Ultra Stupid Immigration Policy - Australia - Page 2 - Political Fever

diuretic · #11 (**permalink**) 06-02-2008, 03:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert Ingersoll

I was only joking. But actually, I believe Monty Python already covered Australian rednecks in their "Bruce" skits.

The "Australian wines" one is a classic

diuretic · #12 (**permalink**) 06-02-2008, 04:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wombat

diuretic, you need to learn your facts or stop lying.

The 457 Visa system was introducted by the Hawke/Keating Labor Government, not the Howard Government.

The skills crises was created by the Hawke/Keating Government who did all they could to make it far too expensive and difficult to employ an apprentice. They introduced the 12 month Traineeship system which most employers did not recognise when presented to them at job interviews. I even listened to one employer back then tell me that they only do Labor's traineeship program because it was affordable even though they would not accept it from an job applicant.

Labor destroyed the apprenticeship program and put effort into universities. Having so many school leavers holding a Bachelor of Anything while few people left with a trades qualification left Australia ruined. Small business stopped hiring Year 10 school leavers for unskilled labour such as working behind a counter at a newsagent, instead opting for the univerisity graduate.

Imagine attending university for three to four years, only able to work at the local newsagent or KFC or McDonalds with a university degree?

This is the work of the Hawke/Keating Labor Government.

Keating's skills training programs was given to the union movement and to get such skills training, one had to hold financial membership with a union. Those skills training programs that were actually given to the unemployed were not recognised by one single employer, including the unions.

Quote:

Temporary skilled migration visa (subclass 457)
Introduced by the Government in the mid-1990s, the 457 visa scheme enabled employers to bring "temporary" workers to Australia from overseas. The Coalition claimed it created the scheme to tackle the skill shortages in some industries. Under the scheme, workers can be employed for between three months and four years.

Critics have argued that these "guest workers" might be exposed to unfair or unsafe working conditions or that they might be underpaid. Three foreign workers from the Philippines and China died in workplace incidents this year. Minister Andrews has confirmed 17 other foreign workers on 457 visas have died over the past five years.

Immigration

I don't mind being proven wrong, I don't mind being asked to prove a point, I do mind being called a liar, it's just not necessary.

As the article says, the 457 Visa is a creation of the Howard government. That was my memory of it.

ParlInfo Web - Error

Wombat · #13 (**permalink**) 06-02-2008, 06:06 AM

diuretic, even the ALP brags about the use of immigrant workers. The biggest users of the 457 Visa immigrant were state Labor governments. Mainly, Queensland Labor Government. So while the unions chucked a stink about 457's, they never protested about the biggest user of 457's being the ALP.

457 Visa's should be abolished. Those big companies out there using Howard's treasonous IR laws which allowed them to sack Australian citizens, replaced by third world immigrants at a lower wage should, in my mind, be thrown onto the street without any wealth to their name. Same goes for politicians on both sides of the fence.

diuretic · #14 (**permalink**) 06-02-2008, 08:01 AM

Screw-ups of the past need to be seen as lessons Wombat. While we might need short-term permanent and temporary skilled immigration to help with our shortage of skilled labour we do need to do something about skilling our own children (and adults who might be changing jobs or becoming redundant in a particular job).

We might need to re-think the mindset of apprenticeships too. I don't want to get overly technical but time-based training can be replaced with competency-based training and that's something we should be looking at to help out. If someone can achieve trade level skills in, say two years, rather than five years, then they should be given their ticket. That's just one idea (but it's been around for ages).

Wombat · #15 (**permalink**) 06-02-2008, 11:07 AM

Looking at European nations such as Norway is the way to go. Western education systems of America, Australia, England, etc are failures. We are creating the stupid people. Europe has a far better educational system overall. This includes having youth gain a trade while still at school. Something which the Howard Government did commence.

diuretic · #16 (**permalink**) 06-02-2008, 05:24 PM

I remember when I went to high school in the country it was a technical high school. Some students went into the academic stream and some went into the tech stream and went to tech classes (now TAFE of course) on the same campus as the school. Then we bloody well dismantled that system. That was a huge mistake, driven by some sort of elitist policy. Now try and find a plumber when you want one. And when you find one, get a second mortgage for the bill.

hot dragon · #17 (**permalink**) 06-30-2008, 09:50 PM

a lot of australias problems seem to come from short term policy views without long term strategic thinking. (never, this from politicians !) the last government cut education spending dramatically which was good for the budget for a while, but now we have a lack of educated people. and the solution for this was to fly in educated people rather than increase our own capacity to train.

economics aside, the ethics of this is appaling. australia is a wealthy first world country. yet we are trying to import trained people from countried like bangladesh and india, people who were trained and educated by those societies to provide services to them. so some of the most impoverished people in the world are helping to fund australias economy. shameful.

diuretic · #18 (**permalink**) 07-01-2008, 04:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hot dragon

a lot of australias problems seem to come from short term policy views without long term strategic thinking. (never, this from politicians !) the last government cut education spending dramatically which was good for the budget for a while, but now we have a lack of educated people. and the solution for this was to fly in educated people rather than increase our own capacity to train.

economics aside, the ethics of this is appaling. australia is a wealthy first world country. yet we are trying to import trained people from countried like bangladesh and india, people who were trained and educated by those societies to provide services to them. so some of the most impoverished people in the world are helping to fund australias economy. shameful.

I thought I read today that most skilled immigrants are coming from the UK now. I can't remember if it was for Aus as a whole or just SA.

Michael · #19 (**permalink**) 07-01-2008, 04:46 AM

I am very interested in this feedback about Australian immigration issues. We have our own issues here in America. Most of our issues are different, but there is also a trend for our large corporations to outsource or what could be called insourcing, or hiring foreign skilled workers. The reason we are importing skilled workers is they work for less money than Americans. Many of the new people arriving here from places like India are happy to be in the US. Our telecommunications industry and computer technology are two of the biggest employers of foreign skilled workers.

So, in America it is frustrating to see jobs outsourced to foreign countries or skilled workers insources from foreign countries. Both trends mean greater unemployment or under employment for Americans.

diuretic · #20 (**permalink**) 07-01-2008, 07:33 AM

Our main problem Michael is that the previous federal government did nothing to ensure we had skilled labour in this country. Wombat will disagree with me on this but I contend that the various national apprentice training schemes we had were dismantled by the Howard Government (1996-2007) and that his lack of skilled labour had an inflationary effect because it forced the price of skilled labour up (simple supply/demand).

In a panic in the last years of government, the Howard government tried to ameliorate this situation by bringing in foreign workers on special limited term visas to supply skilled labour for specific projects working for specific employers. This was supposed to dampen the demand for skilled labour and therefore force down the cost of skilled labour to Australian business. It failed. We are now facing the inflationary problems caused by capacity constraints that the previous government was either too stupid or too complacent (probably both) to anticipate.

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