Runners passing by in a multi-colour blur

Values statements can sound coherent, but without observable behaviour they become symbolic, describing intent rather than informing decisions (Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

A values migration test has a definition problem

Undefined values cannot be a compliance tool but instead a signal about belonging.

Mary Watson-Burton

23 April 20264 min read

I once had a boss who told me, “What gets measured gets done.” We measured, and things got done. The important part was not the volume of measurement – it was that we knew exactly what we were measuring. The bottom line was simple: you can’t measure what you can’t define.

So, when it comes to values, migration, and individual compliance, the question becomes: how can values first be defined?

Currently Australia has an Australian Values Statement that sets out principles applicants are required to acknowledge as part of the migration process. Angus Taylor, Leader of the Opposition, has announced the Coalition will pursue “a values-based migration scheme that puts Australian values first, and shuts the door to those who hate our country or abuse our legal system to stay here without a right to do so.” He has also said those values are “up to debate”, meaning the definition of what is being assessed remains unsettled.

This signals a move towards requiring compliance with a set of Australian values that are not defined in behavioural terms. “Values” here are being used as shorthand for behavioural predictability under uncertainty. This instinct is understandable: migration systems are, by design, attempting to assess future behaviour. But that only works if the behaviours being inferred are clearly defined in advance. The deeper question is now more practical: if values are to be used as a compliance tool, how can they be translated into defined behavioural criteria to allow consistent and fair assessment?

The more useful distinction is not between values and behaviour. It is the relationship between them.

The difficulty is that “values” are being asked to do two jobs at once: operating as moral language, such as respect for democracy or the rule of law, while also being treated as measurable signals. Those are not the same thing. Unless values are translated into observable behaviour, there is no stable basis for assessment.

Taylor has also said: “In short, if a visa holder undermines our democratic values, doesn’t respect the law, or demonstrates they don’t respect our core values, they will be booted out of Australia.” The consequence is clear. The criteria that would trigger it are not.

Opposition leader Angus Taylor (Hilary Wardhaugh/Getty Images)

Once systems move into interpretation without clear criteria, they tend to rely on shortcuts. In migration policy, these usually take the form of country of origin, political system, or broad geopolitical category. The shortcut starts to replace what it was meant to measure.

We see the same pattern in organisations. Values statements can sound coherent, but without observable behaviour they become symbolic. They describe intent rather than informing decisions.

The Australian Values Statement faces the same problem when extended into a compliance tool: it can signal what a country stands for, but it does not provide a consistent basis for assessing alignment in practice. At this collective level, what we call “national values” are not simply the sum of individual beliefs, nor something that can be assessed at a single point in time. They emerge through institutions, norms, and shared experience, and are stabilised, over time, through repeated behavioural patterns. Migration systems can assess risk, skills, and compliance, and they can also assess aspects of behaviour, when criteria are clearly defined. Without that clarity, assessment becomes inconsistent and open to interpretive shortcuts.

And this is where the issue becomes less technical, and more human.

Most of us can recognise what is being reached for here. There is a desire for clarity – a way to understand whether someone will fit, contribute, or align. That desire is understandable in a system under pressure. But the more useful distinction is not between values and behaviour. It is the relationship between them.

At an individual level – the level at which Taylor’s proposal would operate – values are real and show up in behaviour over time. Behaviour is how values are expressed in the world. When there is misalignment between what someone says they value and how they act, it tends to become visible. When that connection is understood, and when concepts like respect, fairness, or the rule of law are articulated in behavioural terms, then assessment becomes both possible and fair.

Once that connection is properly made something else becomes possible. Not a blunt sorting of people into categories but a genuine account of expectations; what a country stands for, and how that is expected to show up in practice. “Values” stops being an abstract test at the border and becomes something closer to how it functions in lived experience – the ongoing relationship between what people believe, and what they do.

But without that translation, a values compliance test cannot do what it claims. It will fall back on interpretive shortcuts. What can’t be defined can’t be measured. A tool that cannot define what it is measuring is not a compliance instrument but a signal about belonging. It is not the same as assessment, and treating them as equivalent makes migration policy less defensible, not more rigorous.

About the author

Mary Watson-Burton

Mary Watson‑Burton is a values and systems‑design specialist who previously led Grants and Partnerships at the Global Centre for Social Justice and Advocacy Leadership, an initiative of Edmund Rice Community Services.

Topics

Migration & refugees Australia Government & politics Elections