One of the worst policies of the Hawke/Keating era in Australia was its migration policy. Bob Hawke was a garrulous cry-baby with his eye keenly on the ethnic vote. Hence he, as with many former governments, promoted ‘family-based’ rather than ‘skilled-migration’ to Australia on the basis of ‘family-reunion’ principles*. If the economy soured a little then the demand for skilled intake would slow but any ‘deficiency’ in migration intake quotas would be filled with family-based migration. The intakes included unskilled Lebanese and others who came in under ‘family’ migration entry and who would vote Labor – as would the ethnic lobbies supporting such migration – so it seemed like a smart political move to Hawke. Of course Australia was left with a underclass of largely uneducated, near-unemployables. Continue reading Rudd Labor migration policy
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