Changes in Australian Immigration Policies - Case Study Example

Media and Visual Culture: Case Studies The spectacle is the self-portrait of power in the age of power’s totalitarian rule over the conditions of existence (Debord, 1994: Para 24). Australia’s population growth is largely due to immigration. Guy Debord argues that contemporary culture turns upon the spectacle. With reference to current immigration policies, including boat people, discuss the implication on Australia’s future and explain to what extent it is based on the totalitarian rule of spectacle. The population of Australia grows largely because of immigration which begun about 51,000 years ago in the 17th and 18th centuries, when Australian Aborigines arrived. Over seven million people have settled in Australia since 1945 (Inglis, 2004). The Australia’s skilled migration program has undergone several reforms initiated by the Australian Government in the early 2008. Today immigration policies have been changed with Australian Department of Immigration focusing on allowing immigrants who are professionals and high skilled to apply. Skilled Occupations List (SOL) has replaced the old Migration Occupations in Demand List (MODL). The Australian Department of Immigration’s aim is to deal with the hampering skills crisis in the country (Australian Government Department of Immigration and Citizenship, 2011). During the launch of Skilled Occupations List the Immigration Minister said that the reforms’ aim was to ensure that labour demand and not supply is driving Skilled Migration Program of Australia and that visa applicants whose skills are in demand or those who are nominated by an employer are given high priority. The reforms respond to long term structural challenges that may be brought by an ageing population as well as build flexibility into the system, allowing the response of employers to medium and short term pressures.  A tough new policy is being adopted toward asylum seekers, with an aim of having boat people sent to offshore detention centers with little or no hope of settling in Australia. The New Australian immigration policy will send asylum seekers to Malaysia and Papua New Guinea with those in PNG having slim chances of settling in Australia and those in Malaysia will neither settle nor work in Malaysia (Inglis, 2004). This will stop the flow of boat arrivals in Australia. The change in immigration policy is to deal with obsolete policies that attracted many professional accountants to Australia, but did not work in their field of professional, then left the country leaving the local employers with shortages. The policy will enable Australian Government to feed its growing labour market continuously. Skilled workers from outside Australia need to employ a specialized visa company and recruitment who will connect them to appropriate employers searching for their skills. The New Skilled Occupations List (SOL) was introduced in July 2010 to identify skills needed in Australia in both medium and long-term and prioritise visa applications according to the need of skills in Australia and relevant skills of applicant. Australia is also known for tough immigration laws, however there is confusion to visa applicants brought about by the recent changes. One of the changes made in the Skilled Migration program is the New Skilled Migration Points Test which was introduced for skilled migrants. This test favors highly skilled, highly experienced and well-trained for the productivity of Australia. The test has recently introduced mandatory pass score of 7 in English exam IELTS. Applicants also earn points on their education qualification like work experience, age, doctorate degree, among others. The test also enables applicants to be able to received Australia’s employee-sponsored visas The Skilled Migration Program affirms the constitution of majority of visa grants for skilled migration. The reforms made to permanent and temporary migration programs are aimed at meeting long term structural challenges of Australia. The immigration policy and migration program will maximise economic opportunities and response to future demographic challenges of Australia. The skilled migration program will enable the improvement of Australians’ well-being by steering the economic growth for the benefit of all from improved standards of living and increased output (National Visas, 2011). There will be low unemployment rate for Australians because there will be no competition of the same jobs from immigrants who possess the same skills as Australians. The government will only allow those immigrants who possess skills that Australians do not have to settle and work in Australia, hence, allowing job opportunities for its citizens. As Australia increases in population, unemployment rate increases, resources to be distributed to citizens become scarce, output becomes low due to unskilled workers and thus economic growth slows down. This means, thousands of immigrants with no useful skills use the resources meant for other citizens, brings low productivity to the country and depletes infrastructure in place. According to the Immigration Minister, flexible and efficient Skilled Migration Program will respond to the immediate pressures of labour market of Australia in light with the growing economy and booming mining sector. There is an estimation of about $380 billion worth of projects that are underway in the whole of Australia. The mining sector is continuously experiencing increased growth with the service sector like social work, healthcare accounts, and education being the fastest growing sector in employment across Australia. Service sector growth is predicted to continue to surpass the resources sector growth in the years to come. Despite the fact that the government invests in local skills training, foreign workers are still needed to fill the gap of lack of enough skilled Australians or willing to work in the positions available (Australian Government Department of Immigration and Citizenship, 2011). Skilled migrants will meet the labour demand which may restrict growth and loose opportunities for businesses in the Australians if not addressed. Australian businesses are helped by skilled migrants to reach their maximum potential, thus the government will help those businesses get find those workers, as the business contribute to the economic growth of Australia. Data presented by the Minister for Immigration showed that labour force growth in Australia will start declining from 2036 if immigration is eradicated. This is because the ageing population of Australia possess problems for the Australia’s workforce future; long-term fiscal outlook, economic growth and living standards. The current migration problems are important in addressing problems that the declining workforce and aging population of the nation create. Skilled Migration Program will also increase the number of skilled migrants settling in regional Australia (Australian Government Department of Immigration and Citizenship, 2011). There has been a challenge for regional employers to attract skilled workers and retain them. The Australian government has therefore introduced State Migration Plans and Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme to address regional shortfalls of skills, and thus providing a platform for new skilled migrants to work in regional Australia.  State Migration Plans is a solution provided by the government to balance skills throughout Australia and prevent a case where one region had excess skills while other regions had a shortage. Regional needs of certain skills are specified and overall number of visa applications provided by each region is given. These plans will enable State and Territory Governments to be flexible when addressing shortages of certain skills as well as needs of local labour market. The Government continues to encourage people to go where they can get jobs, thus matching demand with supply. The introduction of Family Migration Program by the Australian Government provides an important social benefit to Australia with the annual intake of permanent migrants. (National Visas, 2011). This program will allow reunification of Australians with their spouses, children and relatives, thus making it an important social value. The Family Migration Program is consistent with the agenda of Skilled Migration in that spouses of primary visa holders work in key labour market areas in Australia. This is an advantage to the Australian future need of labour. The Australia’s immigration and visa system has been streamlined to eradicate the confusing subclasses and categories, long waiting periods, and extensive form lodgments. The visa application process will be simplified and deregulated to reduce the number of temporary working subclasses by fifty percent and the total number of visa subclasses to be halved by 2015. This will enable consistent application, simpler visa products, assessment processes and fewer delivering. These change in Australia’s immigration policies relate to totalitarian rule of spectacle in some way. According to Debord (2006; 1998) “the spectacle is not a collection of images; rather it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images. He supports the theses of Theodor Adorno on culture industry to portray human relations are standardized and alienated by employing a domination capitalist mode of production. The dominating mode of production in Australia is capitalist. The production inputs and outputs are private owned and goods and services purchased in the market. The aim of production is done for exchange in the market with an intention of making a profit. The dominant classes are the owners also called capitalists, the working class or workers make a living by selling their labour powers to capitalists in exchange for wages. The aim of immigration policies like Skilled Immigration Program is to provide more skilled workers for the business owners in Australia, to increase productivity, maximise on costs and increase the economic growth of the country. The aim is not to create cultural diversity in the country or to create human relations across the country and the world. By putting a strong boundary of only ‘the skilled’ are allowed to migrate to Australia, the country kills human relations, and cultural diversity within it which would have been freely been created by allowing other migrants whether skilled or not to come to Australia. Lockard (2008) asserts that the means of production is justified by spectacle which is the case of racial subordination through slave markets, a means of making subordinate individuals submit to a social power that is dominating. Australians want to feel powerful and their Government is helping them achieve this by restricting the number of immigrants entering the country. The fewer number of immigrants in the country with nothing to own but a job, the more powerful Australians become as owners of businesses and buyers of immigrants labour. The dominant power of Australia is in the capitalist production and skilled immigrants have to submit to it. Lockard continues to explain that a slavery society must not just display the inherent enslavement fact but all those participating in the spectacle should witness the role other participants involved so that the order of slavery can be created and prevail. In this case, all Australians are participants in the spectacle, and by acknowledging the reforms made to the policies, they are aware of the role that immigrants are playing in the country; to work in their business by providing their skills. All they have to do as owners is to identify the skills needed in their businesses and choose from all applications to decide who will provide the services for them as they make profit, thus becoming more powerful as workers submit. On the other hand instead of embracing boat people cases individually, analyzing the skills each one has so that they can help them settle in Australia effectively, the Australian Government decides to put them into detention centers. Boat people are people seeking protection in a country outside their own country. The term ‘boat people’ as Australians call it undermines the immigrants and destroy their nationality and identity. Only 1.6% of the annual Australian immigrant population is refugees and Asylum seekers, yet they are discriminated against and criticized. Australians believe that immigrants are an economic and national security, something that is not close to reality (Garner, 2010). The future of Australia in relation to the current immigration policies depends on social and economic objectives. The productivity of Australia will increase, its citizens will have high standard of living, profits will be maximized, citizens will face low unemployment rate and the country will experience a high economic growth. However the spectacle within the Australian society will hinder cultural diversity, low population by time, and hinder human relations with people from other countries. Australia will be seen as selfish loving itself and not caring about other people outside itself. In addition, Australia will face labour shortages in future as the mining industry booms, lacking workers like engineers, hotel clerks, waiters and project managers, among others. Referencing List Australian Government Department of Immigration and citizenship. [Online]. Available at: www.immi.gov.au. [Accessed 22 May 2012] Debord, G., 2006. The society of the Spectacle. Rebel Press. Debord, G., 1998. Comments on the Society of the Spectacle. 2nd ed. Verso Garner, R., 2010. Social Theory: Power and Identity in the Global era. 2nd ed. University of Toronto Press. Inglis, C., 2004. Australia’s Continuing Transformation. Migration Information Source. Migration Policy Institute, [online]. Available at: Read More