A review of Australia’s migration system says regional visas aren’t working and the benefits of migration to regional areas may be overstated. 

The 200-page report says Australia's migration system is "broken" and "tinkering" around the edges will not be effective and "major reform" is required to attract skilled workers, drive economic growth, and protect against their exploitation. 

Regional visas were not left unscathed in the report by former PM&C secretary Dr. Martin Parkinson and migration experts Professor Joanna Howe and John Azarias. 

Currently, there are two skilled regional provisional visas available for skilled migrants and dependent family members who want to live and work in regional Australia. 

The report said that many submissions questioned the effectiveness of regional areas. It suggested better investment in infrastructure, employment opportunities, and housing for the regions would provide incentives to migrants than a specialised visa. 

“More effective outcomes could be achieved by linking migration targets to specific regional economic and community development plans,” the report added. 

“The Panel is concerned the current regional programs are poorly utilised and Australia is not achieving its objectives for regional migration,” it said. 

However, the report also said that “Expectations of what migration can achieve in Regional Australia on its own are often unrealistic” and notes that “Regional Australia’s population has grown at around half the rate of the rest of the country over the past 10 years” and acknowledges that remote areas of regional Australia are continuing to see populations decline.

“It hasn’t been a cohesive approach,” Minister for Home Affairs Clare O’Neil said in relation to the regional Australia migrant scheme. 

ABOVE: Minister Clare O'Neill. Image: ALP. 

“You can’t just direct 500 migrants to go and live in a place where there aren’t services, and there aren’t religious institutions that they desire, and there aren’t schools for their children. 

“Part of the purpose of the Prime Minister trying to lead a better discussion with the states is to try to start to think about these issues as they belong, which is as a whole,” she said. 

National Party Leader David Littleproud said there was nothing in the review or from the Government which provided a clear strategy for getting migrants into rural, regional and remote areas. 

Mr Littleproud said the Coalition "introduced the dedicated agriculture visa, which would have helped alleviate the sever worker shortages that regional Australia". 

"The ag visa was the biggest structural reform to the agricultural workforce in our nation's history - and would have assisted in securing a workforce of the future to support this sector in reaching its goal of $100 billion in value by 2030. 

"However, Labor's decision to scrap this visa is unconscionable and is a massive kick in the guts for our farmers." 

Nationals' David Littleproud says the Coalition's Ag Visa would have been a game-changer.

Minister O'Neil said the current system was "suffering from a decade of genuinely breathtaking neglect".   

"It is broken, it is failing our businesses, it is failing migrants themselves, and most importantly, it's failing Australians," she said.  

Ms O'Neil said the government is considering creating three new pathways for temporary skilled migrants. 

A new pathway for highly skilled workers on high salaries, a "mainstream" pathway for skilled migrants earning above the temporary skilled migration income threshold, and a simpler pathway for lower-earning workers in sectors experiencing a skills shortage.