Australia is a “migration nation”. This line is repeated so often that it risks becoming meaningless.

The more interesting question is what type of “migration nation” we want to be. 

Do we want to be a country that treats migrants as temporary labour units, useful while demand is high and disposable when the political mood shifts?

Or do we want to be a country that invites people to build a life here, to put down roots, to buy homes, start businesses, raise kids, join clubs, pay taxes, and care about the future of the place? 

The changing nature of our migration system has made integration harder. 

Australia’s migration system in the postwar decades was overwhelmingly a settlement system.

In 1960, permanent settler arrivals accounted for about 79 per cent of all long-term arrivals. By contrast, in 2024-25 permanent visa holders made up only about 16 per cent of migrant arrivals. Temporary visas are now the norm. 

Visa categories are not perfectly comparable over the past six decades, but the historical direction is clear – mid-century migration was permanent, while today’s migration is temporary. 

When a young Italian migrant stepped off the boat in 1960, they expected to never leave Australia again. The motivation and incentive to build houses, start businesses, to invest blood, sweat, and tears into this country was big.  

Compare this to an Indian migrant today. They step off the plane on a temporary visa. Purchasing a house or starting a business is much harder on a temporary visa as all your efforts might be taken away from you again. 

The incentives to fully integrate into Australian society are smaller on temporary visas. 

This matters enormously because integration is not a magical cultural process that just happens in the background. Integration is shaped by incentives.

If you know that your future is in Australia, you invest in Australia. You improve your English, you build local networks, you understand local institutions, you take more interest in politics, you join community organisations, you plan your career around Australian needs and you raise children who are fully Australian. 

If you are kept on a temporary visa treadmill, your incentives are different. You still work, study, pay rent, pay taxes, and contribute to the economy, but you do so with one eye on the exit door. You cannot fully commit to a country that refuses to fully commit to you. 

Today we take in more migrants than we did in the 1960s. That’s no surprise once we remember that in 1965 our population was only 11.4 million, less than half of today’s count. 

But it comes as a big surprise to many when they learn that the absolute number of permanent arrivals was almost twice as high in 1965 (148,000) than in was in 2024-25 (88,000).  

This is the paradox of modern........

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