The goal of Australia’s migration programme is to meet Australia’s economic and social needs through building the economy, shaping society, supporting the labour market and reuniting family. The Business Innovation and Investment Programme is designed to meet those needs by attracting high quality investors and entrepreneurs to invest in Australia.It is important to encourage the creation of genuine and sustainable business opportunities that will generate economic growth, benefiting both the Australian economy and workforce.

With an increasingly important economic objective, the Committee held the view that it would be beneficial to inquire into the programme and assess its effectiveness. However, the Committee faced a number of challenges during the course of its inquiry which impacted on its ability to address its terms of reference. Most notably was the distinct lack of empirical evidence.

As the programme is administered by the Federal Department of Immigration and Border Protection and each State and Territory Government, the Committee invited the Governments to provide submissions and attend public hearings. However, the information, and in particular the data provided by the Governments was limited and furnished little evidence that the programme was actually meeting any of its objectives.

Other challenges included the exclusion of a key component of the programme (the Significant Investor Visa stream); the contradictory nature of the recommendations made by the various stakeholders; the relatively short timeframe from when the programme commenced in its current form to the commencement of this inquiry; and the announcement by the Government that it would expand the Significant Investor Visa, task Austrade to become a nominating entity for the visa, conduct a survey on the 2015-16 migration programme as well as undertake a review of the skilled migration and temporary activity visa programmes.

The Committee therefore recommends that the Department of Immigration and Border Protection examine the programme as part of the 2015-16 migration programme survey and in its reviews of the skilled migration and temporary activity visa programmes