The Government released its Migration Strategy Migration Strategy on 11 December 2023, outlining a new vision for Australia’s migration system. This included a policy roadmap containing 8 key actions, and over 25 new policy commitments and areas for future reform.
One of the key areas of future reform outlined in the Migration Strategy is to 'evaluate regional migration settings and the Working Holiday Maker program ensuring that migration supports development objectives in regional Australia and does not contribute to the exploitation of migrant workers'.
The migration system plays a key role in supporting regional Australia to prosper through the injection of culture, skills, innovation and social benefits. Regional Australia is also a critical contributor to social cohesion, and strong community ties in regional areas contribute to national resilience.
Many regional migration programs are effective in attracting migrants to regional areas and meeting local needs, including a range of place-based migration measures to assist employers and states and territories to deal with unique needs that are not addressed by national migration programs. These include state and territory nominated visas, regional visas, Designated Area Migration Agreements (DAMAs), tailored skilled occupation lists and regional incentives for Working Holiday Makers and regional graduates.
The review of regional migration settings commenced with the release of the Australian Government’s discussion paper on 21 June 2024.
Supporting Strong and Sustainable Regions Discussion Paper
The discussion paper proposed objectives for regional migration, suggested opportunities where regional migration could work better and outlined questions to guide feedback from stakeholders.
Submissions to the Discussion Paper
The public submission period to the discussion paper was open to the public from 21 June to 26 July 2024, with issues and questions provided in the discussion paper.
The Department received 308 submissions within the scope of the review. Public submissions with consent to publish are available below. The Department greatly appreciates the time taken by stakeholders to prepare submissions and share their ideas to improve our migration system.
In addition to receiving written submissions, a comprehensive series of 40 virtual and in-person consultation sessions were undertaken. More than 1000 people joined these consultations, with around 400 participants attending in-person events hosted in centres across regional Australia.
List of submissions to the Discussion Paper
These documents were not authored by the department. They do not represent the views of the department.
