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(iii) Modification, by providing for admission initially for a
limited period, and grant of indefinite leave provided that entrants were maintaining themselves and their dependants without recourse to public funds. There would, however, be practical constraints on removing people (particularly if, like work permit holders now, they were kept on conditions for several years), and such an arrangement would also involve the Department in extra work, and would only reduce numbers by eliminating those who are now admitted unconditionally but do not intend to settle.
Conclusions
17.
(i) Abolition of the provision would significantly reduce the numbers admitted for settlement, which have increased enormously over the years, and would probably also have a marginal impact on employment. (ii) Immigration under this provision is, however, less likely to create
social problems than that under other provisions.
(iii) Abolition could lead to some increased demand for work permits.
(iv) Abolition would raise objections from the Commonwealth lobby
in this country, and possibly to a limited extent from Old Commonwealth countries. Against this must be set the welcome from those who see the provision as discriminatory.
(v) Retention will be harder to justify if the new nationality law is to limit transmission of citizenship to the first generation born abroad in foreign countries, as it is already for those born in Commonwealth countries, and if the right of abode is restricted accordingly.
(vi) The objections to the Rule may not be sufficiently compelling to justify changing it in isolation. As part of a package aimed at restricting immigration, abolition would, however, serve as a defence to charges that the changes as a whole were discriminatory. (vii) Abolition would be more logical and administratively simpler than
modification. If the latter course is thought appropriate, the second of the options in paragraph 16 above would seem preferable to the third.
(viii) If the Rule is to be abolished, history suggests that there should
be no special provision in the new marriage Rules (like there was before 1974) to enable husbands and fiances with a UK-born grandparent to enter for settlement and settlement on marriage respectively but it would be possible to retain the concession for husbands and fiances while abolishing the Rule relating to work (in the knowledge that the NCWP would eventually benefit from it).
B3 Division
28 June 1979
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