Trent Nikolic:
Now, just after 19 past 10, at a time when housing and immigration are in focus for the Opposition and One Nation, I found this new data from the Institute of Public Affairs completely staggering. Our migration system has been labelled a con job by some because of our skilled migration system is working or not working depending on how you’re looking at it. According to the IPA, the Department of Home Affairs data from 2425 shows that of the 185,001 permanent visas granted over a 12-month period, more than 132,000 or 71% were classified as skilled visas. So that’s a lot. But how many of these people actually have an approved skill around 60,000. The rest of the visas, they’ve been handed to secondary applicants, families who wanted to come to Australia with the skilled applicant. So less than a third of all migrants using the skilled pathway. Well, they aren’t skilled at all.
To discuss the data, I’m joined by Morgan Begg, the director of research at the IBA. Morgan, thanks for your time.
Morgan Begg:
Oh, good to be with you.
Trent Nikolic:
It feels ridiculous to me at least looking through the data at a time when we’ve got governments pushing for lowering the amount of immigration to this country that we aren’t properly managing the pathways that we’ve already created. Does that seem fair?
Morgan Begg:
No, it’s absolutely fair to say. I mean, fundamentally, Australians have just been misled about the nature of the nation’s migration programme as you mentioned. We have seen over the last four years net overseas migration to Australia of 1.6 million. But economically, nothing seems to have changed. Job shortages have been consistently around 330,000 nationwide for the past two years, and one third of businesses can’t find the workers they need. So clearly something doesn’t add up. And as our analysis finds, as you mentioned, most of the people that are… The majority of visa applicants under the skills programme don’t actually meet the skills requirements set by the government. Something is completely broken.
Trent Nikolic:
I said this at the top of the show, Morgan, that part of the reason for this is that the programme itself is that we do need skilled workers here. There’s a number of skilled workforces that have shortages. I would assume just off the sort of broader picture, it’s places like healthcare, aged care, doctors, nurses, medicine, that sort of thing. Is that a fair assessment of that part of it?
Morgan Begg:
Yeah. Well, as you say, yes. There are skills shortages. We have had skills shortages in Australia for a few years now that remain about 45% above pre-pandemic level. So there is definitely an access with filling jobs in Australia. But the problem is that there is a misleading picture presented about whether our system even challenges or addresses that challenge because successive governments, it’s not just the current government, successive governments have claimed that Australia’s migration system is fundamentally a skills-based system.
Trent Nikolic:
That’s right.
Morgan Begg:
But the numbers show it’s about one third of permanent visa applicants meet skills requirements.
Trent Nikolic:
The other one that really stood out to me, Morgan, is when you see, and I think it’s 364 I said, jobs that are now on that skilled list. Things like graphic designers. Now starting my career in magazines, I’ve worked with plenty of graphic designers over the years. I struggle to see that we would have a shortage of graphic designers in Australia just to pick on one example.
Morgan Begg:
And you could pick on so many examples from that list because when people think about the sort of skills, the sort of people that we desperately need, it’s about construction labour. It’s about healthcare workers. It’s about critical sectors that we are struggling to deal with domestically. But as you say, the list is replete with, frankly, non-critical important jobs and all the respect to people working in those sectors. But whether you would gear a migration system around them is something that I think we should definitely question.
Trent Nikolic:
It sounds to me, and I’ve got multiple text messages here now from listeners suggesting the same thing, that the scheme needs an overhaul. It’s not outlandish. I wouldn’t have thought the conversation that you and I are having to suggest that the list of careers can either be cold, massaged, changed, take some jobs off, whatever you want to call it.
Morgan Begg:
Yeah. And I think that should be constantly under review. And it seems like from my perception that the list is really just added to over the years. And what we should probably do in government is either annually or quarterly, just forensically audit the list and compare it to where we are actually experiencing vacancies in the economy. And so let’s align this system with the actual economic needs of Australia.
Trent Nikolic:
Now, just to be fair here, Morgan, I guess we should look at the other point of the argument, which is some workers that we need may not want to come here without their family or a companion. And I think none of us are saying that that shouldn’t happen, what we’re saying is it should be more justifiable than it is at the moment.
Morgan Begg:
Yeah, I think that’s right. And as you say, this isn’t about deterring people that we need when we need them, but fundamentally it’s really just about as a starting point, let’s just be honest about the nature of the programme.
Trent Nikolic:
There’s a novel concept from government.
Morgan Begg:
Yeah. And I’d say to government, instead of saying that 70% of our permanent visa approvals are skills-based, well, let’s just be honest, right now it’s at 33% and the majority is on the family stream. So let’s as a starting point before, because realistically, a lot of Australians are not very satisfied with the migration system. According to IPA research, we found 80% of Australians would want significant cuts to the migration number.
Trent Nikolic:
Well, there’s a number.
Morgan Begg:
So the system isn’t working. We need a complete reset. And as a first step in that reset, let’s just start calling things as they are and be honest about the nature of the programme.
Trent Nikolic:
I think you make a fair point there. There’s no doubt about that. I guess the last question that I’ve got for you is that is there a potential, and I guess this goes back to your point about being honest fundamentally and then doing the research to make sure we’ve got it listed correctly. But is there a risk that if we sort of wholesale carve into this, that we see an issue where we then go back to having a shortage of supply in certain areas? Or is it just fundamentally that if we managed it correctly, we wouldn’t have a problem?
Morgan Begg:
Yeah, I think it’s about management. I think better targeting our skills migration stream to target those critical areas of the economy. Then I think that will benefit the country and you won’t experience any of those negative effects that you mentioned.
Trent Nikolic:
Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much, Morgan. I really appreciate your time.
Morgan Begg:
Appreciate it. Thank you.
Trent Nikolic:
That’s Morgan Begg, the director of research at the IPA.
This transcript of Morgan Begg speaking on Mornings with Mark Levy on 2GB Sydney from 7 July 2026 has been edited for clarity.
