Original post by nulli tertiusI don't think the people meant that at all. I think the people conflated the Australian system for handling asylum seekers (camps on remote islands) with the Australian system for voluntary migrants (ie the points system) and added in a little bit of panacea and a little bit of grass being greener.
We do indeed have what is called a points based system. We are on our second version of it but that is smoke and mirrors because the points serve no purpose in the system. In the UK system, we no longer say that to get a visa you must achieve English language level B2 to get a particular visa. We say you must get 40 points for English language. You get 40 points for having language level B2. You get nil points if you have B1 and you only get 40 points is you have C1. Occam Razor's would remove the reference to points.
I am not aware that Australia uses any kind of data analysis to determine points values. As far as know they are an impressionistic governmental decision.
The essential weaknesses with points systems are that it is the immigrant, not the government, who decides how the points requirement is met. All the government can do is set the points awarded for a particular desirable characteristic and the overall points score for getting admission.
Governments are constrained by politics in setting the overall points score. Employers, in-laws and others with an interest in visas being awarded aren't interested in the points system. They just want the system to work so that the people they are interested in are admitted. The UK as a nation might be interested in giving visas to science PhDs but the middle class family in Maidenhead want a visa for their would-be daughter in law who is an American with a liberal arts degree and a pleasant personality and works in a bookshop. Your overall points score tends to be set to not exclude people like her.
The problem then is that the Azerbaijani with very poor English, no cultural links to the UK, a non-working non-English speaking wife and three kids, gets enough points on the back of his PhD in physics and the £10,000 capital in his bank account.
Of course we know of a points system for admission because UCAS runs one. I appreciate that individual universities do not set the points score for each qualification but they do so collectively by comprising the UCAS board.
I want admission to Cambridge to read maths. I have grade 8 flute and grade 8 piano. I have A* A levels in Latin, history and English and grade A in maths. If Cambridge was a "points" rather than a "grades" university, I would be in, wouldn't I?
Our present immigration system is a "grades" system. The government decides precisely what you need to get in. If that is B2 English language, B1 isn't good enough and if you have C1 that doesn't give you a compensating pass in some other aspect of the process.