Australia says it could follow Canada in forging deeper ties with EU • Hacker News Board

Re: Australia says it could follow Canada in forging deeper ties with EU

#201

Post by johneth » Thu, Sep 17, 2026, 11:36 AM UTC

notatoad wrote: post #97

spiralpolitik wrote: post #43

I'm guessing Canada and Australia would go for an EFTA 'lite' type deal. As EFTA doesn't require a customs union it's probably the easiest to implement and build up from. I think they amended EFTA to require free movement which was a no-op as all the EFTA countries had free movement with the EU. I could see the EU agreeing to a NAFTA style workers visa if they really wanted push the freedom of movement side hence the…

canada already has CETA for EU trade and CEFTA for trade with the EFTA. it seems like "associate membership" must mean something that goes beyond just a free trade agreement, because that already exists.

And not all EU members have ratified CETA either, so I'm not sure why everyone's getting their hopes up about "associate membership", whatever that is (it's not defined in the EU treaties). They can't even fully ratify a trade deal after almost a decade.

Re: Australia says it could follow Canada in forging deeper ties with EU

#202

Post by coderenegade » Thu, Sep 17, 2026, 12:23 PM UTC

nl wrote: post #200

coderenegade wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Australia is very lax when it comes to bringing in dependents, who outnumber skilled migrants themselves. We also have an oversupply of technically skilled people, with nothing for them to work on, because we got rid of all of our industry. High energy prices and wages means that you'll struggle to get anything that isn't finance, gambling, or real estate related off the ground. I guess defense is the oth…

> There are currently 3 million temporary visa holders in the country, It's pretty important to realise that this includes student visas (600K - and education is a major earner for Australia) and graduate visas (200K) and 700K New Zealanders (who have their own special temporary class). There are also 250K working holiday visas (ie backpackers).

Yes, the largest chunk is students. In fact, ~6% of all international students in the world attend Australian universities, making it the largest per-capita destination for international students by a significant margin. They still require housing, and they still have working rights. Fake students coming over to work without ever attending a class is a well-known rort.

The single biggest justification for our high migration setting (among the highest in the OECD) is ostensibly for skills we need to keep the economy afloat. I've yet to see a skills shortage closed by migration. And of course, skilled migrants are one of the smaller cohorts in our net intake -- we actually bring in more dependents than we do skilled workers.

Re: Australia says it could follow Canada in forging deeper ties with EU

#203

Post by sincarne » Thu, Sep 17, 2026, 12:32 PM UTC

a34729t wrote: post #86

carefree-bob wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apart from the "Crocodile Dundee" and "Men at Work" phenomena in the late 80s, there is no real cultural pollination between Australia and the US, as far as I can tell. It's too far away and there are no real reasons for Americans to visit, nor are there enough internationally notable Australian music brands, films, or products that give visibility to the country, which is one price of being a commodity producing nat…

Re autos, IIRC Holden shut down in the late 2000s. But the Australian economy (and Canadian, for that matter) is just houses and holes.

Canada’s tech, finance, agriculture, and energy industries would like a word.