Topics: Coalition’s migration policy, October 7 anniversary E&OE....................... PATRICIA KARVELAS: From the opposition, I want to bring in Liberal Senator Dave Sharma, who's the Shadow Assistant Minister for Multicultural Affairs. Welcome to the program.
DAVE SHARMA: Good afternoon, PK. Nice to join you.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: Yeah, very lovely to have you on. On the migration plan, your plans to abolish the temporary graduate visa but allow people in the regions as well as aged care and healthcare workers to extend their visas to ease the transition— will that policy include all aged care workers across the country?
DAVE SHARMA: Look, so our policy is to significantly reduce the temporary graduate visa numbers, not eliminate it, but significantly reduce, with some exceptions for education and health. The aged care workforce, I mean, there are obviously Australians in the aged care workforce, there are people here who are here on the skilled migration program, there are people who are here on temporary skilled visas in the aged care workforce. The number of people in the aged care workforce who hold temporary graduate visas— this is effectively a visa that you have after you've finished your studies in Australia— is relatively small. It's in the single digits of thousands, and we will put in place transitional arrangements for that. But I do want to make the point, I mean, the fundamental thesis, if you like, behind this, our policy, is one, is to get numbers back to a sustainable level, but two, it's to reorient the direction of Australia's migration program Back towards permanent migration where people are coming to Australia to become citizens, make a life, make a home, and away from the de facto policy we've had in recent years which is making us a country with a guest worker system like a Germany or a Gulf state. I don't think that's a future Australia wants and I don't think it's in line with our egalitarian nature as a society.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: OK, but we also need aged care workers and your leader Angus Taylor Admitted that it would have an impact. He couldn't quantify how much, but it would have an impact on actually filling those roles. If you're an Australian, we have an ageing population, as you know. Many of our own parents are going into aged care. You can't get a worker because of the policy change. How is that a good outcome?
DAVE SHARMA: Well, I think what will change in the aged care workforce is the structure and the composition and the category of visa holder.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: Yes and no, because sorry to interrupt— Angus Taylor made it clear that that there would be an impact? So fewer workers doing these jobs?
DAVE SHARMA: I think there will be fewer people with temporary graduate visas in the aged care sector. I don't think it's going to be fewer workers overall in the aged care sector. I mean, but let's be clear that, you know, there's a number of sectors and industries across Australia— aged care is one, construction is another, hospitality is another— that are always telling us, and with good justification, I don't doubt this, that they are short of workers and they are competing for a limited number of workers. We're saying that we want to make sure that the migration program, whether it's permanent migration, whether it's temporary skilled visas, is actually targeting those workers with the skills we need. Instead of this situation where we've got people who are on bridging visas or temporary graduate visas who haven't necessarily trained or qualified in the areas they're working in, but they're getting preference because they're onshore to people applying with potentially a better skill set offshore. This is the fundamental flaw in Labor's Migration model. It's out of control, but it involves a mismatch of skills supply and demand.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: OK, you want people to leave and reapply for visas. Anne Aly just put the argument that in regional areas where those workers are needed, them leaving and then having to reapply is pretty impractical and will lose them workers. Those businesses are crying out for workers. How are they going to be able to sustain their business model if that Is the way it works? DAVE SHARMA: Well, look, it depends again on the type of visa holder. I mean, if you're a working holiday maker visa holder and you're looking at a second and a third year and you're working in the regions, you won't need to go offshore and reapply. So we've intentionally sought to carve out or protect, you know, regional industries from the impacts of this and agricultural industries from the impact of this.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: Okay, so those communities, yes, you've kept the backpacker visas, for instance, But in terms of being able to have this workforce that has been temporary, you're right, there will be fewer of them. That is going to have an impact though on business. I mean, business says it will.
DAVE SHARMA: Our answer is yes, there might be fewer temporary visa holders, but there will be more— well, temporary graduate visa holders, there will be more temporary skilled visa holders, and there will be people coming in through the normal channel as they should, through the permanent migration channel. I mean, instead of this situation where You know, we have this permanent migration number that stayed relatively fixed over the last several years, and incidentally, we're not seeking to change it. But instead of that program being used, it's everyone's coming in on a temporary visa and then changing visas or changing studies. I mean, we have this situation now where three million Australians, right, almost ten percent, are here temporarily. I mean, Canada just went through a very similar exercise to what we're proposing. Canada's temporary population or temporary visa population was about 3 million, which for them population was about 7.5%. Now they've consciously gone about reducing that significantly, exactly what we're proposing to do or very similarly. What's happened in Canada? Has the sky fallen in? No. Inflation is lower. Real GDP per capita is higher and growing. Houses are affordable again or becoming more affordable again, pursued incidentally by a centre-left government in Canada. If you want to see that experiment play out in real time, have a look at what Canada's done because What we're proposing in the Coalition is a very similar rebalancing.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: Angus Taylor says the complaints from business is just vested interests. Are they just vested interests?
DAVE SHARMA: Look, every business is entitled to say, hey, what about us, and we need this and we need that. But we can't have the migration program being run for a particular business or a particular enterprise or a particular sector. It needs to be working in Australia's national interest, and for too long we've allowed Basically, the migration program to be driven by the demands of particular sectors without an overall regard for, is it in Australia's national interest? We think Australia's national interest should be put first, and that's what we're seeking to do. PATRICIA KARVELAS: Isn't our national interest economic growth, people being able to run their businesses, the flow-on effects of that? I mean, that is our national interest, isn't it?
DAVE SHARMA: But the national interest is not having our economy nominally bigger by having more people here. in real terms, no one is better off. And that's the situation we've got in Australia. If you look at per capita GDP growth in the last quarter, entirely flat because the economy grew slightly because the population grew slightly. That's the economic model we're pursuing. I don't think Australians say we should be getting bigger just for the sake of getting bigger if no one's life is materially better off. And in many respects, it's worse off. They want a migration program that's going to improve productivity, improve economic growth, enhance our skills base, enhance our human and working capital. and get our economy moving. And that's what we're seeking to do here.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: A hugely significant High Court decision today found planning authorities are required to consider the emissions caused by burning fossil fuels overseas when approving projects. The opposition says you need urgent legislation. The federal government doesn't look like they're going to do any urgent legislation. This is a New South Wales government-level decision. How do you read it?
DAVE SHARMA: Well, I think the consequences of this decision would be absurd and set a very dangerous precedent, and I think action does need to be taken very quickly. I mean, it's, you know, it's yet another story in Australia becoming an uninvestable destination. Under the Paris Agreement, under the Kyoto Agreement, under all the UNFCCC frameworks, you account for emissions where the emissions take place. So when we extract coal or natural gas, Australia accounts for the emissions that are involved in that extraction process, but when that coal or natural gas is put into a power plant and used, that country is responsible for those emissions. Now, the idea that Australia now needs to take hold of all Scope 3 emissions, is that going to impact our agriculture industry as well? You know, is that good if we send live cattle and live sheep offshore? Any number of things. I mean, it's not the way the emissions envelope, the global emissions envelope system, was set up. And this does set a very dangerous precedent. I mean, it means that resources projects almost entirely will not be able to go ahead if the court is going to interpret Scope 3 emissions as being part of the relevant consideration. Now, this is New South Wales planning law. In the first instance, it's the New South Wales government, the Minns Labor government, that should immediately address this.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: But what are you worried about? That other, you know, activists will do this at every state level? What do you want the federal government to do? DAVE SHARMA: Well, I think if the state government is not prepared to deal with this, then the federal government needs to, needs to make clear. I mean, these go to global commitments as part of the foreign affairs power, which, you know, constitutionally falls within the federal government, federal government's remit. There is certainly a role for the federal government here.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: Today is the 3rd anniversary of the devastating terror attack on October 7th. You're a former ambassador to Israel, of course. That day obviously was a pretty dark day in world history, but for Israelis and Jewish people across the world. How do you reflect on that day?
DAVE SHARMA: Look, I reflect on that day with incredible sadness because what was unleashed that day we have struggled to contain since, and it's had repercussions throughout the world, including in Australia. It unleashed terrible conflict in the Middle East which cost tens of thousands of innocent lives, including many Palestinian civilian lives in Gaza, but also a regional conflagration involving Hezbollah, Yemen, Iran, a number of other regional states. And most concerningly for me as an Australian parliamentarian is the mood and sense that took— was allowed to take hold after the 7th of October and after the military operation that followed. That sought to hold Jewish Australians accountable for the actions of a foreign state led not only to, you know, the worst uprising in antisemitism in Australian history, but I think led very directly to the horrific and Australia's worst ever terrorist attack at Bondi on the 14th of December last year. It's impossible to disconnect the events of the 7th of October and the events of the 14th of December. I think, you know, they are directly connected because we in Australia did not tackle and did not get on top of and did not condemn antisemitism quickly enough or strongly enough.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: To be clear though, we— to sort of argue that we could have avoided the terror attack we saw, which again was devastating for the people affected and I think for our nation, if, as you put it, there was more condemnation, I mean, you can't demonstrate that, can you?
DAVE SHARMA: No, I'm not going to say there's a direct causal link there, but I would say that, you know, everyone knew that the mood in Australia was high. I mean, there was a reason that the ASIO Director-General raised the threat level of Australia from possible to probable. You know, there's a reason the risk of a terrorist attack was higher, because of the inflamed opinions on the streets of Australia that were being allowed to flourish, and in some cases being oxygenated and encouraged.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: Thank you so much for joining us.
DAVE SHARMA: Thanks so much, PK.
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