Migration system 'no longer fit for purpose': Martin Parkinson

Dr Martin Parkinson, who led the Prime Minister's Department and Treasury, said he and two other experts were asked to lead the review and are "trying to develop a strategy, to ensure the migration system serves our national interests, and complements the skills and capabilities of Australian workers".

Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil announced the review of Australia's migration system in September, following the government's jobs and skills summit.

Speaking at a Committee for Economic Development of Australia event on Wednesday, Dr Parkinson said the review is focusing on economic resilience, boosting productivity, driving economic growth and delivering rising living standards for all Australians, while maintaining public confidence in the integrity of the system.

"A key part of what we've got to do is be clear about the objectives of the migration system and use that to guide our approach to future reform," he said.

Dr Parkinson said Australia currently faces "considerable economic challenges and uncertainties" resulting in challenges "as complex as anything that we've seen since World War II".

He said the need for the review was due to the "economic, demographic and social consequences of an ageing population", along with slowing population growth and weak productivity and growth.

Immigration Minister Andrew Giles, speaking at the event, said the backlog in delayed visa application processing "wasn't a choice made by the department" but "was a consequence of deliberate neglect by the government of the day".

"Today, these are applications for people intending to work in health care and education are now being assessed in days, not months, not weeks or days and this is a very stark contrast to what was occurring when we came into office when so many applications were taking months, if not years," Minister Giles said.

He announced since June, more than 3 million visas have been finalised, with more than 300 new staff hired to process visas, decreasing the backlog from almost a million visas to 755,000.

He said the previous government's neglect of the system led to "widespread uncertainty" for migrants and "undermining the attractiveness of Australia", leading to "systemic abuse of the visa system also creating a race to the bottom where vulnerable workers are mistreated and abused".

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The Australian Human Rights Commissioner Lorraine Finlay said there are a "significant number of people who aren't in closed immigration detention, who are in the community but who still don't have that certainty around their immigration status".

She said this left many migrants in "transitional phases" for "extended periods of time" leading some of them being "enormously damaged" or exploited.

The review into the migration system is due to hand down its findings in early 2023.

CEDA chief executive officer Melinda Cilento welcomed the review but said "we would love nothing more than to end what we call the revolving door of migration reviews, which seems to chop and change faster than just about any other policy".

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