India is in secret negotiations with the Albanese government to build one million homes in Australia using Indian immigrant workers.
India’s Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal revealed the project while speaking at a meeting with a UAE trade delegation in Mumbai on Sunday, and said it could be funded by the Gulf state.
“I am in deep negotiation with my counterpart in Australia to create 1 million homes. 1 million homes. Anybody wants to do the maths? A million homes in Australia would be at least USD 500 billion opportunity,” Mr Goyal said, The Economic Times reported.
Mr Goyal said India is proposing that the project involve Indian workers who will be trained in Australia so as to have the skills to meet Australian construction standards.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has not informed the Australian public about the ongoing negotiations.
The Albanese government has already signed two major deals with India that have contributed to record levels of Indian immigrants arriving in Australia, and 85% of the Indian diaspora voted Labor during the May federal election, and a 2022 survey found 60% of Indian migrants favoured Labor.
The first pact, The Mechanism for Mutual Recognition of Qualifications, was signed in early 2023 and forces Australia to recognise all Indian educational qualifications from secondary school through to the doctorate degree level, for both education and general employment purposes.
The second, also signed in 2023, was the Australia-India Migration and Mobility Partnership Agreement, that included Labor’s Mobility Arrangement for Talented Early-professionals Scheme (MATES).
MATES allows thousands of Indian graduates or young professionals to live and work in Australia for two years, and then apply for permanent skilled visas.
On top of MATES, the deal allowed for five-year student visas for Indians, eight-year temporary work visas for Indian graduates, unlimited work rights for spouses, and three-month visitor visas for family or business purposes, with no caps on numbers.
A third pact, the Australia-India Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA), was signed by the previous Coalition government late in its final term.
The Indian-born population of Australia was 916,330 as of June 30 last year, according to the latest official estimates, in addition to another 200,971 “second-generation migrants” born in Australia with Indian ancestry, and 113,947 “secondary migrants” who were born in other countries but have Indian ancestry.
Australia’s Indian-born population is expected to hit 1.1 million in 2026, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, up from 95,000 in 2001.
Header image: Left, Mr Albanese with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the G20 last year. Right, Mr Albanese with Mr Goyal in Mumbai in 2023 (Facebook).
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