HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Member Index
House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-03-21 Daily Xml
Contents
Xml

Skilled Migration Program

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (14:37): My question is to the Minister for Industry. Will the minister reinstate the outer regional stream in the skilled migration program? With your leave, Mr Speaker, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr McBRIDE: The outer regional stream incentivised migrants to move to regional South Australia by offering permanent residency if they worked in a rural area for six months. Now, migrants are eligible for permanent residency after working anywhere in South Australia for six months. This is impacting on a number of migrants choosing to live in regional South Australia, including in my electorate of MacKillop.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Minister for Defence and Space Industries, Minister for Climate, Environment and Water) (14:37): It is a very thoughtful question. In fact, I think it is an issue that came up when we had country cabinet in your area as well, and I do take it seriously. If we look at the way that the skilled migration scheme works, we applied for around—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: We applied for around 9,800 skilled migration visas for South Australia and we were only awarded 2,300 by the federal government. This is—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Chaffey, order!

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: This is consistent with the way in which the federal government treated all states' requests for skilled visas and all were cut to a very low percentage, around the same percentage each. That is the federal government's prerogative, of course, but it does make it very difficult for us to be able to target skilled migration policies in order to supply the needs that we know need to be filled at least in the short term.

What they allowed for was 1,100 in the permanent skilled and 1,200 in the provisional skilled work program in regions. If you think about 9,800 down to 2,300, of which only 1,200 have been able to be allocated for the regions, that gives a sense of the very few places that we are dealing with.

The program that the member is talking about is one where, for short-term vacancies, a skilled migrant is able to apply to come to work in lower skill level vacancies—so not actually using the skills that they have brought. They might be an engineer, but they come and work in a service station, for example. That was brought in by the previous government, but it was a good policy to bring in during COVID as a desperate attempt to try to build up enough migrants who are willing to work in the regions. The challenge, when you are dealing with such a small cap, is that to allocate a number to deliberately allow for people working below their skill level is probably not the right economic setting.

There are options available, nonetheless, for skilled migrants looking to work in the regions. Obviously, they can work anywhere for a vacancy over six months, but also there are the employer-based programs: the South Australian DAMA, which, again, was set up under the previous government and is working very well—and we are looking to explore ways in which we can adjust it slightly and continue—and also the commonwealth has an industry labour program. So there are still options for migrants to be able to be targeted by employers in the regions.

However, I recognise that there has been an impact. It may not be quite the impact that we think, given the driving down of the skill level that is being used, but it is something that remains on the list of possible options as we go back each year to the federal government to seek our overall cap. If at some point that cap lifts to an extent that we see that there will be utility in that, then we would not hesitate to reintroduce it.

PARLIAMENTARY BUSINESS
MEMBERS
GET INVOLVED
ABOUT PARLIAMENT
VISIT
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
CONTACT