Consultation
Immigration Act Review - Summary of Submissions
Appendix 2: Analysis Of Submissions
Submissions were made in one of two ways:
- by completing the online submission form, or
- by sending written comments to the Department of Labour via post or email.
Submissions that were made online were linked directly to an Access database. Submitter responses and comments were then extracted and organised by each question in a Word format.
For the written submissions, each submission was read carefully as it was received and analysed to identify which question or section of the discussion paper the comments related to. The comments were then entered verbatim into the Word document alongside the comments made by online submitters.
Wherever possible, written submission comments were linked to a specific question in the discussion paper. If comments did not clearly relate to a specific question but did relate to a particular section of the discussion paper, the comments were linked to the general question at the end of each section of the online questionnaire, which asked submitters to provide any other comments they had on that section. General comments that did not clearly relate to a specific question or section of the discussion paper were identified separately.
Some written submission comments related to more than one question or section of the discussion paper. In these cases, they were linked to all of the relevant questions or sections.
Once all submissions had been received, qualitative analysis was undertaken by reading through all the comments made on each question and identifying the range of responses and key themes. This analysis was undertaken section by section.
Many of the key questions in the discussion paper asked for a yes or no response or gave a number of other pre-determined responses for submitters to choose from. Simple quantitative analysis was undertaken by identifying the number of submitters responding to each question, whether they were responding on behalf of an organisation or as an individual, and the range of responses.
For the written submissions, a response was only counted if the submitter clearly indicated support for, or opposition to, the proposal (or another pre-determined response). The quantitative analysis needs to be treated with caution because not all submitters indicated a clear response to the question asked.