Writer

Abul Rizvi
Abul Rizvi PhD was a senior official in the Department of Immigration from the early 1990s to 2007 when he left as Deputy Secretary. He was awarded the Public Service Medal and the Centenary Medal for services to development and implementation of immigration policy, including the reshaping of Australia's intake to focus on skilled migration, slow Australia's rate of population ageing and boost Australia's international education and tourism industries.
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ABUL RIZVI: Migration confusion again (Part 1)
Judith Sloan writing in The Australian (We’re the big losers in this immigration numbers game) has called on the Morrison Government to do much more to drive down immigration, not just the migration program which is measured in terms of permanent visas granted, but also net migration which measures long-term and permanent arrivals minus departures. Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI. Questions for Dutton on his record border protection failure.
The mainstream media (other than The Australian, The Daily Telegraph, Herald-Sun, Daily Mail, Sky News After Dark, Alan Jones, Ray Hadley and their ilk who usually obsess about border protection) has at last picked up on Dutton’s failure to secure our borders. Dutton now holds the record as the Immigration Minister under whom Australia received Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI: Asylum Seekers and Character Checking
Government has expressed concern that under the Medevac Amendments, serious criminals will enter Australia. Immigration Minister Coleman said at Question Time that a backpacker from Norway passes a stronger Character test than the people entering under the Medevac Amendments. While this is superficially correct, in practice the Government is being quite misleading. Let’s unpack the Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI. Another Dutton mess. This time Citizenship processing.
The Auditor-General on 11 February 2019 found in its audit of citizenship application processing that these are not being processed in either a time efficient manner or a resource efficient manner. But this is a tiny portion of a wider malaise in the administration of a once world class immigration system the Government and the Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI. Is the Government walking both sides of the street on immigration?
Scott Morrison has announced (see here) a commitment to ‘create’ 1.25 million jobs over the next five years, beating Tony Abbott’s commitment in 2013 to create 1 million jobs over five years. But to achieve 1.25 million jobs over five years, Morrison will need to maintain an even higher level of net migration than over Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI. Is The Australian making excuses for incompetent immigration administration?
Nick Cater writing in The Australian (see here if you can get past the Paywall) seems to think people trying to manipulate the visa system is news. Has he been as asleep to this while our intrepid government has allowed a world class visa system to deteriorate into chaos (see here)? It is the chaos Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI: Government Continues to Pretend We Have No Air Borders
In an echo of Donald Trump, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Immigration Minister David Coleman continued to pretend yesterday we only have sea borders and we can ignore our air borders. They announced closure of two detention centres (see here) without telling the Australian public that their mismanagement of the visa system will inevitably mean Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI. The Best of 2018: Privatising visa processing – the alarm bells are ringing (Part 1)
Major ICT transformation projects conducted ‘in partnership’ with a big IT company are high risk. Privatisation of core government functions such as visa processing are also high risk, especially when undertaken under the cloak of commercial-in-confidence type secrecy. Doing the two together multiplies the risk big time. But that is exactly what the Home Affairs Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI. The Best of 2018: Privatising visa processing – the alarm bells are ringing (Part 2)
Major ICT transformation projects conducted ‘in partnership’ with a big IT company are high risk. Privatisation of core government functions such as visa processing are also high risk, especially when undertaken under the cloak of commercial-in-confidence type secrecy. Doing the two together multiplies the risk big time. But that is exactly what the Home Affairs Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI. The Best of 2018: How the 2017-18 migration program was delivered.
The report on the 2017-18 migration program has now been publicly released, more than two and a half months after an exclusive to The Australian newspaper and a short time after the Home Affairs department appeared before Senate estimates. As reported in The Australian, the outcome was indeed 162,417, over 27,500 below the ceiling of Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI. What were the drivers of Net Overseas Migration in 2017-18?
Net Overseas Migration (NOM) in 2017-18 fell to 236,733, down from 262,490 in 2016-17. The decline is not as large as might have been expected given cuts to the migration and humanitarian programs and policy changes to employer sponsored temporary and permanent migration. Visitors changing status after arrival now represent a record 24 per cent Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI. The Best of 2018: Scott Morrison’s Record on Immigration.
While Scott Morrison earlier this year publicly disagreed with Tony Abbott on immigration levels, he eventually gave way to Dutton’s ruse about ‘greater scrutiny’ leading to the migration program ‘ceiling’ not being delivered in 2017-18. Will he continue to compromise with Abbott and Dutton on immigration or has he drawn a line in the sand Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI. The Best of 2018: Dutton Sets New Asylum Seeker Application Record.
Why did 50,000 asylum seekers arriving by boat represent a crisis for our border sovereignty while the arrival of a similar number over the past two and a half years by plane is just ho hum? Peter Dutton in 2017-18 has set a new record for the number of asylum seeker applications received. His record Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI: Is Minister Coleman Unwinding Dutton’s Sub-class 457 Changes
Poor David Coleman. Business and employer groups, particularly in regional Australia, have been pillorying him for the ham-fisted changes to employer-sponsored temporary and permanent migration implemented by his predecessor Peter Dutton. Contrary to the traditional approach of past Liberal Party Immigration Ministers, Dutton tightened these categories in a way that shocked business and employer groups. Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI. Dutton Sets New Asylum Seeker Application Record
Why did 50,000 asylum seekers arriving by boat represent a crisis for our border sovereignty while the arrival of a similar number over the past two and a half years by plane is just ho hum? Peter Dutton in 2017-18 has set a new record for the number of asylum seeker applications received. His record Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI. Dutton Sets New Asylum Seeker Application Record
Why did 50,000 asylum seekers arriving by boat represent a crisis for our border sovereignty while the arrival of a similar number over the past two and a half years by plane is just ho hum? Peter Dutton in 2017-18 has set a new record for the number of asylum seeker applications received. His record Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI: Is our Visa Processing System in Crisis?
A fundamental aspect of a well operating immigration system is one that encourages people to apply for the right visa and follow intended visa pathways after arrival rather than use visitor visas to by-pass applying for the right visa. Visitor visas have the lowest level of scrutiny and are the easiest to exploit. But the Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI. Morrison says ‘enough’ to a problem largely of his making.
Scott Morrison says ‘enough’ to the level of migration to Sydney and Melbourne (see here). Yet he fails to mention that it was his actions that brought about the surge in migration to Sydney and Melbourne in the first place. And more knee jerk decisions won’t help, either from the Commonwealth or the states. Continue reading »
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An agricultural visa would change Australian society – for the worse
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has, for the time being, rejected creation of an agricultural visa in favour of changes to the existing working holiday maker program and the seasonal worker visa (see here). These are unlikely to satisfy demands of the National Farmers’ Federation (NFF) for an agricultural visa. While most Australians would see this Continue reading »
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How the 2017-18 migration program was delivered
The report on the 2017-18 migration program has now been publicly released, more than two and a half months after an exclusive to The Australian newspaper and a short time after the Home Affairs department appeared before Senate estimates. As reported in The Australian, the outcome was indeed 162,417, over 27,500 below the ceiling of Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI: Is Dutton Frustrated by the Success of Turnback Policy?
After Scott Morrison’s success in implementing boat turnbacks, and Shorten insisting he will maintain that policy, Dutton’s role in this space has largely been confined to scaremongering. At last he has found a role he excels in. But like the boy who cried wolf, is the Australian public starting to see through Dutton’s bluster? Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI: Privatising visa processing – the alarm bells are ringing (Part 2)
Major ICT transformation projects conducted ‘in partnership’ with a big IT company are high risk. Privatisation of core government functions such as visa processing are also high risk, especially when undertaken under the cloak of commercial-in-confidence type secrecy. Doing the two together multiplies the risk big time. But that is exactly what the Home Affairs Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI. Privatising visa processing – the alarm bells are ringing (Part 1)
Major ICT transformation projects conducted ‘in partnership’ with a big IT company are high risk. Privatisation of core government functions such as visa processing are also high risk, especially when undertaken under the cloak of commercial-in-confidence type secrecy. Doing the two together multiplies the risk big time. But that is exactly what the Home Affairs Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI. Morrison’s U-Turn on Migrants for the Bush.
Scott Morrison has given another exclusive, this time to news.com, on his ideas to encourage more skilled migrants to settle in the regions and smaller cities and away from the major metropolitan centres. While it’s great to have a prime minister prepared to talk about immigration and population, he again failed to explain why usage Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI. Playing God.
Did Peter Dutton breach his own guidelines for ministerial intervention? Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI: Scott Morrison’s Record on Immigration
While Scott Morrison earlier this year publicly disagreed with Tony Abbott on immigration levels, he eventually gave way to Dutton’s ruse about ‘greater scrutiny’ leading to the migration program ‘ceiling’ not being delivered in 2017-18. Will he continue to compromise with Abbott and Dutton on immigration or has he drawn a line in the sand Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI: Will the number of temporary entrants continue to grow?
Apart from Senator Anning’s appalling speech, the other big immigration news this week was that the stock of temporary entrants in Australia was over 2 million as at 30 June 2018. Since 2012, the stock has grown by over 400,000. This has been a long-term trend since the recession of the early 1990s. But is Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI. What is Dutton Hiding Now?
In announcing the outcome of the migration and humanitarian programs, immigration ministers have traditionally provided extensive details on outcomes against planning levels by visa category, as well as other relevant information (see here for examples of such reports for past years). For the 2017-18 outcome, Peter Dutton rushed to get the news out via an Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI: Business migration should focus on establishing businesses not passive investment
While Eryk Bagshaw’s article of 8 July 2018 screams Millionaires stream in, the Sun Herald’s editorial of the same day is a bit more sanguine about the benefits and risks of the Business Innovation and Investment Programme that facilitates entry of business migrants and investors. This Programme and its predecessors, while superficially attractive, have a Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI: Pezzullo’s Dark World View is Paralyzing Australia’s Immigration System.
In a recent speech to heads of international border agencies, Mike Pezzullo, head of Australia’s new Home Affairs Department, again highlighted the dark world view that, together with the policies of Peter Dutton, is paralyzing our world class immigration system. Continue reading »