Australia's Immigration System: A Transactional Ethos and Its Human Cost

I had scarcely closed the door of the Uber that saved me from getting drenched in the sleety Melbourne rain when the driver asked, “Are you a professor?”

“Well, yes,” I replied. But the question took me by surprise, most drivers barely notice their passengers. It wasn’t a bad guess; I was outside a university. “Are you a student?” I asked the young driver.

He had been. Now like many international graduates he was driving, trying make ends meet while searching for a job in the specialised field of engineering he had successfully studied at vast expense.

“While I was studying, I had a well-paying job in aged care – now this,” he told me. “I’d have to do a master’s to get to that level and even then, I don’t know if I’d get a job here. I really like Australia but might just go back to India.”

His heartache was palpable. This is what the transactional nature of Australia’s complicated visa system can feel like.

I had spent the day in a room with a politically diverse group of scholars, policy analysts, former politicians and activists discussing why immigration had become such a toxic issue and what might be done to restore trust.

Now this young man put flesh on the bones of the analysis. The gap between the dispassionate policy talk and the lived reality was huge. He wanted to belong but, like many visa holders, felt his presence was conditional – buy the visa, pay the fees, do the shitty jobs, don’t get above your station.

In the seminar room the range of views reached to the outer edges of the political debate.

Some argued that a much more discriminatory policy should be adopted, banning people on the grounds of religion or country of birth, prohibiting international students, massively reducing visas for low-paying jobs. Others argued that the pathways to citizenship for temporary visa holders should be made easier, that the spouses of Australian citizens should not be counted as “immigrants” and that the data that proved immigration was a net economic positive be respected.

The default mode of partisan blame has reached new heights since the Liberal party allowed itself to be spooked by One Nation’s confected outrage. But the problems ascribed to immigration are not all the fault of the Albanese government.

The truth is that immigration policy and, more recently, its lived reality of multiculturalism have been a bipartisan construct since Australia became a nation. White Australia and its demise, postwar migration, multiculturalism and dual citizenship were supported by both major parties.

Over the past three decades the replacement of a primarily unskilled and family reunion migration policy with one based on skills and a complex range of (expensive) visa categories, buttressed by stronger character tests, greater ministerial discretion, deportations and offshore detention has been the work of both parties.

The shortcomings of this system are clear: dependence on temporary visa holders for a vast range of essential (low-paid) jobs, rent-seeking exploitation of the visa system by some employers and universities, reliance on the market to provide housing and infrastructure without a clear population policy.

And so the hysterical anti-immigration rhetoric that has swept the world has now gained a foothold in this settler society of immigrants.

Even as a child I remember earnest conversations that celebrated the article of faith that Australia’s immigration system was unique. People came to work in designated jobs and were initially accommodated in migrant hostels, before often moving into one of the many homes the state housing commissions built at scale. Their children attended comprehensive public schools. They were encouraged to become new Australians and citizens, their families followed and attachment grew.

They were not transient guest workers.

Now millions are. A transactional ethos has been built into the immigration system; the state is just a regulator of the market.

The nostalgia for the “good old” migration system (under the white Australia policy) and complaints about the current regime ignores this structural change that has been embraced on economic grounds by both major parties.

Each new skilled arrival has a positive impact on the budget. When the target number is cut, they need to be offset by increased fees or cuts elsewhere.

The cost of visas for students, backpackers, partners and others jumped by 25% in July. Australia now has the most expensive partner visas,, costing at least $11,710 – up to 10 times more than comparable visas in Canada, the UK and the US.

Belonging is hard when it is so expensive.

John Howard disliked multiculturalism as a policy but Philip Ruddock, his long-serving immigration minister, consulted widely and oversaw the transition to a more skilled and diverse immigration intake. Last year, as anti-immigration rallies disrupted cities, he wrote of his despair at the “failure of political leadership to restore honesty, transparency and discipline to migration policy”.

A lack of honesty on both sides leads to public cynicism and emotional manipulation. Ruddock wrote: “Australia risks squandering one of its greatest assets: an immigration program that has built prosperity, enriched our society and renewed our nation for generations.”

Blame is not a solution, nor is policy timidity. Honesty is crucial.