Fiona Martin (Reid, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs. Will the minister outline how the Morrison government's temporary changes to the partner visa rules will facilitate family reunions while ensuring all Australians, including new migrants, can contribute to our recovery from the COVID-19 recession.

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Minister for Population, Cities and Urban Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I thank the member for Reid for her question. She brings enormous experience to this House as a former psychologist and, of course, has been a magnificent advocate for her multicultural community there in Western Sydney. She, like so many of us in this House, knows that our nation has been built on immigration. People from around the world come here and make a contribution to this nation and are welcomed with open arms.

In the budget this year, we made three changes to support people making a contribution, particularly those who come in on partner visas. The first is that we doubled the number of partner visas to more than 72,000, so that more spouses or partners of Australians can settle here permanently. The second is that we relaxed all the restrictions on migrants accessing free English language classes, which basically means that now anybody can access those free English language classes for as long as they need to be able to get themselves up to a decent level of English.

Finally, from late 2021, we're placing new requirements on partner visa applications that they at least have to make a reasonable effort to learn English when they are here, if they don't already have functional English. By reasonable efforts, we mean they have to make a fair go at doing some of those free English language classes. There's no hard and fast test that we'll be applying. We want them to take advantage of those free English language classes while they're here in Australia.

Why are we asking them to do that? It is because we know that English language is so critical to getting a job. When you look at the data, only 13 per cent of people in Australia with no English are in work today, which is extraordinary. This is quite different to what it was like in the fifties and sixties, when people could come in without English and go immediately into the workforce. Today's workforce is different. Because of health and safety requirements, you do need that English language capability. Of course, it's important to be able to fully participate in our democracy and for social cohesion reasons as well.

This has been warmly supported by multicultural leaders across Australia. It's been supported, for example, by the President of the Vietnamese Community in Australia, who said that this decision couldn't have come at a better time. It's a decision welcomed by the Vietnamese community. The former president of the Chinese association of Australia welcomed it, as did the President of the Muslim Women's Association and the former president of the Indian federations of Australia. A good measure, it's a sensible measure and it supports migrants.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.