FRASER, Miss Nora, Chief Executive Officer, Multicultural Professional Network CHAIR: Welcome. Although the committee does not require you to give evidence under oath, this hearing is a legal proceeding of the parliament. The giving of false or misleading evidence is a serious matter and may be regarded as a contempt of parliament. The evidence given today will be recorded by Hansard and attracts parliamentary privilege. Thank you very much for your submission to the inquiry. The inquiry the Joint Standing Committee on Migration is currently looking into is skilled migration—the skills that Australia needs, how we're going in terms of filling those skilled roles, whether we can do it better, what things are working and what things aren't working. Our task is to come up with recommendations at the end of this inquiry that will be then presented to the minister in the federal government for their information. Our job is to come up with the best possible recommendations that we can. Thank you very much for appearing before us. We'll just have a very open-ended discussion, a Q&A. On that note, I invite you to make a very short opening statement of no more than five minutes, and then we'll open up for discussion. Thank you. Miss Fraser : Thank you, Chair and committee members, for the opportunity to speak today. The Multicultural Professional Network is a verified social enterprise. We are focused on a simple but critical national imperative—ensuring Australia unlocks the full potential of global talent. Our submission draws on a national survey of professionals across Australia, including representation from regional areas such as Tasmania and, of course, Queensland. I invite the committee to look past the policy spreadsheets for a moment and imagine a world entirely without immigration. If we did that, much of our public debate would lose one of its most frequently used political talking points. For decades, it's been convenient to focus on who we keep out of the country. As a result, public discourse often becomes trapped in exclusion rather than optimisation, but the demographic reality is unavoidable. Globally and domestically, fertility rates are in freefall. Australia's rate sits at historic lows. We celebrate global potential and inclusive stages, like the Olympics which are about to start in Brisbane, yet most of the extraordinary diverse professionals who are powering Australia's critical industries would not be here if isolationist rhetoric had dictated what our borders looked like. Stripping away the political noise and look strictly at the macroeconomics, a nation without immigration is a nation in long-term economic contraction. The paradox here is that we are simultaneously wasting the talent that we already attract. Our findings show that current systems fail to match in-country talent with critical skill shortages. A clear majority of the professionals that we surveyed reported being underemployed, including qualified engineers. Furthermore, most respondents reported that AI driven recruitment systems filtered them out before human review. Highly qualified professionals face hidden systemic barriers. We routinely see doctorate holders and engineers locked out of their industries and an AI driven recruitment sector increasingly using biased selection algorithms that filter out diverse applicants before a human even sees their name. Corporate workplaces, particularly in professional, scientific and technical services, often rely on superficial, compliance based inclusion rather than genuine workplace equity. When professional pathways are blocked by systemic glass ceilings, these talented individuals are forced into self-employment and entrepreneurship simply to survive economically. This is not a partisan issue. Every side of politics benefits from an Australia that fully utilise the talents already living here. A national framework of zero wasted potential requires dynamic migration targets tied to an AI-resilient workforce strategy, fast-tracked affordable credential recognition supported by structured bridging programs, and genuine regional incentives that create long-term career pathways, leveraging the social enterprise sectors and community organisations which our data shows are central to successful integration. Our national survey reveals a double failure. We are locking existing PhD holders into survival jobs, while simultaneously bringing in technical talent that AI will make obsolete within five to 10 years. The rise of AI requires us to rethink what exactly skilled migration actually means. As artificial intelligence automates routine technical tasks, our economy will increasingly rely on human centred skills such as empathy, leadership, complex decision-making and care. Skilled migration is going to be vital to filling those roles, especially in health care, aged care and regional middle management. Jobs and Skills Australia's modelling shows that most human centred roles are at lower risk for automation, while many routine technical roles face high exposure over the next decade. If a job can be fully automated by AI in the next 10 years, it should not dominate our skills intake list today. Even if we assume AI entirely automates the need for new labour supply by the mid-2030s, Australia still faces an acute demographic and operational crisis over the next decade. AI can certainly draft an insurance policy or design a factory blueprint today, but it cannot lay the structural track for our renewable energy transitions or staff our regional clinical wards this year. The urgency is that Australia is currently running its migration program without sufficient regard to this timeline. We're bringing in large volumes of technical talent that AI may replace within five years, while starving the human centred sectors that AI cannot touch. It's not about stopping immigration later; it's about fixing the broken pipeline now so Australia can survive the decade-long transition without economic collapse. We're recommending a simple two-part pivot. First, automate the routine, by deprioritising intake for high-risk technical roles. Second, elevate the human, by fast-tracking talent in high-empathy, high-strategy sectors AI cannot automate. Attracting world-class talent is only step 1. Step 2 is ensuring an inclusive system where that talent can actually thrive, belong and contribute equitably from day one. Australia does not need a border tap that we turn on and off. We need a zero-wasted-potential talent strategy that secures our economic future. Australia has the talent, the institutions and the capacity to fix this. What we need now is alignment and urgency. Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this important discussion. I look forward to taking your questions on how this framework operates in practice. CHAIR: Thank you very much for your submissions, both written and verbal. I'll kick off with a very quick couple of questions, and then I'll hand over to my colleagues. My first question is: in your submission, you mentioned that public awareness of skilled migration is fairly poor in Australia, and I'd like to just find out what you think can be done about it in terms of increasing the public's awareness of the role that migrants play in skilled migration. And how do we get the Australian public's understanding of what it means for us? Miss Fraser : When we've talked to our respondents on this survey, a lot of what's out there in the public never seems to link skilled migration to the economy and to how vital it is for our economic survival. Lots of countries do have skilled migration—the UK, Sweden; every single country does—but it's always framed to the public as a group of people coming in to drain the resources of Australia. That's the perception. So there are a couple of things we can do. Once we start linking the economy of Australia with why critical skills are needed, and that's the kind of messaging that's out in the public, I think people might have a completely different view of what it is. CHAIR: Can I ask who would be responsible for that role: governments, industries or a mixture of everyone? Miss Fraser : I think everyone, as a mixture. The media in particular are very good at putting it out, and they have a lot of perception in what you see on TV and what you hear. And government can put out messages. We do a lot in terms of the community groups ourselves, but there's only so much we can do when you've got a larger kind of entity saying, 'Oh, they're here; they're taking our jobs and taking our houses.' What we're saying, actually, is we're here because we're filling critical roles and skills that Australia needs. So it's like two different conflicting messages that are out there. CHAIR: Thank you. This is my other question, before I hand over to my colleagues. You also recommend—and you spoke a little bit about it—targeting leadership and mentoring of professional development to support a lot of those skilled migrants. How do you think that could be implemented in the Australian workforce as a whole, across the board, in terms of migrant skilled workers or other migrant workers? Miss Fraser : What we found actually works is where you've got either a social enterprise or a tailored community group that's actually supporting professionals who are newly arrived into Australia, because they changed the story from, 'I'm in Australia for a job for a short term,' to: 'Actually, from day one, we're thinking about how I can build a life in Australia? How can I be here? How can we integrate me into the economy? How can we think about what I want to achieve in terms of my career pathways?' One of the organisations we heard from was, I think, in Tasmania. They do that very well, and they said it really, really worked. It helped them integrate into Australia. Once you feel a sense of belonging, which is kind of what we're talking about, it's very different from, 'I'm just here in the country because I've got a job,' and that's where those groups come in, to really do a lot of that work to support the workplace as well. Some of the things workplaces do are things like the employee resource groups or belonging groups, as some of these organisations call it. They help people who are actually in the workforce, but, from our survey, what we're hearing is that some of them are doing it because they have to, as opposed to genuinely wanting to actually integrate people into the workforce because they're newly arrived into Australia. CHAIR: Deputy Chair. Mr REBELLO: You made a comment about zero wasted potential in your opening statement. That continues along the line of what we've been talking about earlier today in relation to the underutilisation of migrants at the moment in Australia. I have a few questions just in that train. Firstly, do you think that an occupation should remain on a shortage list when many qualified people already in Australia, including new Australians, can't find work in that field? Miss Fraser : That's exactly what we're saying shouldn't be happening. We're saying that you've got the talent. They're right here. What's happening is they're actually taking survivor jobs. Uber driving was one of the examples we got in our consultations that we did. We're not thinking about how we upskill domestic talent that is here and match the talent that's actually in country with what we actually need on the skills occupation list. Mr REBELLO: You'd answer that question by saying, no, that shouldn't be. Miss Fraser : Correct. Mr REBELLO: In a similar vein, do you think that there's an opportunity for the obligation to be put on employers to report whether sponsored migrants are actually working in their nominated occupation, as a way for government to understand the depth of underutilisation? Miss Fraser : I can talk to my experience. I feel like it would be very hard for somebody to be on an employer sponsored visa and not be working in the occupation. It's very strict and almost impossible not to. If you wanted to do something else, you would have to get a skills assessment done and find a new employer to sponsor you. I think it's hard. I think that reporting already happens between the department and an employer where an employee changes skills or where they actually are not working in their occupation. I'm sure it has to be reported. Mr REBELLO: If it doesn't, do you think it could be a good idea to have that so that we could, if it's not actually happening where it's difficult for employees to work outside their field, then get some clarity around that? Miss Fraser : I agree, yes. Mr REBELLO: Generally, going to the underutilisation, should post-study work rights be linked more closely to our areas of national skill shortage? Where we do have a particular need, whether it's for construction workers or for healthcare professionals, once you have studied or completed study in Australia, your work rights are linked closely to that. Miss Fraser : That's exactly what we're saying. You have to link skilled migration to the critical skills that you need. It can't be anything else, because then what happens is somebody randomly has a visa and it's like, 'I'm just going to drive an Uber,' but that's not why we need you. We need you to fill critical roles in the critical sectors and industries that we need in Australia. Mr REBELLO: With those critical industries and sectors. What fields of study do you think produce the graduates that Australia most needs to hold onto? Miss Fraser : We didn't do an exhaustive list. I'll tell you what we did. We looked at things like what the documented workforce shortages are—places like health care, aged care, social services, education and regional leadership. We looked at the ageing population, which likely would increase that demand for care, counselling and frontline facility management. Then we looked at the JSA's automation exposure scores as well, which talks about human centred operationally complex roles are going to be the least automatable in the economy. We didn't look at the whole list. We almost created a scenario of, if you had to do critical roles, what they would be right now. Then we modelled that in one of our things in our submission. We modelled what that may look like. CHAIR: Mr Caldwell. Mr CALDWELL: Thanks for your time today, Miss Fraser. Does your organisation deal predominantly with professional level services? Miss Fraser : Correct. Mr CALDWELL: How are you finding the discussions you're having with people early on in their entry to Australia around how they're finding housing? Is it available enough for them, or is that becoming a barrier to entry to Australia? Miss Fraser : We haven't heard anything in terms of barriers to housing. Mr CALDWELL: Do you think that the housing market is meeting that upper end of professional services, when they arrive in Australia? They can meet the rental costs that are being imposed, or they're able to find housing? Miss Fraser : I've not heard anything from professionals around that. I'm making a calculated guess to say it's probably not an issue. It's not been raised at all. Mr CALDWELL: What would be the salary point of some of these types of professionals that are coming in that you're aware of? Miss Fraser : I know there is a threshold, I'm sure, for the core skills pathway. I can't think of what that is right now, but I know it's actually at the higher end. I know you certainly can't bring somebody in and say, 'I'm going to pay them $20,000 a year.' There's a cap, and it has to be to come into an occupation. Most of them would probably be in that cap. Our professionals would likely be people in management. They would be in the higher earning range. Mr CALDWELL: Is there anything that you can that see would be an immediate fix to the way the systems are currently working that you'd like to share with the committee? Miss Fraser : Do you mean for the wider skilled migration? Mr CALDWELL: Yes, predominantly. What keeps you awake at night when you're thinking, 'Jeez, I'd love to improve this system, if only I could talk to someone in parliament about this.' What would that be? Miss Fraser : I think the biggest thing that came out of our survey was inclusion—feeling included in the economy, feeling part of it and feeling a sense of belonging within Australia. It's also having equity in the workplace to feel that, if I'm in a workplace and I'm newly arrived in Australia, I certainly would have equitable roles. We're finding that is a big barrier for a lot of the professionals. They might stay in the same role for a very long time, even though they've upskilled and done something else. The second thing that we actually are seeing is what I raised earlier, the prioritisation of talent that's already here. Some of them are highly qualified, and some of the people that we spoke to are in professions like engineering. They're meeting things like administrative delays by almost a year in terms of skills recognition. During that gap, what's happening is they're taking on any job to survive, as opposed to, 'Is there a way we could actually have a pathway'—maybe like a bridging program—'where we're doing the skills in Australia at the same time so they're not in these survival jobs at the same time.' Mr CALDWELL: Would it be the case that, based on that upper professional level that you're referring to, if we were to change the skilled migration mix to push more into that higher category, that would actually be quite an attractive proposition still to retain even more of a skilled set of migrants to Australia? Miss Fraser : I think not necessarily. We're finding it's less about the money. We're finding that the biggest thing is that sense of belonging that people are finding. I know there are regional pathways where you can live in a region for about three years, and that gives you a pathway. Sometimes people go to the regions, and they're just there for the visa. That demotivates them. They're thinking, 'How do I move to a capital city in the next three years?' There's nothing that actually motivates them to stay in the regions. That sense of belonging is really huge in terms of people wanting to stay, even though they initially may be coming in on a temporary visa to fill skills shortages. Mr CALDWELL: Thank you. CHAIR: In terms of migrants and migrant programs, you spoke a bit about it, but can you sort of elaborate a bit more on which way they're meeting organisational needs here in Australia or not meeting those needs and what needs to be done. Miss Fraser : I think a lot of that work is sitting in the community, so the community organisations are picking those up. Social enterprises that deal with—I'd probably use ourselves as an example, because we saw the gap. We need to integrate people into Australia, think about some of the things that they might not have in terms of opportunities in the workplace, give them a sense of belonging and really talk to them about career pathways. That's the gap that's missing. Where we can, we don't try to replicate what's already there. Sometimes some things are already there, but they just don't know they're there. A good example is self-employment. I know the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations does a really good program, but a lot of people wouldn't even know that exists. So we're working with them and actually saying, 'That exists, if you're thinking about setting up a business,' and pointing them in the right direction. Where government is doing mentoring programs, we're pointing people in the right direction. Most of it is information and people not having that information and that support to see what the pathway is. We're really sitting with them and thinking about their skills profile. What do you want to do? What do you think about long term in Australia? What do you want to do within Australia? That's some of the work that we are undertaking independently to fill some of that gap as well. CHAIR: In terms of your organisation being the professional network for multicultural issues and professional people, in terms of the cutting-edge, high-technology positions that we're trying to fill, you're getting the top of the cream, I suppose, of people coming over to fill certain roles. In terms of our strategy of navigating the visa system, how detrimental do you think that is in terms of being a global market where other countries are competing for this talent as well? Do you think we are missing out on talent here in Australia because of the difficulties of navigating a visa, and also the benefits of actually getting more professional people here to Australia for the economy, for research, for a whole range of other things? Miss Fraser : I would say so. That's come up before; we've heard that the visa pathways are very difficult for some people and it takes a long time. For the 482, you had to be one occupation. I know that's changed so you can actually switch occupations now without being tied to an employer. I know we had a lot of people give us some feedback about that—anything that could make the visa process easier. Mainly what we're hearing is most people are wanting a visa process that would actually give you a pathway to citizenship, because they're thinking, 'If I'm going to go there to work, I would rather have something that's a bit long term.' The other countries that are competing are doing things like saying, 'Come to this country and you can have citizenship as well faster than, for example, Australia would enable.' CHAIR: In comparison with other countries? Miss Fraser : Yes. CHAIR: In other words, when we're competing on a global market with like-minded countries people want to go to, like Canada, Europe or the US, where would we be on that scale in terms of being competitive to attract people? Miss Fraser : I would say we're pretty similar. When I look at Europe, we're definitely not as competitive. CHAIR: It's not as complex as us. Miss Fraser : Very similar to the US and very similar to the UK. CHAIR: So we could be missing out, perhaps, to Europe if we're pretty comparable with the other two. Deputy Chair? Mr REBELLO: Just one more question. In relation to international graduates often needing a temporary graduate visa before they can qualify for a skilled visa, firstly, why is that the case? Secondly, do you think there's a case to streamline that process? Miss Fraser : I think so. You're referring to the 485 visa, where someone's finished their studies and they then go on a postgraduate visa, which is a 485. Then, for them to get sponsored, they've got to be on the 485 for a number of years. I agree with you. I've never really seen the point of that. I'll give an example. We had somebody who was working for us as a graduate. We were thinking that they'd been doing that job, for example, as an architect for the two to three years that they'd been studying. They finished, and we were happy to give them a contract right now, but we couldn't, because apparently we couldn't count the student time while they were on that visa. Then they had to go on a 485. Then we had to sponsor them. It just took forever, so there's definitely a case there to streamline that visa. Mr REBELLO: Is your network more focused on tertiary education and university sector professionals? What's the balance between that and, say, trades? Miss Fraser : We're purely skilled professionals in skilled roles in management positions, but that's across different industries. We have people in health care and people who work for NGOs, government and professional services. Corporate sectors, actually, are predominant. CHAIR: Thank you. Mr Caldwell? Mr CALDWELL: I'm fine. CHAIR: There's one final question from me, and you've touched on it again. You recommend focusing on occupations, and it goes on a bit more from what I said previously about attracting cutting-edge professionals to Australia. You speak about automation and AI and recommend focusing on those occupations to bring professionals out in that area. It would complement our economy. It would support research and a whole range of other things. Can you elaborate a bit more on that and why it's important to the economy to attract people not just in the AI area but also in those other cutting-edge, high-tech jobs? Miss Fraser : What we looked at is the direct JSA generative AI capacity study. There's also the federal AI and employment in Australia report, which was recently released. What the JSA framework did was differentiate between automated exposure and augmentation exposure. The data showed us that, for example, your corporate managers would be at a high automation risk on this list. For any human-facing operational manager, it showed that their profiles are more resilient. So a childcare centre manager—or a construction manager was an example that scored really low in terms of automated exposure. What we then did is we thought when you target leadership that's about high empathy in a non-linear environment—like your physical health clinics, your community housing schemes and your regional training facilities. We then worked out that, if you heavily prioritise economic productivity, how do you align the public-good sectors, where shortages are structurally critical? That should form the basis of where we think these roles would be essential. I don't know if you've got our submission, but we then did a bit of a model in what we proposed that that would look like. We're saying to bring in those roles. We did health care as the top role that you would bring in, aged care as the next role and then professionals next in terms of the modelling that we did. We used all of those stats. It's not a fixed number or fixed targets. It can move, but we're just saying that if you prioritise those—this is critical to Australia, this is what we need for the economy based on the bed rate and based on the fact that we've got an ageing population and this is what we might need if we project in the next couple of years—then that should form the first-priority basis of what should be on the skills occupation list and the skills that we're attracting to come into Australia. CHAIR: You submitted some papers to us, Zero Wasted Potential: A National Strategy for Unlocking Australia's Global Talent,at the beginning. Would you like to table these as evidence for our committee? Miss Fraser : Yes, please. CHAIR: I just need someone to move that we accept the papers from Multicultural Professional Network titled Zero Wasted Potential: A National Strategy for Unlocking Australia's Global Talent. Mr REBELLO: I'm happy to move that. CHAIR: Thank you, Deputy Chair. On that note, thank you for coming in today. We really appreciate it. If you've been asked to provide any additional information, please send it through to the secretariat by Friday 2 October 2026. You will be sent a transcript of your evidence and will have an opportunity to request corrections to any errors that you may think are in the transcription..