Hi Joe,

Government policy in the first instance determines the quota or intake of refugees for the coming year. Australian officials work with the UN agency in filling that quota. Although a refugee could narrowly miss out this year, by virtue of the assessment process being applied at that particular time, there is no guarantee the same person will qualify in next years intake. One of the complaints of refugees is the uncertainty of the whole process.

That procedure then is why there is no queue and therefore no incentive to get in line.

Dear Paul and JF Aus,

Well said to both of you.

I read something interesting by Angela Julian-Armitage
who's a barrister and national president of the
Migration Institute of Australia - a body representing
Australia's migration lawyers and agents, who in turn
represent both migrants and businesses looking to hire
migrants.

She stated that "Without immigration the skilled
occupation lists would never get filled. Seeing doctors
and nurses would be harder for everyone. A lot of
businesses would have to close. Universities would
collapse without international student's income. We
would have a rapidly diminishing taxation base to fund
the running of the country and the aging population
and Australians who married a non-Australian overseas
could not bring in their new spouse."

So there you have it - lower growth, a budget blowout,
skill shortages and jobs put at risk. As Armitage
points out - proponents of halting migration should be
careful what they wish for.

Peter Dutton's immigration targets for 2017-18 are as
follows:

1) Migration target is at 190,000.
2) Humanitarian program has risen to - 16,250 for
2017-18.

Can anyone object to that?

Foxy, "Seeing doctors and nurses would be harder for everyone"

For many years now, both sides of politics have presided over an arrangement where universities link with teaching hospitals to isolate and guarantee an allocation of places to be used exclusively for overseas fee paying students. That unfairly restricts the number of Australian students who can be accepted to medical training in their own universities. Many Australian students have already successfully completed a medical science/engineering degree and will pay HECS for that as well as having to set a path elsewhere, which they do.

Overseas students are attracted by citizenship and family reunion later. Following completing of studies and the obligatory service somewhere in the country, eg Townsville, they lob in the major metropolitan centres anyhow. Whereas some of those Aussie students who were excluded, come from Oz country areas and would likely have returned to country centres.

It is all politics.

Nurses
We have plenty of nurses who seek work but lose their registration through lack of jobs. Jobs are given to nurses from overseas.
It doesn't take a Dick Smith to figure out the politics behind that.

It must be difficult for the faux leftist 'Progressives' to sort their politically correct priorities. But that cringing left self-loathing usually comes out on top. Where is guru, wealthy 'Gentleman Farmer' and complete tosser, Phillip Adams?
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/phillip-adams-on-how-to-be-a-moral-bullsher/news-story/7c288f9fd4e118d21728c63e47bce20c

leoj,

I shall be happy to engage with you when you
can do so in a civilised manner. Get rid of
the insults.

Foxy,

There is no shortage of doctors in Aus, so much so that the universities have limited places to the point where to get to study medicine requires marks far higher than ever before such that only about 20% of those accepted 10 years ago would achieve entry today. That skilled migration is a bonus to the country I will not dispute, but the quotas are often out of date and result in an oversupply in certain fields.

Also, the few diamonds amongst the 10 000s of asylum seekers are vastly outweighed by the vast majority of those arriving since 2008 being unemployed years later.