In early September 2022, the Jobs and Skills Summit was held, focusing on the challenges and opportunities facing the Australian labour market and economy post pandemic. This included a focus on improving migration settings to support higher productivity and wages. Following on from this, in December 2023 the Federal Government tasked an expert panel to undertake an independent review of the migration system. Around this time, the Minister for Home Affairs (Minister) also asked the Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Migration to inquire into the role of permanent migration in nation building.

The reviewers presented the Review of the Migration System to the Government report on 21 March 2023, finding that Australia’s migration program is not fit-for-purpose and concluding that Australia can do more to attract the most highly skilled migrants and support businesses to access skilled workers. The report also highlighted concerns that the current system has facilitated the exploitation of migrants, driven by a focus on ‘temporariness’ over clear pathways to permanency, as well as visa settings that tie migrant workers to their employer. Around this time the Government also commissioned former Victorian Police Commissioner Christine Nixon to undertake a Rapid Review into the Exploitation of Australia’s Visa System (the Nixon Review).

On 27 April 2023, the Minister released the report, together with an outline of the Government’s proposed migration strategy ‘A Migration System for a More Prosperous and Secure Australia’, which will inform the development of the final Migration Strategy which is expected to be handed down over the coming weeks. The draft outline of the Migration Strategy highlighted the need for significant structural reform to realign the migration system with Australia’s labour market priorities.

Objectives of the new migration strategy

As we await the release of the final migration strategy, we can get some insight into the Government’s likely direction from the Employment Whitepaper which the Treasurer released at the end of September. This White Paper is intended to build on the progress made in the Jobs and Skills Summit and includes reform directions identified across 10 areas in the White Paper’s Roadmap, which will inform Government policy priorities and design.

Here, the Employment White Paper suggests that the new migration strategy will be based around 5 key objectives:

1. Raising living standards for Australians by boosting productivity, meeting skills shortages and supporting exports
2. Ensuring a fair go in the workplace by complementing the jobs, wages and conditions of all workers and preventing migrant worker exploitation
3. Building stronger Australian communities by better planning the migration intake and giving migrants the opportunity to invest in their lives in Australia through permanent residence and citizenship
4. Strengthening international relationships by building stronger economic and social connections with our region and international partners
5. Making the system work by being fast, efficient and fair for migrants and employers.

Additional measures to combat worker exploitation

The need for more effective measures to target migrant worker exploitation has been a strong focus in the roadmap for migration reform, with both the expert panel and the Nixon review finding that the current migration system has made it easy for unscrupulous employers to exploit vulnerable migrant workers - with some estimates that up to 16 % of recently arrived migrants are paid less than the minimum wage.

On 4 October 2023 the Government released its response to the Nixon Review which commits to addressing gaps and weaknesses identified in Australia’s migration system. It intends to restore the integrity of the visa system and implement measures to prevent, deter and sanction individuals who seek to exploit vulnerable migrants. This includes the creation of a new Immigration Compliance Division within the Department of Home Affairs, intended to create a whole-of-portfolio capability to better protect the integrity of the visa and migration system.

The Government has also introduced the Migration Amendment (Strengthening Employer Compliance) Bill 2023 which is currently sitting in the Senate. The Bill proposes measures to strengthen the compliance of businesses employing temporary migrant workers and measures to encourage reporting. Amongst other things, this includes:

• new criminal offences and associated civil penalty provisions to deter employers and others in the employment chain from using a person's migration status to exploit them in the workplace;
• New measures to prohibit employers engaged in serious, deliberate or repeated non-compliance from being able to employ additional migrant workers for a period of time;
• Significant increases to the penalties under the Migration Act for employers who have allowed migrant workers to work in breach of their visa conditions or without a visa.