Thankyou for an interesting article. A couple of responses, Firstly I'm surprised you haven't commented on the potential perverse incentive in offering a substantial cash payment to visa-overstayers, is this something that you've considered? If you are at the end of your visa but know that hanging on for six months will net you a lump sum on departure, you might decide that's worth waiting for. Secondly I'm don't think the wages bar for skilled visas passes the sniff test. While I agree "it is very difficult to define 'need'", wages being "as good a measure of economic value as we have" merely demonstrates the paucity of available measures of economic (or other kinds of) value.
I understand the idea of selecting people based on wages, but I feel what we actually need is youth, vitality and ideas. Wages are usually tied to our current market structures, but if we're trying to build a more complex economy we need something else. Of course, "ideas" is nebulous, but we shouldn't overlook that a lot of people committed to innovation can spend a lot of time on low wages honing their work before it takes off. How we screen for potential may be difficult, but we should consider it ways to identify it. The "investor visa" didn't work as it was built on the fantasy of the one great "genius entrepreneur" rather than a more ground-up and cultural approach to innovation.
This is why I'm not sure cutting the WHM visa is a great idea. I feel like we should be vacuuming as many young people out of Europe, East Asia, and North America as possible (especially given our low birthrate). These are youthful, well-educated and adventurous people. They have the spunk (for want of a better word) that we need to inject into Australian society. I feel like we've become a culturally boring people, we need to import some life (both social and economic life).
There's also less housing stress with this cohort, as younger people also tend to live in sharehouses, rather than families migrating in their 30s who will need their own house.
Thanks Grant, appreciate your comment. On WHM, it’s really just trying to unpick the explicit link to low-wage labour markets. I think the first year backpacker visa is a wonderful part of our visa system, and long may it continue. I also think our visa system, by welcoming family members (parters and dependent children) and a strong avenue for permanent visas, does pretty well in general on ‘ideas and vibes’. I personally think there is something dynamic in a family or person who has up stumps and moved across the world for a new beginning. While it’s unquantifiable and policy cannot neatly target it, by broadly accepting immigration in general, over time, with public support, I think we can make the most of it.
Thankyou for an interesting article. A couple of responses, Firstly I'm surprised you haven't commented on the potential perverse incentive in offering a substantial cash payment to visa-overstayers, is this something that you've considered? If you are at the end of your visa but know that hanging on for six months will net you a lump sum on departure, you might decide that's worth waiting for. Secondly I'm don't think the wages bar for skilled visas passes the sniff test. While I agree "it is very difficult to define 'need'", wages being "as good a measure of economic value as we have" merely demonstrates the paucity of available measures of economic (or other kinds of) value.
I understand the idea of selecting people based on wages, but I feel what we actually need is youth, vitality and ideas. Wages are usually tied to our current market structures, but if we're trying to build a more complex economy we need something else. Of course, "ideas" is nebulous, but we shouldn't overlook that a lot of people committed to innovation can spend a lot of time on low wages honing their work before it takes off. How we screen for potential may be difficult, but we should consider it ways to identify it. The "investor visa" didn't work as it was built on the fantasy of the one great "genius entrepreneur" rather than a more ground-up and cultural approach to innovation.
This is why I'm not sure cutting the WHM visa is a great idea. I feel like we should be vacuuming as many young people out of Europe, East Asia, and North America as possible (especially given our low birthrate). These are youthful, well-educated and adventurous people. They have the spunk (for want of a better word) that we need to inject into Australian society. I feel like we've become a culturally boring people, we need to import some life (both social and economic life).
There's also less housing stress with this cohort, as younger people also tend to live in sharehouses, rather than families migrating in their 30s who will need their own house.
Thanks Grant, appreciate your comment. On WHM, it’s really just trying to unpick the explicit link to low-wage labour markets. I think the first year backpacker visa is a wonderful part of our visa system, and long may it continue. I also think our visa system, by welcoming family members (parters and dependent children) and a strong avenue for permanent visas, does pretty well in general on ‘ideas and vibes’. I personally think there is something dynamic in a family or person who has up stumps and moved across the world for a new beginning. While it’s unquantifiable and policy cannot neatly target it, by broadly accepting immigration in general, over time, with public support, I think we can make the most of it.