The average Australian, so far as can be gleaned from the papers, complains about three things: the government, the rising cost of living, and illegal immigration.
Now it's entirely possible that our government needs a complete overhaul. There's not much I can really suggest to help with that. But what if, by combining the other two issues, we could reduce both the cost of living, and the number of illegal immigrants breaching our shores?
Before I go into details, lets clear up a few misconceptions. First of all, forget the boat people. As explained clearly by David Koch in his blog*, asylum seekers and refugees are not illegal. So we're not going to be talking about them. The people we are talking about, in fact, are the thousands of people every year who deliberately overstay temporary visas, or who illegally buy and lie their way into legal paths of admission.
Internationally, Australia is included in the most desired targets for immigration. But due to economical concerns and social pressure, we accept only a small percentage of applicants for immigration to Australia - I believe we are currently limiting admittance to skilled professionals, spouses and refugees. Indeed, although Australia is a very large country with a small population density, as many supporters of increased immigrant admittance point out, we are a country which is actually rather lacking in resources, despite our size. In fact, in order to maintain our current standard of living, we are currently more than $230 BILLION in debt - and this sum is not expected to drastically decrease in the future. This is a debt which undoubtedly has much to do with the dramatically rising cost of living in Australia, a country which depends on imports for a large part of its everyday resources.
So what if we provided another option for applicants for immigration to Australia? Currently, a very large percentage of immigrants in Australia work for the purpose of sending money back to their families in their countries of origin. Not only does this discourage them from spending their money in a way that would stimulate the Australian economy, it decreases the amount of wealth held in Australia overall. Clearly, we need to develop a category of immigration which would encourage people to not only keep their money in Australia, but spend it in a way which would be beneficial to our economy - and maybe even draw on financial resources they hold in their countries of origin for use in Australia.
I believe some kind of Entrepreneurial Visa would fit the bill. If applicants could show that they had both adequate resources to start and maintain a new business in Australia, and a sufficiently viable business plan, such a visa would essentially allow people a viable way to buy their way into Australia - a way that would be fully under the control of the Australian government, and would benefit the economy much more than some of the other, illegal ways people do use to buy their way into Australia (the incredible sums often paid for sham marriages come to mind).
Of course, such a visa wouldn't be a free-for-all pass. Every visa needs restrictions and guidelines, and the kind of visa proposed here may also need regular monitoring, to make sure that the obligations of running a business are being fulfilled. But it seems highly likely that it would drastically cut back attempts at illegal residence in Australia, by providing an option for those who do not fall under the categories currently admitted under Australian immigration laws - while at the same time increasing Australia's capacity to support a larger number of residents due to reduced strain on the economy.
I don't believe that Australia should remove all restrictions on immigration and just admit everyone who wants to come here. But I do believe that we've stopped trying hard enough to improve the immigration system. We stopped when we found a way that is both globally acceptable and vaguely functional, and we never thought further on how to improve it from there. Our immigration system is not perfect - if it were, we wouldn't hear quite so much about it in the papers. But in order to improve it, we must necessarily think outside of the box. Old solutions are not perfect, and we need to stop fooling ourselves into thinking they're close enough. Politicians of Australia, it's time for a new solution.
*'The Real Benefits for Asylum Seekers in Australia' has been removed, possibly due to technical problems with David Koch's website. It will hopefully be back sometime soon. A.R.Muir
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