Rethinking Australian Immigration and Immigrant Settlement Policy

Abstract

In the past two decades the Australian immigration experience has changed considerably in response to the changing impact of globalisation and the changing geopolitics post 9/11. During this time immigration and multiculturalism have remained controversial. This article reviews the Australian experience with immigration and immigrant settlement over the past few decades. The aim was to provide the guidelines for Australian immigration and settlement policy in coming decades. The paper makes the case for a future Australian immigration policy that favours continued large-scale immigration but within a framework with an increasing emphasis on long-term nation building rather than the short-term economic benefits of increasing guest worker immigration. This would mean restoring the vision of Australia as a settler immigration country where primacy is once again given to permanent immigration intakes with relative increases in humanitarian and family migration while temporary immigration continues but is constrained and more carefully monitored. The paper also argues for a continuation of multiculturalism, but reimagined within a cosmopolitan framework and reassessed with revitalised programmatic content within a more explicitly anti-racism framework.