‘It is not a pipe dream’: five things Australia could do now to end poverty
In New Zealand and Canada, poverty rates are falling dramatically. What would it take to lift the forgotten Australians living in poverty?
‘It’s not a knowing problem; it’s very much a doing problem’ – the director of Logan Together, Matthew Cox. Photograph: David Kelly/The Guardian
The federal election is history, and those who had counted on a Labor government to focus on reducing inequality and easing poverty were disappointed. Scott Morrison’s government has made clear it has no intention of increasing the base rate of the Newstart payment for unemployed Australians – the most intense welfare campaign of the election – even though it has seen no real increase for a quarter of a century, and despite suggestions from the Reserve Bank governor, Philip Lowe, that an increase would be “good for the economy”.
Yet the 10% of Australians living in income poverty remain (13% if you take the cost of housing into account), with up to a million of us living in persistent and entrenched poverty, unable to participate fully in life.
As the Productivity Commission has noted, our poverty rate has remained stubbornly high for 30 years, despite Australia being one of the wealthiest countries in the world and enjoying decades of economic growth. As its former chairman Peter Harris has said: “Perhaps simply shifting money around and doing more of the same is not sufficient.”
There are dozens of ideas about what we could do to reduce poverty. Here are five we could do now, if we chose.
1. Scale up things that work
“It’s not a knowing problem; it’s very much a doing problem,” says Matthew Cox, the director of Logan Together, a 10-year community led project with one aim: use the evidence already at hand to give children aged 0 to 8 the best start in life. Why those years? Because the “science is incredibly clear” that “if the first years of life go well then those little kids turn into teenagers who do well and those teenagers tend to turn into adults who do well”.
Logan is a fast-growing city of around 315,000 people about 45 minutes from Brisbane’s city centre. It is well known that poverty is concentrated: in Queensland, for instance, more than half of the most disadvantaged people live in just four places: Logan, Moreton Bay, Bundaberg and Ipswich.
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Cox
Cox outlines the challenge. In Logan, there are about 45,000 children aged 0 to 8. Most of them are doing fine, but about 15,000 are not. It means that, in five suburbs within the city, fewer than 20% attend kindergarten, when the evidence is that formal programs make a big difference to language and social skills when children start school.
When Logan Together began in 2015, about 12% of women were receiving little or no antenatal care and between 5% and 6% were turning up to give birth without seeing a doctor at any time during pregnancy. This is in suburban Brisbane, not remote Australia. In some suburbs, between 10% and 20% of children arrived at school never having received a health check.
Logan Together is a “massive collaboration” effort between about 100 organisations – from schools to churches to local sporting groups to government health centres – to deliver the few things children need at different stages of early childhood so that they begin life with the same chances as any other Australian child. It’s not a lack of money, with an estimate of more than $200m a year spent in Logan on human and family services alone. Cox calls it a “spray and pray” approach.
“You spray human services out there, and you pray it’s made a difference,” Cox told a parliamentary inquiry on intergenerational welfare dependence last year.
“We know it doesn’t. We know those sorts of highly pixilated, atomised, random acts of kindness into the community are actually pretty good at resolving people’s immediate crisis issues. They are really lousy at stitching together into a system that grows kids up well.”
There are dozens of initiatives across Australia that have a similar approach – long-term, locally organised, working on solutions rather than responding to crisis. There’s Empowered Communities, an Indigenous-designed and led model that gives local communities greater authority about priorities for government spending and services. There’s Doveton in outer Melbourne, a world-leading, philanthropically funded experiment to overcome serious disadvantage through a purpose-built school integrating health and family services. There’s Tasmania’s Child and Family Centres, single entry points to universal, targeted and specialist services and supports from pregnancy to age 5.
Cox says Australia needs a radical change in how it delivers services to vulnerable people. The “large centralised systems we have to deliver health and education but also social services just cannot operate flexibly in a differentiated way at the local level.”
Governments of all hues see the need for change. “This is just good policy and notions of left and right mean absolutely nothing. [But] there is a very a long way to go. This is an enormous paradigm change for how the federation works in Australia, how social investment works.
“The message is that there is a scalable, knowable and plannable response to poverty … if we apply it to 50 to 100 communities we could make a really significant intergenerational change.
“It sort of seems like we’ve have given up big ideas like that in the modern world, given up on the idea that you can do something conclusive about levels of poverty in this country. What we’re trying to prove is that it’s just not true, we can take action. It’s not a pipe dream. It’s a decision.”
2. Set a target
In February, Canada got good news. Between 2015 and 2017, the poverty rate fell by more than 20%. That meant there were 825,000 fewer Canadians living in poverty. Put another way, Canada now has its lowest poverty rate in its modern history, 9.5%.
How did this country, in many ways similar to Australia, achieve this when in many wealthy countries poverty rates remain the same, or rise? It set a target.
Prime minister Justin Trudeau’s progressive government released the country’s first poverty reduction strategy last year. In November, it enshrined it into law. For the first time, Canada has an official poverty line based on the cost of a basket of goods and services people require to meet basic needs and achieve a modest standard of living. (Australia has no official measure of poverty, one reason why the discussion here can be so confusing.)
Canada has set targets – a 20% reduction in poverty by 2020 (it is ahead of that goal), and a 50% drop by 2030, relative to 2015 levels. It set up the independent National Advisory Council on Poverty to advise the government on its strategy, and track efforts through an annual report tabled in parliament.
Canada’s economy is doing well, creating jobs. The government has also taken specific steps to reduce poverty, including big increases to child benefits for low-income people with children.
New Zealand is another country setting targets. Last year, it passed the Child Poverty Reduction Act, which aims to halve child poverty in 10 years. The prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, says she wants New Zealand to “aspire to be the best place in the world to be a child”. New Zealand’s rate of child poverty is 23% when the cost of housing is taken into account, compared with more than 17% in Australia.
The chief executive of the Australian Council of Social Services, Cassandra Goldie, says targets can work to signal a national priority and to keep governments accountable.
“I won’t speak for First Nation views around the Close the Gap agenda, but the one thing it clearly has done is helped back up the voices of First Nations communities who say, ‘See? Things are not changing with the way you mob are doing it’ … It’s the persistent constant monitoring of some of those basic metrics for First Nation communities and we need that as a country.”
3. Fix housing
For a growing number of Australians, housing stress is acute. What’s happened, says Prof Hal Pawson, a housing policy and homelessness specialist at the University of NSW in Sydney, is intertwined with poverty.
While some welfare groups argue that “anyone” can become homeless if a few things go wrong, it’s not really true. It’s poverty that leads to homelessness.
Pawson was the lead author of Australia’s first comprehensive homelessness monitor in 2018, which found that after a decade when homelessness was fairly stable in Australia, it jumped by 14% in the five years to 2016, when 116,000 people were recorded as homeless.
The rise didn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s the result of lack of affordable housing, especially affordable rents. It is no surprise that the biggest rises in homelessness were in our big cities, where housing affordability has worsened most and where median rents are highest.
All this is linked to the rates of social benefits, especially the low rate of Newstart. It is exceptionally hard to rent privately on $277.85 a week, even with the maximum commonwealth rental assistance of $68 a week. Anglicare’s snapshot of advertised affordable rentals this year found just two listings across the country were affordable for the 500,000 single people on Newstart. Even for those on the minimum wage of $719.20 a week, fewer than 3% of rental listings were affordable.
Pawson says these issues are structural – they are not the individuals’ fault. If the causes are complex, there is one thing we could do now to ease housing stress and homelessness. We could increase rent assistance for those on very low incomes and social security benefits renting in the private market. For many experts and welfare groups, this is at as important as increasing Newstart.
The Grattan Institute’s report before the 18 May election argued for a 40% increase in maximum rent assistance – worth $1,410 for singles, at a cost of $1.2bn a year. Even that big rise would only provide the same real assistance to low-income earners as it did 15 years ago. Acoss argues for an immediate 30% increase and a review to ensure it meets people’s basic needs across the country.
There is broad agreement, too, that rent assistance for people on Newstart, or single parents payments or aged pensions, be indexed to changes in rents, so its value is maintained. For decades, it has been indexed to the CPI, which rents have far outstripped.
Where there is debate is around the need for increased direct government investment in social housing, where rent is below market rates. Many low-income people renting privately qualify for social housing but have little to no chance of securing a place.
As Grattan and others point out, our stock of social housing – about 400,000 dwellings – has barely grown in 20 years, while the population has increased by 33%. So the waiting lists keep growing, those in social housing stay for longer periods, and poorer people find it harder to pay for rents in the private market, many spending half their incomes on rent.
Research released last year from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Centre found that Australia needed to triple its stock of social housing over the next 20 years to cover the existing backlog of people in severe housing need, and to meet emerging needs. A quarter of a century of paltry investment meant a shortfall of 433,000 dwellings and the current construction rate – little more than 3,000 dwellings a year – would need to be expanded fivefold just to keep pace with population growth.
Pawson sees small signs of optimism. After the “scorched earth” approach of prime minister Tony Abbott – who saw a minimal role for the commonwealth in housing – it was Morrison as treasurer who championed federal involvement, setting up the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation (NHFIC) in 2018, to channel lower-cost finance to not-for-profit community housing providers.
“Although NHFIC could be a game-changer, it can come into its own only when significant matching funds are offered by government,” Pawson says. “That’s what we will need to see by prime minister Morrison to finish the job started by treasurer Morrison.”
4. Think big
“Poverty isn’t a lack of character, it’s a lack of cash.”
One reason why Dutch historian Rutger Bregman’s 2017 book, Utopia for Realists, caused such a stir was that it challenged the deep assumptions about how wealthy countries think about poverty, and argued for a radical rethink.
One of Bregman’s central proposals was a universal basic income (UBI), an idea that has attracted new interest since the global financial crisis as a possible way to counter rising inequality and persistent poverty in an era of insecure work.
In the UK, Labour has said it would trial a UBI if elected.
In Australia, the Greens support a trial but it has detractors, including among many of Australia’s welfare groups and poverty researchers. There are numerous UBI models but, in essence, it is a guaranteed basic income for all, enough to live on, without conditions or mean testing.
In his book, Bregman takes on the often-unspoken thinking about poverty. Anyone who wants to end it, he writes, “must inevitably face a few tough questions. Why are the poor more likely to commit crimes? Why are they more prone to obesity? Why do they use more alcohol and drugs? In short, why do the poor make so many dumb decisions?”
Jacqueline Phillips, director of policy and advocacy at Acoss, says our system is riddled with the notion that poverty is the fault of the poor.
“The community sector points to the structural drivers of poverty and disadvantage and others emphasise personal responsibility,” she says. “That’s partly why we’ve ended up with all these programs like income management which are all based on the assumption that individuals on welfare are somehow defective. There’s individual behaviour issues at play and policies are designed to change those behaviours rather than changing the structure.”
There is evidence that none of these assumptions is true and that poverty cannot be addressed without changing them. Bregman outlines the theories of Eldar Shafir, a psychologist at Princeton University, and his “science of scarcity”. Poverty consumes people to such an extent that they can focus only on the short term – how to pay the rent, how to pay the bills, buying a needed pair of shoes. There’s never a break, never the space to think about the longer term. Poor people “are not making dumb decisions because they are dumb, but because they are living in a context in which anyone would make dumb decisions”.
Instead of trying to fix behaviour, we could turn that around. One example is known as Housing First – that the answer to homelessness is not crisis accommodation but a home, without conditions.
Finland has proven it. Since the launch of Housing First in 2008, the number of long-term homeless people in Finland has fallen by more than 35% and rough sleeping has all but been eliminated. The idea is that people who are homeless don’t have to fix their problems before they get a home. Providing a home gives them the space and security to turn their lives around. It costs money, but over time, it saves money.
Bregman and others argue that the UBI could have the same impact. A four-year trial in the Canadian town of Dauphin in the 1970s ensured that no one fell below the poverty line. In practice, 30% of the towns’ residents got a cheque in the mail each month, no questions asked. When it was evaluated – years later – it was found that people did not work less. Hospitalisations had dropped. Domestic violence was down, and school performance improved.
Emma Dawson, the executive director of progressive thinktank Per Capita, is not a fan of a UBI. The cost would be huge to ensure people did not live below the poverty line, and Dawson believes Australia’s system of targeted assistance to those who need it most is the right structure. What she would like to see, though, is a “a targeted basic income, about making Newstart or youth allowance or disability payment a liveable payment without the massive conditionality that’s attached to it now”.
Acoss is open to the debate, and it does propose a root and branch review of the social security system. Phillips says its immediate priority is to secure a basic minimum income for those who need it.
Bregman’s book received both praise and criticism, but it was acknowledged that he was at least thinking beyond the next electoral cycle. He did identify that big changes rarely happen without utopian thinking. In a recent TED Talk, he said eliminating it was a decision countries could make, if they dared to think boldly enough.
“Imagine how much energy and talent we would unleash if we got rid of poverty once and for all,” he said.
5. And yes, raise Newstart
Experts say – repeatedly – the single biggest thing we could do to reduce income poverty is to increase Newstart and youth allowance (the unemployment benefit for young adults) and index it to rises in average weekly earnings. That’s because the base single rate of $277.85 for Newstart is about $150 a week below the standard income poverty line and more than half its recipients are living in poverty.
Because Newstart is indexed to inflation rather than wages (as aged pensions are), it keeps falling relatively backwards, driving especially long-term recipients deeper into poverty.
Living costs for those on Newstart are much the same as for those on the aged or disability pension, but the gap between them keeps growing – the single aged pension rate, for instance, is $422 a week, or around $24,000 a year with allowances such as an energy supplement.
Acoss and other welfare groups argue that Newstart needs to be indexed to wage growth.. For instance, New Zealand in its latest budget made a historic change: indexing main benefits such as its job seekers payment to wage growth, not inflation. That change alone will see weekly increases of $NZ10 to $17 a week.
Goldie says welfare groups and experts in poverty reduction will keep pushing for a real rise in the payment – a minimum of $75 a week.
“It’s very important that we persist in highlighting where we are succeeding and where we are not,” Goldie says. “There are ideological views around the way you go about delivering better outcomes for people, but nobody’s going to say we want to increase the number people who don’t have enough food to eat.”
- Published in Australia
The little-known visa project bringing highly skilled refugees to Australia
Five refugees and their families have arrived in Australia this year thanks to a humanitarian pilot project helping businesses fill skill shortages.
For Syrian man Derar Alkhateeb, touching down at Sydney airport four months ago is still a surreal memory.
He and his young family landed in Australia to a welcoming crowd.
The moment was a stark contrast to the adversity the refugee had faced since fleeing his war-torn country.
“It’s really unbelievable when I arrived in Australia,” he told SBS News.
“I couldn’t believe that it is real.”
The 34-year old is a qualified software engineer with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Damascus. But in the midst of Syria’s civil war his life was put on hold.
His home city of Daraa has been an epicentre for intense bombings during Syria’s civil conflict.
Derar was displaced for six years in Jordan with no work permit and was one of about 80,000 people living in the crowded Zaatari refugee camp.
For the first two years of his journey, he says a single blank piece of paper with his name on it was his only form of identification.
“If you don’t have ID you are stateless, nobody can accept you,” he said.
“My feeling it was mixed with fear and sad and hunger because I left my family and my friends.”
‘I will lose my career’
In Jordan, he met Tuqa, also a Syrian refugee and the woman who would become his wife.
The couple are now parents to three-year-old Hamza and nine-month-old Layan and adapting to life in Australia.
But Derar’s fears for his family from the past few years remain raw.
“No future for them, no future for me, [fear] I will lose my career, lose my skills,” he said.
Derar, who now lives in the Western Sydney suburb of Bankstown, is one of five refugees and their families to enter Australia this year on skilled migrant visas under a humanitarian pilot project.
TBB – the project behind their recruitment – is a not-for-profit helping connect refugees with employers seeking to fill skill shortages.
Many refugee candidates are eligible for regular skilled visas, but others aren’t due to barriers including a lack of documentation.
Founder John Cameron said his organization is helping businesses recruit highly skilled but often forgotten workers.
“It’s a normal competitive recruitment process,” he said.
“This isn’t charity, this is employers filling skill gaps that they struggle to fill locally.”
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees puts the global number of displaced people at 70.8 million. TBB has registered more than 10,000 refugees as potential applicants over the past three years.
“We are talking about individuals here and amazing individuals that deserve a life,” Mr Cameron said.
“The refugees that we show to employers are very much assets rather than liabilities.”
We are talking about individuals here and amazing individuals that deserve a life.
– JOHN CAMERON, TBB
In Derar’s case, he has been recruited by Australian technology company IRESS, which has offices across the world.
TBB helped him to secure a temporary skill shortage visa to become a software engineer for the company.
“They brought me back to life, they renew the hope, they renew the hope to me, for better future, better life,” he said.
IRESS Group General Counsel Peter Ferguson says the company has employed two workers under the recruitment pathway. He said it’s a win-win situation.
“It is done on merit so we get access to talent – talent that we urgently need,” he said.
“But it also improves the life of individuals like Derar and his family.”
He said their applicants go through the same recruiting process as anyone else, but acknowledged the humanitarian significance of hiring in this way.
“It’s not the exclusive driver of what we’ve done but it does add a dimension that is important to us,” he said.
“The industry in which we conduct our business is highly competitive and if we can find a different pool of talent that just makes good business sense.”
TBB’ pilot program has received preliminary support from the Australian government.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Department of Home Affairs said the project aligns with international efforts to expand “complementary pathways” for refugees.
“A small number of … supported cases are being considered within the Humanitarian Program as a pilot arrangement, which will be evaluated once completed,” the statement read.
The Department of Home Affairs said Australia provides a pathway for up to 1,000 skilled and employment-ready refugees already through its own Community Support Program (CSP).
Lisa Button is a Senior Project Manager for the Centre for Policy Development.
The think tank’s work includes extensive research into refugee economic participation in Australia.
She said skilled migration pathways for refugees help complement others being run on more traditional humanitarian grounds.
“It’s bridging that gap recognising that refugees … often have a lot of skills and capacities to bring to the Australian economy,” she said.
Ms Button said their research shows one of the biggest challenges for most refugees is finding sustainable work or starting a business.
“Business is important in this equation – but it is not the whole story,” she said.
“Government services, community groups they really need to part of the equation to provide that holistic support.”
His opportunity is one Derar believes more families like his deserve.
“I’m very grateful to all of those who helping me to change my life to dreaming again with bright future.”
- Published in Australia
Coalition abandons tougher English test for migrants
This time last year, the Coalition was said to be considering a basic English test for all new permanent migrants amid concerns that by 2021, more than one million people in Australia could have little or no English skills:
The move to consider mandating English language tests beyond citizenship applicants and apply a basic conversational language requirement to all new permanent residents — of whom there are more than 200,000 a year — will be flagged today by Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs Minister Alan Tudge as a move aimed at addressing concerns over social integration.
It follows warnings this year that Australia is at risk of drifting towards the European model of multiculturalism, where “parallel” communities have emerged.
An absence of English language skills among migrants and asylum-seekers has been cited in research as being one key driver of social fragmentation. Analysis of census data shows that, on current growth rates, Australia will be home to one million people who do not speak English or don’t speak English well by 2021…
Today, the Courier Mail reports that the Coalition has abandoned plans to tighten English language requirements for migrants seeking to become citizens:
About 1200 migrants who failed the test three times in the same year nevertheless became new Australians in 2018.
The Courier-Mail can now reveal that the Federal Government will not toughen up the test, which would have banned people taking the test for two years if they failed three times, required an English test and asked questions on “Australian values”…
It is understood the Government has no plans to proceed with the previously proposed changes.
Labor’s shadow Minister for Open Borders Home Affairs spokesperson, Kristina Keneally, congratulated “multicultural Australia” for “standing up” to the government:
The Productivity Commission’s Migrant Intake into Australia report explicitly noted “the fundamental importance of strong English-language skills for an immigrant’s integration and wellbeing in Australia” and explicitly recommended “significant reforms within the current system” and “‘raising the bar’ by shifting to a universal points test while tightening entry requirements relating to age, skills and English-language proficiency”.
In principle, it makes perfect sense for prospective migrants and citizens to be required to speak and read English. It is Australia’s national language and being able to understand and effectively communicate in English is central to integrating into the broader community, gaining employment, as well as to fulfil the responsibilities of residency.
That said, mandating English language proficiency is a second order issue to lowering Australia’s turbo-charged immigration intake to more sensible and sustainable levels.
- Published in Australia
New direct flights from USA to Brisbane: Will we see other flow-on visa applications from USA citizens?
Qantas will start non-stop flights from Brisbane to Chicago and San Francisco from April next year under a deal secured by the Palaszczuk Government.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the flights operating four times a week to Chicago and three times a week to San Francisco would pump more than $150 million into the Queensland economy over the next three years.
“As the world’s largest economy, the United States offers enormous potential for inbound tourism to Queensland,” the Premier said.
“The launch of flights to San Francisco, and for the first time in the Qantas network Chicago, represents a great opportunity for Queensland, one that is forecast to support more than 1,700 jobs over the next three years.”
With more Americans landing in Queensland, its no doubt they will love our lifestyle. No doubt some of them will want to live and move to Australia more permanently, which will lead to job offers, partner migration and even student visas. We can all look forward to the sound of more American accents, and flow-on visa applications from next April.
SOURCE
- Published in Australia
Social media information is now required for US visas
Looking to fly under the radar on the social media front? Locking down your profiles and setting them to private is no longer enough – especially if you’re planning a trip to the United States. Under a new policy that went into effect on 31 May, almost all travelers seeking visas are now required to provide any social media handles they’ve used in the past five years, along with email addresses and phone numbers, to the State Department as part of the application process.
According to the AP, “the change is expected to affect about 15 million foreigners who apply for visas to enter the United States each year…[an estimated] 710,000 immigrant visa applicants and 14 million nonimmigrant visa applicants, including those who want to come to the U.S. for business or education.” This shift comes on the heels of the department’s announcement in March 2018 that plans for the new requirements were in the works, reinforcing the Trump administration’s commitment to “extreme vetting” for visitors and potential immigrants to the U.S.
Though the New York Times reports that the Obama administration asked applicants to provide their social media details voluntarily, this is the first time travelers have been compelled to do so in order to enter the country. “We already request certain contact information, travel history, family member information, and previous addresses from all visa applicants,” the State Department said in a statement. “National security is our top priority [and] we are constantly working to find mechanisms to improve our screening processes to protect U.S. citizens while supporting legitimate travel to the United States.”
Immigration, privacy, and free-speech advocates are alarmed, to say the least. When the proposals were released last year, Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project, said the plan would “infringe on the rights of immigrants and U.S. citizens by chilling freedom of speech and association…. There is a real risk that social media vetting will unfairly target immigrants and travelers from Muslim-majority countries for discriminatory visa denials, without doing anything to protect national security.”
And her stance hasn’t changed in the intervening months. “This is a dangerous and problematic proposal, which does nothing to protect security concerns but raises significant privacy concerns and First Amendment issues for citizens and immigrants,” she told the Times this week.
SOURCE
- Published in General
Canada Is Luring Tech Talent Away From U.S. With Fast-Track Visa
A Canadian program designed to speed up the hiring of foreign talent is attracting thousands of tech workers and other skilled employees, many of whom are unhappy with restrictive U.S. immigration policies.
The Global Skills Strategy, which came into effect two years ago, has attracted about 24,000 people over the past two years, according to government figures Wednesday. The program provides temporary work permits in as little as two weeks for top international talent in categories such as software engineering. It also offers permit exemptions altogether for managers and researchers over shorter-term periods.
The approach represents a stark contrast to efforts by President Donald Trump to crack down on the immigration of high-tech workers into the U.S., and part of Canada’s broader strategy to drive growth through higher foreign inflows. Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said the program has allowed Canadian tech companies to be more nimble.
Companies are saying “the two-week processing has really transformed how they make business decisions,” Hussen said in a telephone interview. “They know that in Canada they can use this program to bring in talent really fast.”
Trump Restrictions
About a quarter of the workers are coming in from the U.S., often non-Americans unhappy with the tougher visa restrictions imposed by the Trump administration, Hussen said. Computer and media programmers, software engineers and university professors are the top categories of workers to benefit so far. The majority of applicants are Indian nationals, Hussen said.
The principal fast-tracked job applicants were also accompanied by about 16,000 family members, who also have the ability to work and study in Canada.
The rising numbers of highly-skilled foreign workers is part of a migration surge into Canada that has been a welcome tailwind for an economy coping with aging demographics and slowing growth. The increase in international migration, for example, has helped fuel a sharp rise in employment — even amid sluggish indicators in other parts of the economy — since immigrants tend to be of working age.
The country added 321,065 immigrants last year, the largest annual increase since 1913. There was also been a surge of non-permanent residents like foreign students and temporary workers. The influx helped Canada’s population grow by 528,421 last year, which is the biggest increase since the late 1950s, Statistics Canada said.
The fast-track program has won kudos from a growing tech sector racing to compete for international talent. Toronto was the world’s fastest-growing tech-jobs market in 2017, according to CBRE Group Inc.
Apply Here for your Canadian Visa
SOURCE
- Published in Canada
Free off-peak travel for seniors on Brisbane buses and ferries
Seniors will get free trips on Brisbane buses, CityCats and ferries — if they are happy to travel outside rush hour.
The Brisbane City Council budget, due to be handed down on Wednesday, will include a $3.1 million payment to the state government to allow the council to provide free off-peak travel for eligible senior Go Card holders.
Brisbane lord mayor Adrian Schrinner said free off-peak travel for seniors would make better use of available capacity and create more opportunities for older residents to travel the city and connect with family and friends.
“It’s also about giving something back to the generations who have worked hard and contributed so much to help build our city and our community,” he said.
“Social isolation and loneliness amongst older residents is consistently a major concern raised by community researchers.
“The evidence clearly shows that older residents are more likely to live on their own.
“Making it possible for seniors to get out and about more, at no cost, has the potential to bring many positive benefits to our community.”
The free travel will apply from October 1 on Brisbane buses, CityCats and ferries between 8.30am and 3.30pm, and 6pm to 6am, Monday to Friday. Buses will be free for seniors on weekends.
The initiative will also apply to the Brisbane Metro bi-articulated buses when services begin in 2023.
Cr Schrinner called on the Queensland government to match the announcement for rail passengers in the state budget, which will be handed down on Tuesday.
He said the council did not have the ability to reduce public transport fares, as they were set by the state government agency TransLink, but could introduce measures aimed at boosting patronage.
“Free off-peak travel for seniors on council’s public transport will go a long way to encouraging greater use of public transport, and I encourage the state government to adopt the same approach for rail commuters,” he said.
The council budget also includes funding for the Council Cabs program, a shared taxi service to take residents who are over 60 years, mobility-impaired or pension concession cardholders to their local shops for a set fare.
It will be Cr Schrinner’s first budget as lord mayor.
Labor pledged free off-peak public transport for seniors in 2011.
- Published in Australia
Impact of australian job market for international students finally revealed
While the Department of Immigration doesn’t track the work of international students, new data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics has provided insights into their impact on the Australian job market for international students.
The impact of international students on the Australian job market has been revealed, following new research from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
As many as 40,000 students from overseas rely on the hospitality sector for income, based on calculations from Australian National University migration researcher Henry Sherrell using the new ABS research released last week.
The research links employment data from the Census to addresses and biographic details of temporary visa holders to provide the first ever large scale insight into the working lives of visitors to Australia.
It shows more than one in three foreign students reported having jobs in the 2011 Census. Approximately 15 per cent of these were hospitality workers, 11 per cent were cleaners and laundry workers, 10 per cent were sales assistants and eight per cent were food preparation assistants.
The Department of Immigration does not track the work of international students. These students can work up to 20 hours per week during semester and unlimited hours during semester breaks.
“If you plonk those people (around universities) in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, that will have some effect on those labour markets,” Mr Sherrell said.
While it’s likely that some foreign students are “substituting” for young Australians in these jobs, Mr Sherrell said it was a complicated field of study and it’s too soon to call for reform.
“The hard thing about this stuff, is if you take backpackers and international students, they’re often working for non-wage incentives like residency, while Australians are much more driven, especially at a young age, by wage considerations,” he said.
“If you’re going to work at Coles, you’re likely not going to work at Coles for the rest of your life, so you’re not after enjoyment or career opportunities.”
The Productivity Commission reported last year that a “lack of fundamental data on employment patterns” of students was making it difficult to assess whether working rights should be limited, but it was likely that students were making an impact.
“Given the number of students and graduates involved and their geographic and demographic concentration, these effects are likely to significant,” it stated.
“This is particularly likely for student work rights since this group tends to undertake low and semiskilled work —where they are likely to be in competition with Australian youth and first job entrants.”
Immigration law lecturer at the University of Adelaide, Dr Joanna Howe, said a focus on the work arrangements for foreign students was necessary to better understand their impact on the labour market and to ensure Australia’s reputation in the international student market is not tarnished.
“Traditionally our approach has been to see international students as purely here as a study purpose,” she said.
“But increasingly, through the 7-Eleven scandal, through the horticulture 4 Corners expose, through some of the Fairfax media investigations, we’re realising that international students have a strong need to work and a strong desire to work.
“We’re realising that their work impact is quite significant.”
Australia’s export education industry is worth around $20 billion a year.
Manling Zhu, from China, studies law and commerce at the Australian National University in Canberra and works part-time as a tutor. She said she would reconsider her decision to study in Australia if there were more restrictions on work for students.
“I come to Australia to study in an English-speaking environment,” she said.
“Working is part of an important aspect of my life here, and by working in Australia I can actually mingle in society and get better practice with my English.”
Fellow ANU student Anson Wong, from Hong Kong, said being able to work in Australia was very attractive for students coming from overseas.
“I would reconsider my choice, because (work restriction) is quite an inference,” he said.
“There may be some negative inference to how international students here feel about the whole working system.”
But for other ANU students, like Yan Gu, from China, they would still be drawn to Australia to study even if working rights were restricted.
“I come to Australia because I want to get a better education,” he said.
“My family’s supporting me financially and I would like to go back to China afterwards. I wouldn’t come here to find a job.”
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has indicated he will be condensing the list of eligible occupations on the 457 temporary foreign worker visa to prioritise jobs for Australians, but neither he or Employment Minister Michaelia Cash has flagged any plans to reform students’ work regulations.
Assistant Immigration Minister Alex Hawke said the government supports international students having the choice to work, including to gain professional and cultural experience and to improve their English language skills.
“The student visa work settings are part of our global competitiveness, especially to attract high quality students with appropriate post study work arrangements,” he said.
The Productivity Commission urged the government in September to issue a public inquiry into the effects of work rights for international students.
The government established the Migrant Workers’ Taskforce in October to focus on worker exploitation, but its scope does not extend to the effect of students on the labour market.
- Published in Australia
1st time in history: People over 64 outnumber children under 5
As of 2018, the global number of people over the age of 64 officially eclipsed the number under the age of 5, according to a report from Our World In Data. This is the first time in history—or at least, for as long as we’ve been keeping track—that this happened.
Every time an advance in medicine prolongs our life expectancies, the size and value of the elderly care market increases. That makes more room for companies that service seniors directly and those that focus on their caregivers. From the loneliness of isolation, to physical limitations, to transportation needs, the problems seniors face are currently being worked on by hundreds of innovative startups.
Rendever, which helps seniors hike Macchu Picchu and go on other adventures via VR, and Silvernest, which helps elderly homeowners rent rooms in their homes to younger roomates, are two examples of companies attempting to address the feelings of loneliness and isolation that seniors often report. Steadiwear makes a glove that suppresses tremors and helps seniors to hold things—like coffee cups—steadily. Even Lyft is involved, partnering with a number of operators—including one called GoGoGrandparent—to offer monitored rides for the elderly.
Assuming modern medicine continues to increase our average life expectancy, the growth of the senior population is unlikely to slow down. In fact, the UN predicts that the over-64 population will double between 2018 and the mid-2040s. With all this growth, the elderly care industry is a market perfect for innovators.
- Published in General
Single Australian-visa hopefuls are eagerly awaiting the new points system
The point system for an Australian visa will change from November this year. The new point system offers extra points to singles. Many singles are looking forward to this change.
S. Vijay Kumar is ready to file his application for Australian Permanent Residency visa.
A film editor by profession, Kumar has got his educational qualification assessed by VETASSESS, Australia’s leading vocational education and training (VET) skills assessment provider. But he is going to wait till November.
“Everything is set, but I am waiting for November. I will get extra 10 points for being single, and that will increase my score,” says Kumar.
A student at Macquarie University, Vijay Kumar is one of the many applicants who are looking forward to the 10-point-rule that will come into effect from November 2019.
In April this year, the immigration department announced some changes to the point system. These changes will come in effect from 16 November 2019.
According to the new rule, applicants who do not have a spouse or de facto partner will get 10 points.
“Points are awarded for attributes that are linked with the applicant’s ability to make the greatest economic contribution, as the key purpose of the skilled migration program is to maximize the economic benefits of migration to Australia,” the legislation reads.
The changes are to ensure more skilled people migrate to Australia, says immigration expert Rohit Mohan.
“New system, coming in effect from November, offers ten extra points for applicants who do not have a spouse or partner.
“The idea is to bring more skilled migrants and discourage unskilled partners who come with married skilled migrants.
“Married invitees with kids fill more places with non-skilled migrants and leave lesser places for skilled migrants,” says Mr Mohan.
The amendments to the point system follow the recommendations made by the Productivity Commission.
According to the commission, around 50 per cent of Australia’s permanent skill intake is secondary applicants, many of whom have limited skills.
In its 2016 report, the Productivity Commission recommended that the points system be amended so that secondary applicants with skills and other desirable employment-related characteristics contribute significantly to the points score of the primary applicant.
Many singles are waiting for the new points system to kick in to gain these ten extra points.
Dilip Kumar, an Australian visa-hopeful says these extra points will help him in a big way.
‘My IELTS score is not very high, so I am counting on the extra points,’ says Dilip who is an auto mechanic in Karnataka and preparing his application for an Australian visa.
Mr Mohan says many of his clients are waiting for November.
“People have put their marriage on hold to claim these extra points. Earlier people would get married before applying to claim five extra points on behalf of their partners. Now we can see the opposite trend.”
Applicants who have a skilled spouse or partner will also get ten extra points in the new system.
They will also get five points if their spouse or de facto partner have competent English.
Source
- Published in Australia