IPA Research Fellow Colleen Harkin believes Australians have been misled about who is entering the country under the skilled migration program.
“When you find out that well less than half of them are the skilled people and the rest of them are family members and the people connected with them, I think people are very surprised,” Ms Harkin told Sky News host James Morrow.
“185,000 permanent visas given out in that year is still double what that used to be.
“The average Australian, I’m sure, has no understanding about how those numbers are being manipulated, and it is genuinely a con.
“What we keep getting told is that we need these immigrants to fill these jobs, but we’re not importing skilled immigrants to fill whatever these jobs might happen to be.”
