Editorial: ‘Light-touch’ the right approach to migration

We knew it was bad.

But just how convoluted and confusing our migration system had become is a shock to everyone.

Except perhaps for those business owners who have tried to navigate it to bring in a skilled worker from overseas.

In the almost-two decades since the skilled migration system’s last major reform, the system has become “slow and crazily complex”, to borrow a phrase from Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil.

So granular have the visa classes become that Australia even has once specifically for the crew of superyachts.

And those headaches have real impacts.

“These problems are more than just an irritation. Remember that other developed countries are competing for the same migrants that we really need,” Ms O’Neil said.

The complexity has left even big businesses with well-resourced human resources departments frustrated. Small businesses have little chance of navigating the system without risking a brain aneurysm.

The Albanese Government’s move to radically simplify migration is one which will be welcomed by business.

In particular, the shift to a “light-touch” approach, streamlining the process for skilled migrants on high salaries and the companies which want to employ them, is commendable.

These businesses do more than their due diligence on prospective high-earning employees from overseas.

Recruitment processes and checks are exhaustive.

If they are willing to stake their reputation on a worker, the Government needs to get out of the way and let it happen.

Abolishing the requirement for businesses to show they’ve tried and failed to recruit locally should also be a priority. If businesses are prepared to go to the trouble of looking abroad — even under a simplified system — that should be evidence enough.

Yesterday, we wrote that the biggest problem with Australia’s migration system was that it was set up to look for reasons to reject people, rather than welcome them.

That needs to change.

And we also need to make sure they truly are welcomed — not exploited, as many are under the existing arrangements.

Boosting the minimum income threshold from just $53,900 to $70,000 for temporary skilled migrants should help to do that.

Ms O’Neil rightly says that low existing threshold — which is below the earnings of 90 per cent of Australia’s full-time workers — had seen the program “morphed into a guest worker program”, instead of helping to address genuine skills shortages.

Providing a tangible path to permanent residency to those skilled migrants who decide they want to stay is also a commendable initiative.

Australia is not alone in confronting this labour crunch.

Every developed nation in the world is experiencing similar. That means Australia needs to be an attractive option to the very best overseas workers. At the moment, we’re a long way off the pace.

Responsibility for the editorial comment is taken by WAN Editor-in-Chief Anthony De Ceglie.