Permanent Resident Parents of Migrants Bleeding Economy, Claims Australian Productivity Commission

In a report that condemns the present Australian immigration policy for lacking an overall population plan, the Productivity Commission has reportedly claimed that the permanent resident parents of migrants are not helping the cause of the Australian economy in any manner.

In fact, the yearly intake of the parents of the migrants cost the Australian taxpayers a maximum of 3.2 billion dollars, even as the permanent visas for them ought to be either eliminated or the costs highly boosted.

The commission claims that the Permanent Residency (PR) for the parents ought to be ideally given only in severe, compassionate situations and suggests a new temporary parent visa that would make the kids or the parents themselves accountable for covering the health & welfare charges.

While accepting that migration is in the interests of both the national economy and the budget, and it has wide social acceptance, the commission reportedly maintains there are numerous loopholes that enable individuals with insufficient expertise and English language to receive PR.

The inquiry of the commission into the migration arrangement, duly released by Scott Morrison sometime before, asserts the most noteworthy gain would arrive from revamping the intake of the skilled migration.

The same would involve ‘raising the bar’ via moving to a universal points test while making the admission conditions involving age, skills and English-language know-how harder.

Migrants make the biggest general contribution when they move to Australia at the age of nearly 25 years even as the holders of Skilled Visa still boost the budget in case they land prior to the age of 40 years. On the other hand, parents carry undoubtedly the highest cost to the national economy.

There are two programmes for the parents of migrants. While one involves a comparatively low cost of 7000 dollars and has a waiting period of over 30 years, the other is believed to contribute to the expenses and is fixed at roughly 47,000 dollars.

As per the Productivity Commission, the same does not come close to covering the actual cost to the taxpayer of a Parent Visa, which it guesses is anywhere from 335,000 to 10,000 dollars post health, welfare and aged-care charges are added up.

With nearly 8700 parents moving in under both plans per annum, that adds up to from 2.6 billion to 3.2 billion dollars over a lifetime (post permitting for inflation).

Against the backdrop of the fact that there is a fresh inflow every year, the added taxpayer liabilities become huge over a period of time. It is a very big cost for a moderately small group, adds the report.

Despite the fact that it is alleged that grandparents contribute to childcare, the commission says this is the case for just a small number of the Parent Visas and, in any case, cuts down the cost more for the family, vis-à-vis the common taxpayer.

The report states that migrants have improved their share of the populace to 28% from 23% during the previous 15 years, while an additional 21% has not less than one overseas-born parent.

As per the report, the size of the yearly intake has a major effect on the population increase. The population of Australia would jump by 100% to nearly 50 million people by 2060, in case the rate of migration over the past 10 years of roughly 1% per annum was duly maintained. In case migration limped back to the long-term ­average of 0.6% per annum, the populace would hit the 40 million mark by 2060.

Presently, the yearly permanent migration intake is set by Immigration Australia, post a discussion looking at skill famines and the requirements for family reunion.
 
The Productivity Commission continues that environmental considerations and the nation’s absorptive capability are noticeably absent, and so is the investment infrastructure needed to offer services to the increasing population.

The commission continues that there should be an official population strategy setting out the administration’s long-term targets for population rise that would comprise the effect of both permanent and impermanent movement on social arrangement, the atmosphere and the national economy.