Migrant plan gets mixed reaction

ATTRACTING more migrants to Tasmania is part of a sensible national immigration strategy, Premier Will Hodgman says.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison told the Mercury last week he was thinking of making temporary visas conditional on the recipients living in places like Tasmania rather than in the overcrowded urban centres of Sydney and Melbourne.

Mr Hodgman said the plan was not to force people to settle in regional areas but rather spread new arrivals more evenly around the nation.

“There is no plan to force anyone to go anywhere. There is a plan to have people who want to make Australia their new home consider places outside Sydney or Melbourne where there is a high level of concentration and to support growth in regional communities right across Australia,” he told reporters.

Mr Hodgman said the state would continue to work with Canberra to support a sustainable intake of migrants. He said skilled migrants would support Tasmania’s economic growth as well as build the state’s population.

Mr Hodgman said Tasmania had long engaged with the Commonwealth in the skilled migration program.

“This isn’t anything new, it’s more about relieving pressure in hotspots on the mainland where there’s high concentrations and getting people with skills who come to our country learning to live and loving to live in places like Tasmania.”

However, Labor’s Sarah Lovell said the state was struggling to cope with the people who were living here now.

“Currently in Tasmania we have a housing system that just can’t support our own population,” she said.

“We have a health system in crisis. The Government needs to change their priorities.

“They need to look at being able to provide these critical services for Tasmanians before they can look at any population strategy that will increase Tasmania’s population without increasing the infrastructure that we need to support a growing population.

“We’ve got nothing to show that there is any strategy in place to address those issues for our own population, let alone growth in population.”