Louise Markus (Macquarie, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration, I present the committee's report on the inquiry into the Business Innovation and Investment Program.

For over 200 years, Australia has been a destination for migrants, who have often travelled vast distances and overcome significant challenges in the hopes of establishing a better life for themselves and their families—and, indeed, generations to follow. Migrants provide a substantial contribution across all facets of Australian life: economic, social and cultural.

The goal of Australia's migration program is to meet Australia's economic and social needs through building the economy, shaping society, supporting the labour market and reuniting families. The Business Innovation and Investment Program is designed to meet those needs by attracting high-quality investors and entrepreneurs to invest in Australia. It is important to encourage the creation of genuine and sustainable business opportunities that will generate economic growth, benefiting both the Australian economy and the workforce.

With an increasingly important economic objective, the committee held the view that it would be beneficial to inquire into the program and assess its effectiveness.

However, the committee faced a number of challenges during the course of its inquiry which impacted on its ability to address its terms of reference as completely as we would have liked.

Most notable was the distinct lack of empirical evidence.

As the program is administered by the federal Department of Immigration and Border Protection and each state and territory government, the committee invited the governments to provide submissions and attend public hearings.

However, the information, and in particular the data provided by the governments, was limited and furnished little evidence that the program was actually meeting any of its objectives.

The committee also faced a number of other challenges including:

It is also important to note that the government announced that it would expand the Significant Investor Visa, task Austrade to become a nominating entity for the visa and conduct a survey on the 2015-16 migration program as well as undertake a review of the skilled migration and temporary activity visa programs.

The committee therefore recommends that the Department of Immigration and Border Protection examine extensively the program as part of the 2015-16 migration program survey and in its reviews of the skilled migration and temporary activity visa programs.

The committee recommends that the examination focus specifically on the:

I would like to sincerely thank all of the stakeholders, peak bodies, organisations and individuals for their time and in preparing submissions and appearing at public hearings.

I would also like to thank my hardworking committee colleagues for participating in this inquiry.

I commend this report to the House.

Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).

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