BORDER WARS- the trajectory of next year’s big divisions

 Framing the very concept of border security as part of a larger struggle for conservative identity will determine elections in the next couple of years.

In Britain it is splitting the Conservatives facing Sunak. In America it is splitting the nation over the Southern Border facing a Republican Trump return. In Australia it is Dutton’s desperate bid to mobilise marginal electorates.

Australia and the United States have been close friends and security partners for more than seven decades. Throughout this period, Australia has had confidence that regardless of who was in power in Washington, there was a platform of shared values and a strong degree of trust between the two countries.

 However, the current state of the Republican Party, and the prospect of a return to the White House in 2024 of Donald Trump or someone closely reflecting his brand of politics, does alter this calculation for Canberra.

Karen Stenner, a political psychologist, and behavioural economist,  argues that liberal democracies have reached a stage of complexity that around one-third of their citizens have difficulty adjusting themselves to. These people value consistency, conformity, and homogeneity over difference and change.

This disposition can tolerate changing societies under the right conditions, but it is susceptible to arousal and agitation through political demagoguery and media outlets that prey on their insecurities — leading to support for more insular and authoritarian styles of governing. Dutton, Modi, Netanyahu, Putin, Sunak and Trump recognise that this is the last resort of nationalist survival instincts.

Australia faces not only economic conditions that require an increased labour force, but also strategic conditions that require an increase in state power. Canberra must confront the dual problem of a powerful and belligerent regional adversary in China alongside a primary security partner in the United States whose domestic instability is making it a much more unpredictable political alliance.

To negotiate this difficult terrain Australia requires more people to enhance its economic, diplomatic, defence, and cultural capabilities. 

As Grant Wyeth, a Melbourne-based political analyst specialising in Australia and the Pacific, India and Canada points out “One of the more crucial elements of the recovery is how the country re-establishes its immigration program.. In recent decades Australia’s national strategy has relied on sourcing a significant number of skilled migrants to off-set birth rates that are below the replacement level, drive economic activity, and enhance the country’s overall capabilities.”

The government of Australia has already announced several important changes to the immigration rules which may impact visa applicants and employers. The

Albanese Government has removed the limit on the number of Short-term stream TSS visa applications that visa holders can make in Australia.

Immigration law have also been updated to remove the requirement for employers to advertise on the Workforce Australia website. This change will apply to subclass 482 and 494 nomination applications, and will allow employers greater flexibility in relation to how they undertake LMT.  Clarifying text has been incorporated into the updated instrument which indicates that nominated positions may be advertised over two or more overlapping periods totalling a minimum of four weeks.

This followed The Nixon Review established to complement work already being progressed by the Department of Home Affairs that included the following aspects:

• Specific circumstances of issues highlighted in media reports.
• The use, storage, treatment and sharing of information within Home Affairs, in respect to investigation, regulation and enforcement efforts to address the behaviour of threat actors who target vulnerabilities in the visa system.
• The powers, resourcing and sanctions available to the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority (OMARA) and the Australian Border Force (ABF), to investigate and take action against third parties who seek to exploit the visa system, including registered and unregistered migration agents.
• The powers and provisions for checking the character of people across the visa continuum and the gaps and areas of weakness that have allowed threat actors to enter Australia and exploit our system.
• How visa settings could be optimised to limit the vulnerability of visa holders, uphold the integrity of visa programs, and deter unscrupulous actors.
• The triage, referral and decision making mechanisms for cases of concern, particularly where there are indicators of the facilitation of the exploitation of migrants in Australia.

 The question to be answered in the Dunkley by-election ( see last week's column) is whether this raft of changes wlll float Albo's sinking boat.