In a speech to the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry last month, Assistant Minister for Immigration Matt Thistlethwaite claimed that “Australia’s permanent migration program is heavily focused on skilled migration”.
Yet if the government really were running a skilled migration program, then it must be doing a pretty bad job at it. Since the end of the Covid pandemic, the government has flooded Australia with more than 1.6 million overseas migrants on a net basis. Yet Australia’s skills shortage persists. In fact, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the number of job vacancies across the nation sits at 329,500. This is 45 per cent higher than pre-pandemic levels.
In fact, the number of job vacancies has remained almost unchanged for two years. And some one-third of all businesses said they could not find enough skilled workers. Fancy that. Walking past the local shops or shopping centre, every third business you pass is probably having difficulties finding enough or the right set of skills.
And herein lies the dirty little not-so-secret about Australia’s so-called Skilled Migration Program. It is not particularly skilled, nor is it a migration program. It is, in fact, a permanent visa approvals target, which prioritises chain migration over skilled migration.
IPA analysis of Home Affairs data has uncovered that fewer than half of the ‘‘skilled’’ permanent visa approvals in the 2025 financial year were granted to migrants who satisfied Home Affairs’ skills requirements. The rest were chain migrants, namely people who have come to Australia as dependants, such as spouses and children, of those who have skills.
To be more specific, the Skilled Migration Program includes both ‘‘primary’’ applicants, who are the skilled individuals who must satisfy the primary criteria for a permanent skilled visa under the Migration Regulations; and ‘‘secondary applicants’’, who are generally dependants of primary applicants, and who do not have to satisfy Home Affairs’ skills requirements.
In the financial year ending 2025, secondary applicants constituted about 54 per cent of the so-called ‘Skilled’ Migration Program.
If secondary applicants in the broader Migration Program were more accurately classified as ‘‘family and dependants’’ rather than ‘‘skilled’’ migrants, then the skilled to family ratio in the Migration Program outcome would be closer to two-thirds family migrants and one-third skilled migrants.
The migration system heavily favours unskilled and low-skilled migrants. Now, there may be perfectly good reasons for the spouses, children, and parents of those with skills to be let in. For one, it would make it highly unattractive for a highly skilled migrant, say, a doctor, to come here if they were told their family could not come along. Fair enough. But to classify family members as ‘‘skilled’’ is misleading.
It is little wonder, then, that labour productivity and per capita gross domestic product are still both below 2022 levels. In fact, real GDP per capita, which is a key measure of living standards, has declined in 10 of the past 15 reported quarters.
This is not to blame the migrants themselves. Australia is the greatest nation on earth. It is little wonder that millions want to call our great nation their home. And the overwhelming majority play by the rules and enter our nation under the conditions set by the government.
The problem is that the system itself is badly broken. And until Australians can see with their own eyes that the system is working for their interests, not the political interests of the government, we can expect confidence in the migration program to further crater.
