ºÚÁÏÀÏ˾»ú CEO Luke Sheehy
Thank you, Chair.
This inquiry asks about the value of skilled migration.
The answer is hiding in plain sight.
Australia is short of skills.
We need nurses in our hospitals, engineers building infrastructure, teachers in classrooms, technology workers growing businesses and carers looking after an ageing population.
Migration isn’t an alternative to training Australians.
It works alongside it, filling gaps we can’t meet quickly enough while we build the domestic workforce for the future.
Yet outside this room, migration policy is increasingly being reduced to a political bidding war over who can cut harder and sound tougher.
International students have become convenient cannon fodder in that contest.
Labor and the Coalition have both moved to bring student migration down.
One Nation is now proposing to go much further – cutting temporary migration by around 750,000 over three years, with international students and graduates carrying a large share of the reduction.
The major parties have criticised that plan.
But they can’t pretend they have been spectators to the race.
One Nation has joined the conga line to the bottom.
Yesterday’s restriction becomes today’s starting point.
Then somebody promises to go further.
And the problem with a race to the bottom is that eventually you get there.
But every cut has a consequence.
Around six in 10 international students participate in the workforce.
Tens of thousands work in food and hospitality.
Thousands more work in residential care, social assistance, construction and professional services.
So fewer international students doesn’t just mean less money going through the till at the pub, café, supermarket or hairdresser.
It means fewer customers spending and fewer workers helping keep businesses and services running.
And that’s before we get to the skills they are building for tomorrow.
International students are studying engineering, nursing, technology and science – the very areas where Australia keeps saying it needs more people.
The student working in a café today may be the engineer, nurse or technology specialist we need tomorrow.
We can’t complain about skills shortages while shrinking the skills pipeline.
There is a serious economic price as well.
ºÚÁÏÀÏ˾»ú estimates One Nation’s proposed international student cuts – equivalent to around 176,500 fewer student visas a year – could put around $13 billion a year in economic activity at risk.
That’s a huge hit to one of Australia’s biggest export industries.
If somebody proposed wiping $13 billion from iron ore, gas or coal exports, nobody in this building would shrug.
We would ask what it meant for jobs, businesses, communities and growth.
International education deserves the same seriousness.
And the contradiction doesn’t stop there.
One Nation wants more from Australia’s resources sector, while that sector says it desperately needs engineers and specialist skills.Ìý
Labor wants more affordable health care, while international students and migrants are already working and training in the health and care workforce.
The Coalition wants lower migration, but Australia’s need for engineers, builders, scientists and technology workers doesn’t fall because the migration number does.
Those trade-offs are real.
We need a high-integrity migration system.
We need to educate more Australians.
And we need migration targeted to the skills Australia actually needs.
But we also need to stop pretending there’s no cost to cutting.
A smaller migration number doesn’t staff a hospital.
It doesn’t design a submarine.
It doesn’t build a house or turn Australian research into an Australian company.
Chair, the measure of good migration policy isn’t how low you can drive the number.
It’s whether Australia has the people and skills it needs to deliver the future our political leaders keep promising.
Thank you, and I’m happy to answer any questions.
Ends
