At the end of May 2018, a regional think tank called the Australian Institute for remote areas released a report calling on the Federal goverment to adopt new ways to meet labour needs in remote areas.
Some communities in Australia have eased the shortage of workers by introducing migrants to keep schools and shops open, the report said. The report suggested that expanding Australia's permanent immigration programme would help remote parts of the country emerge from a steep decline in population.
Jack Archer, chief executive of the Australian Institute for remote areas, said that remote communities in Australia have grown from a population decline to a population growth of 10 or 15 percent and that businesses can grow. "We think this is something that can be replicated across the country," said Mr. Jack Archer, chief executive of the Australian Institute for remote areas.
The Australian Regional Research Institute found that some remote areas welcome new immigrants, so they want the federal goverment to make remote areas where labor shortages are a "priority resettlement area," bringing in 3000 permanent immigrants a year.
Jack Archer said remote areas need to abandon concerns about migrants and truly accept the idea of change and new immigrants to these communities.
"with minimal investment and a few simple policy changes, we can make a really big shift to meet unmet job needs." He said。
The Australian Regional Institute hosted a forum at Canberra's Capitol on May 24 to discuss labour demand in remote areas. Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack and Labour Agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon both spoke at the forum.
The federal goverment may be considering changing technology visas in remote areas to tie migrants to labor-scarce areas for some time. But forcing people to stay in remote areas does not help achieve development goals in remote areas of Australia, Archer said.
"We want people who want to work long-term and live in remote areas to come to these areas and we need to support their visa conditions to do so," he said. In the end, if you try to force people to do things, you won't get the desired results. "
At a Senate hearing on May 23, Australian Home Affairs Secretary Michael Pezolo confirmed that Turnbull goverment was returning immigration to its lowest level in a decade, with only 138086 immigration applications being processed in the past 10 months. Pezolo was also asked if he had discussed an immigration plan to cut 20, 000 a year with Home Affairs Secretary Peter Darden, who said "the options are always changing." This is believed to reveal the internal affairs department's discussion of cutting 20, 000 permanent immigrants.
The The Australian (Aussie) said in April that the number of new permanent immigrants in Australia will drop to between 160000 and 170000 this year, the same level as before the former Labour Party's goverment set a target of one hundred and ninety thousand immigrants a year.
But Australian Prime Minister David Turnbull told 3AW Melbourne host Neil Mitchell in May that goverment is not targeting 190000 permanent immigrants a year, and that the 190000 figure is a ceiling.
"this year, I think [the number of new permanent immigrants] will be between 17 and 180000," he said.
In the last 10 months, according to Michael Pezorro, the actual number of permanent immigration cuts is higher than Turnbull said. In the future, while cutting back on immigration, the federal goverment may adopt an immigration policy that favours remote areas to curb population growth in Sydney and Melbourne, bringing new immigrants more to the rest of Australia.
