigure the system to get a more rational system in place. The Critical Skills List is part of that, but there's a range of other changes being planned which will change some of the fundamentals of the system.
Peter Mares: I'm sure most people would agree that the situation wasn't in the national interest to have hairdressers processed ahead of doctors, but the reality is that the government continues to use permanent migration as a carrot to attract international students to our education system. That connection is still there, but that's part of the issue. And secondly, why didn't the government simply say 'We don't want any more hairdressers, we have enough, we're not accepting any more applications.' You are still taking applications for hairdressers and cooks and so on.
Chris Evans: That's right, Peter, but we've also made it clear that we're reviewing the MODL -
Peter Mares: This is the Migration Occupation on Demand List, which lists things like cooks and hairdressers on which you get points to pass the migration test to come to Australia.
Chris Evans: That's right. So what we've announced is that we're reviewing that methodology. There's some discussion governments out, people are responding to those, and government will make a decision in the next couple of months about how we might restructure that, and that will obviously have an impact, because again, I don't think the system has been serving us well. If you look at the numbers of people who've come in to the country under the Skilled Migration program in recent years, we had an over-representation of accountants, hairdressers and cooks. And I think that's just an irrational outcome driven by the education links, and I've made it very clear I think the link between education and migration has been far too strong, and that there ought to be more consideration of broader national interest.
Peter Mares: So do you agree with Kelvin Thompson, your backbench colleague who said on this program he thinks that link should be removed, in fact we shouldn't offer migration as a carrot to attract international students to Australia?
Chris Evans: Look I think we've got to get the balance better adjusted. What we've got to balance is that we want international students to come and study here, and we want to have some of them stay and become permanent residents, because we need their skills. What we don't want is a situation where people taking courses in Australia drives our migration program. And at the moment, Kelvin's right to point out that the balance is wrong, and I've been talking about this for some time, and we're looking to make adjustments. But I don't think his solution is the answer; I think getting the balance better is the solution.
Peter Mares: Coming back to an issue raised before, the fact that these people, the people in the queue, feel very aggrieved about the amount of money they've spent on these applications. You suggested you will offer a refund, you'll consider offering a refund to any migrant in this queue who says 'Well I'm pulling out because I can't wait five years, or however long it might be.'
Chris Evans: No, Peter I don't want to overstate it. What I was I've asked the Department to have a look at how the current system works, because I think it is the case that we keep accepting applications from people who may never qualify and I think we've got to be able to do better than that. And I've asked them to look at alternative systems, and that would help us deal with the fact that people are paying money when they may not be much chance of making it, if you like, and I've also sought to see if we can't have better systems so that people aren't paying that money upfront. But we're certainly not in the position at the moment to offer refunds, in fact the legislation prevents it.
Peter Mares: Right. Because there's another problem here, and that is that you could have people applying simply because they know the queue is so long, you could have foreign students graduating from Australia's universities who have no real strong skills that Australia needs, probably not much chance of migrating successfully, but who will apply in order to get a bridging visa that may keep them in Australia for three years or more with work rights.
Chris Evans: Well that may well be the case, and that's one of the problems that I'm highlighting. And at the moment I think you're trying to have it both ways, but -
Peter Mares: Well I'm pointing out that there are various indications of this. I mean you said -
Chris Evans: Yes, well that's why, Peter, we've got the review of the MODL because that will impact on the points people earn and will if you like, help make that adjustment that people who are able to get those extensions are people who have a reasonable chance of a permanent migration outcome.
Peter Mares: But while you're doing that, why not put up the 'Closed' sign, and say, you know, 'Back in a year. We won't accept any more applications until we work out who we actually want because we already have more than enough for the next several years'?
Chris Evans: Well you were just sort of criticising me for having changed the rules and cut people off -
Peter Mares: No, I'm not criticising you for using administrative process, that is delays in processing, rather than making a substantial decision in making -
Chris Evans: Well it's not delays in processing Peter, that's -
Peter Mares: It is.
Chris Evans: No, it's not a delay in processing, it's of prioritising: us determining who comes -
Peter Mares: So you're speeding it up by -
Chris Evans: No we're making a rational choice on behalf of Australia. We're saying we want a demand-driven system, not a supply-driven, not to accept people in the order in which they applied, whether they've got the skills we need or whether they've got good prospects of employment. But for us to try and target our schemes so that we bring in the people with the skills that we need, and your arguments is effectively to say I ought to prioritise hairdressers over doctors.
Peter Mares: No, no quite the opposite, Minister, my argument is this: you should say we are prioritising doctors and engineers and the people we need, and we're saying to others 'Don't bother applying; there is no place for you.'
Chris Evans: But that judgment is one based on the size of the migration program and their points results. And what I'm saying to you is in terms of the points results for each applicant, we're viewing the MODL, which will impact on some of those people, but we can't stop people applying, and I don't think saying 'The doors are closed' is the right answer. As I say, a lot of this depends on the size of the migration program, and at the moment we're still running a very large migration program, but not as large as we intended to last year. It's affected by the economy, and our applications are affected by the economies of other countries. People are more likely to apply if their own countries' economy's gone downhill, for instance, we've seen a lot of Irish applications in recent years as the Irish economy went bad. So I don't think we need to tell people not to apply, but we do need to try and give them an indication, which we have been, is that with certain skill sets they're unlikely to be processed in the short term.
Peter Mares: Minister, thank you very much for your time.
Chris Evans: My pleasure, Peter.
Peter Mares: Immigration Minister, Senator Chris Evans. To give us your thoughts on this issue, click the Have your Say button on our website or call the feedback line by dialling 1300 936 222.
如果谁都不把这访谈文翻成英文，那只有唐林律师行来了。不过要给我们时间。我们觉得这个访谈很重要。离恐慌文出台时间五个礼拜之前。 |
发表于 28-12-2009 09:14:06
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done! 欢迎爆多多料！
