be experienced by new arrivals who were ineligible for support as shown by successive Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Labour Force Survey results. Thus the savings have been significant over the first two years of settlement. Savings on the hostels were replaced by growing expenditure on detention, which Labor had made mandatory for undocumented arrivals. Additional funds have been allocated to migrant resource centres and ethnic community advocacy groups. These are essentially referral and advice organisations and are not involved in welfare benefit payments. While there have been reductions in services and increases in cost recovery, there has also been a shift towards support for humanitarian entrants. In regard to skilled and family category migrants, since 1996 intake policy has been tightened to ensure that only job- ready and productive immigrants were admitted. Changes by the Coalition after 1996 have included an increase in the skilled and business intake; a reduction of family reunion and the replacement of the Concessional family category by a ‘Skills- Australian-Linked’ and periodic capping of the family reunion and the class; humanitarian intake when numbers appeared likely to exceed those planned. Some proposed changes have been held up in the Senate but there has been a degree of bipartisan agreement. The overall effect of changes made since 1986, (and particularly since 1992 when the Labor Government reduced the program and made it more focussed on skills needed in Australia) has been to focus selection on immigrants likely to be productive; to reduce the cost of on-arrival services such as accommodation and English tuition; to transfer welfare dependency for non-refugee arrivals to relatives or charities; to shift the balance in the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs away from settlement and towards selection and compliance; to determine funding through competitive tendering; to provision within the major social security ‘mainstream’ departments; while maintaining the principle that all eligible migrants continue to have equitable access to those services to which they are entitled. The overall objective is to move towards what in the United States is free called ‘cost and away from the notion that immigrants have special welfare needs immigration’ not shared with others.
be experienced by new arrivals who were ineligible for support as shown by successive Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Labour Force Survey results. Thus the savings have been significant over the first two years of settlement. Savings on the hostels were replaced by growing expenditure on detention, which Labor had made mandatory for undocumented arrivals. Additional funds have been allocated to migrant resource centres and ethnic community advocacy groups. These are essentially referral and advice organisations and are not involved in welfare benefit payments. While there have been reductions in services and increases in cost recovery, there has also been a shift towards support for humanitarian entrants. In regard to skilled and family category migrants, since 1996 intake policy has been tightened to ensure that only job- ready and productive immigrants were admitted. Changes by the Coalition after 1996 have included an increase in the skilled and business intake; a reduction of family reunion and the replacement of the Concessional family category by a ‘Skills- Australian-Linked’ class; and periodic capping of the family reunion and the humanitarian intake when numbers appeared likely to exceed those planned. Some proposed changes have been held up in the Senate but there has been a degree of bipartisan agreement. The overall effect of changes made since 1986, (and particularly since 1992 when the Labor Government reduced the program and made it more focussed on skills needed in Australia) has been to focus selection on immigrants likely to be productive; to reduce the cost of on-arrival services such as accommodation and English tuition; to transfer welfare dependency for non-refugee arrivals to relatives or charities; to shift the balance in the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs away from settlement and towards selection and compliance; to determine funding through competitive tendering; to ‘mainstream’ provision within the major social security departments; while maintaining the principle that all eligible migrants continue to have equitable access to those services to which they are entitled. The overall objective is to move towards what in the United States is called ‘cost free immigration’ and away from the notion that immigrants have special welfare needs not shared with others.
welfare_access.docx