Report urges caution on skills and migration

Australia should not be turning the skilled migration tap off and on, despite the global financial crisis, a visiting expert on migration policy has warned. Dr Khalid Koser, director of the new threats and security program at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, is critical of the government's recent reduction in and tightening of eligibility under the skilled migration program. He also foreshadows a likely slowdown in international student numbers, although he believes the government's international student policies are appropriate to the circumstances, and compare more than favourably...