Immigration Policies in Australia: A Social Policy Analysis

This report provides an analysis of Australia's current immigration policies, focusing on the skilled immigration policy, the temporary skill shortage (TSS) visa policy, and the special humanitarian program. It examines the objectives of each policy, the criteria for immigrants, and their impact on the Australian economy and society. The report highlights the shift from older immigration policies to the current ones, emphasizing the focus on skilled immigrants and the reduction of permanent residency opportunities. The analysis also explores the interconnectedness of these policies, their effectiveness, and potential areas for improvement, particularly concerning the TSS visa's duration. The document also discusses the implications of these policies for social workers and stakeholders, concluding that the policies aim to manage immigration while utilizing the skills of immigrants for economic benefit. The report is well-researched, citing various academic sources to support its claims.

Running head: SOCIAL POLICY
Social Policy Analysis
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

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Immigration becomes a great concern of Australian government. It has been received that
lower immigration level is good for the future citizenship in Australia. In the recent years,
Australian government has adopted various policies to decrease the immigration rate in Australia
(Ueffing, Rowe & Mulder, 2015). However, the government also focuses on skilled immigrants
and their development in Australia besides reducing permanent residency scope of the
immigrants in Australia. This study deals with current immigration policy in Australia and its
effect on the immigrants as well as on the country.
One of the major immigration policies of Australian government is the skilled
immigration policy. This policy was introduced in 2016. It has been received that Australia is a
popular destination of the skilled migrants. Almost 128, 500 places are available in Australia to
carry out the skilled immigration program (Hartley & Pedersen, 2015). The purpose of this
policy is to give the scope to the skilled immigrants to gain a permanent visa by using their
qualification (Boucher & Cerna, 2014). According to this policy, the immigrants should have
work experience, quality, and language ability to meet the immigration requirements in
Australia. The main objective of this policy is to boost the Australian economy. Another social
policy is introduced by the Australian government in the year 2018 to reduce the number of
immigration.
Australian government has taken new PR (Permanent Residency Visa) visa policy to
restrict the immigrants to get permanent residency in Australia. This policy highlights
replacement of 457 with temporary skill shortage visa. This policy also called temporary skill
shortage visa policy (TSS) (Canetti, Snider, Pedersen & Hall, 2016). The main aim of this
policy is to replace the huge number of immigrants with skilled immigrants. This visa policy has
two aspects one is short-term stream and other is the medium-term stream. However, the short-

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term stream allows the immigrants to stay for two years in Australia. On the other hand, the
long-term stream allows the immigrants to stay in Australia for four years. Therefore, in the year
2017 Australian government has introduced the special humanitarian program, which is also
considered as the immigration policy in Australia. According to this policy, the applicants
should meet the resettlement criteria of Australian government to stay in Australia. This policy
aims to give permanent residency to the migrants in Australia. In the year 2015 and 2016
Australian government has given 190,000 places for permanent migrations. Among these places,
128,550 places are allocated for the skilled migrants (Aph.gov.au, 2014). Hence, the
humanitarian policy provides a permanent visa to the migrants who have humanitarian needs.
From this above discussion, it has been addressed that the current three immigration policies of
Australian government mainly focus on the skilled immigrants to maximize the economy of
Australia.
In order to determine the policies, it is important to measure the effectiveness of the
policy against the objectives. The first policy shows immigration policy shows the skill
immigration policy in Australia. This policy aims to boost the economy of Australia. It has been
observed that introduction of this policy helped the government to strengthen the economy by
giving entry to the skilled immigrants (Akbari & MacDonald, 2014). The involvement of the
skilled immigrants in various business sectors maximizes the financial growth in Australia. On
the other hand, the business owners invest less in skilled immigrants and get more outcomes.
Therefore TSS visa policy enables the government to hire skilled candidate but they do not get
permanent residency in Australia. This reduces the number of immigrants in Australia.
Humanitarian policy also helps Australian government to protect the skilled migrants in their

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country and give them permanent residency (Dobrowolsky, 2016). This is helpful to increase the
number of skilled workers in Australia.
White policy or immigrant restriction policy is an old policy of Australian government.
This policy restricted the immigrant entry in Australia. Hence, the new three immigrant policies
of Australian government are best compared to white policy. However, the previous policies
restricted the entry of non-white people as a result Australian government lost the skilled
workers (Homeaffairs.gov.au, 2018). However, the new policies reduce the migrant’s number by
reducing their permanent residency. These policies reduce migrant’s number along with utilizing
the skill of the migrants. Therefore, the previous policy did not provide protection to the
migrants while humanitarian policy keeps the human rights of the migrants in Australia.
These policies are considered the best social policies for immigrants in Australia.
However, the above three policies bring a significant change in Australian immigrant policies.
The old policy was not effective to protect and utilize the skills of the immigrants which is done
by these policies. The clients, as well as the main stakeholders, are the skilled immigrants who
are the target audience of these policies (Canetti, Snider, Pedersen & Hall, 2016). Therefore, the
founder of these policies is Australian government. The local community is involved in
implementing humanitarian policy. To protect the immigrants and reduce the discrimination
against them the local community helps the government to implement this policy. Government
provides a fund to implement these policies in Australia (Martinez et al., 2015).
Special humanitarian policy reduces the discrimination with the immigrants successfully.
It helps them to get permanent residency in Australia. On the other hand, skilled immigration and
TSS visa policy also reduce the immigrants' issue successfully (Ueffing, Rowe & Mulder, 2015).

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Huge number of immigrants is a big issue of Australia. Hence, TSS visa policy restricted the
entry of the immigrants. There is a strict rule based on which the skilled immigrants can stay in
Australia for a certain period of time. Hence, they do not get permanent residency, which reduces
the immigrant pressure on Australia. Therefore, the skilled migration policy also effective to
reduce the pressure of immigrants as only those immigrants can enter into Australia who can
meet the government requirements. It has been addressed from the above analysis that each
policy is linked with another policy. For example, TSS and skilled immigration policy both
focus on reducing immigrant entry in Australia by setting specific criteria on immigrant entrance.
On the other hand, special humanitarian policy also focuses on the protection of skilled migrants
by protecting and providing them permanent residency (Beine et al., 2016). However, skilled
immigration, TSS, and humanitarian policies have a common aim, which highlights the limited
entry and protection of skilled immigrants in Australia. The above three policies are good,
however; the TSS visa policy needs some improvement. This visa policy only provides 2 years
and 4 years time for the migrants to stay in Australia. Hence, the government can increase the
visa period, which will be helpful to boost Australian economy by utilizing the migrant's skill.
The policy information that is presented in this document has a great impact on the
practice of the social worker. However, the skilled migration policy leads the social worker to
develop the skill of the migrants and give them a permanent residency in Australia. By applying
this policy the social worker will be able to work on the skilled migrants. They can focus on the
skilled migrants and give effort to identify them and involve them in improving Australian
economy.
The above study focuses on three current social policies for immigrants in Australia. It
has been received that skilled migration, TSS visa, and special humanitarian policies are the

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major social policies in Australia to deal with the immigrant issues. However, these policies are
linked with each other as all policies focus on the reduction of immigrant’s number and use of
the skill of the immigrants.

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References
Akbari, A. H., & MacDonald, M. (2014). Immigration policy in Australia, Canada, New
Zealand, and the United States: An overview of recent trends. International Migration
Review, 48(3), 801-822. doi.org/10.1111/imre.12128
Aph.gov.au. (2018). Migration and Humanitarian programs. Retrieved on: 25 June 2017, from:
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/
Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/BudgetReview201516/Migration
Beine, M., Boucher, A., Burgoon, B., Crock, M., Gest, J., Hiscox, M., ... & Thielemann, E.
(2016). Comparing immigration policies: An overview from the IMPALA database.
International Migration Review, 50(4), 827-863.
Boucher, A., & Cerna, L. (2014). Current policy trends in skilled immigration policy.
International Migration, 52(3), 21-25. doi.org/10.1111/imig.12152
Canetti, D., Snider, K. L., Pedersen, A., & Hall, B. J. (2016). Threatened or threatening? How
ideology shapes asylum seekers’ immigration policy attitudes in Israel and Australia.
Journal of refugee studies, 29(4), 583-606. doi.org/10.1093/jrs/few012
Dobrowolsky, A. (2016). Women, migration and citizenship: making local, national and
transnational connections. Routledge.
Hartley, L., & Pedersen, A. (2015). Asylum seekers and resettled refugees in Australia:
Predicting social policy attitude from prejudice versus emotion. Journal of Social and
Political Psychology, 3(1), 142-160.

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Homeaffairs.gov.au (2018). Australia's Refugee and Humanitarian program. . Retrieved on: 25
June 2017, from: https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about/corporate/information/fact-
sheets/60refugee
Martinez, O., Wu, E., Sandfort, T., Dodge, B., Carballo-Dieguez, A., Pinto, R., ... & Chavez-
Baray, S. (2015). Evaluating the impact of immigration policies on health status among
undocumented immigrants: a systematic review. Journal of Immigrant and Minority
Health, 17(3), 947-970.
Ueffing, P., Rowe, F., & Mulder, C. H. (2015). Differences in attitudes towards immigration
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