Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to speak today and put some questions to the minister in consideration in detail on the Home Affairs portfolio. I particularly want to look today at the issues around migration in the COVID context and also at a particular program that is very important to me, the Adult Migrant English Program. I know Minister Andrews knows that program well, because, when she was the Assistant Minister for Vocational Education and Skills it was a responsibility that she had, which has now been transferred to the Home Affairs portfolio.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created all sorts of strange sets of circumstances for our country and for the global economy. One of those circumstances has been the fact that we have had so many migrants leave our country as a result of COVID. Indeed, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, we had half a million temporary visa holders leave these shores. That has created skills shortages and significant job vacancies. In November last year, job vacancies reached a record 254,000. That's higher than at any point in the last 10 years.

I have the privilege in this parliament of chairing the Joint Standing Committee on Migration. We have been taking evidence in an inquiry on skilled migration as to the effect of COVID, and we delivered an interim report back in March. It was interesting to hear from some of the business groups about the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on their ability to attract people and about those skills shortages that have occurred as a result of so many temporary migrants leaving the country. Business NSW told the committee that half of the businesses in New South Wales are currently experiencing skills shortages. In Western Australia it's one in three businesses. More than a third of businesses in the Northern Territory have identified attracting staff as their greatest challenge over the next three to six months.

One of the strange things about COVID-19 is not only does it create shortages; it also creates opportunities. When people look around the world and see the relative freedom that we have in this country and the good management of the health and economic effects of the pandemic, it means that Australia is even more attractive than it usually is as a place for people to consider migrating to. There are many countries that are looking at resetting their migration programs at this time, including competitor countries like Britain and Canada and New Zealand, whose migration programs we often compare ours with. It's important for us to be thinking about the settings that we have in the migration program at this particular time.

I think the challenge for us as we enter this recovery period is to ensure that we streamline our processes to ensure that we get the skilled workers that Australian businesses need, enabling those businesses to grow and to create more Australians jobs. So my question for the minister on skilled migration is: can the minister explain how the government is planning to address the skills shortages using the migration program as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic?

I wanted to look at another issue that the Joint Standing Committee on Migration handed down a report on last year, also related to COVID—that is, the Working Holiday Maker program. Back when COVID started there were 150,000 working holiday-makers in Australia. The most recent figures I have seen from Minister Littleproud suggest that there are 40,000 working holiday-makers in Australia. Working holiday-makers play a vital role. They are wonderful cultural ambassadors. It is a cultural tourism program. It was good to see yesterday, in the announcement of the new free trade agreement, Boris Johnson and the Prime Minister agreeing to increase the age limit for working holiday-makers from the United Kingdom to 35. Working holiday-makers represent, at their peak, a $3.1 billion industry in Australia in terms of the money that they spend on tourism here. They also play a vital role in a range of different sectors, whether it is tourism and hospitality as workers or whether it is agriculture in particular, and, in thinking about coming into another harvest season, their role has been particularly missed. So I wanted to ask the minister if they could explain what migration levers are being used to address worker shortages, particularly for the upcoming harvest season.

Moving to the Adult Migrant English Program, last year the then Acting Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs, Minister Tudge, announced some major reforms to the program to improve English outcomes for migrants and humanitarian entrants; to enable more migrants to access English classes for longer until they reach a higher level of proficiency; to modernise the program and increase flexibility for students by providing greater access to online classes and resources; and to encourage greater participation by introducing English language requirements to partner visa applications and permanent resident sponsorships from late 2021. Could the minister provide an update on the rollout of those changes and the impact they are having on enrolment rates in the Adult Migrant English Program?

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