tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/457-visa-65/articles457 visa – The Conversation2019-04-26T01:51:02Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1158442019-04-26T01:51:02Z2019-04-26T01:51:02ZLabor’s crackdown on temporary visa requirements won’t much help Australian workers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270933/original/file-20190425-121228-r7auy7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=143%2C425%2C3832%2C2311&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Labor wants higher minimum pay for temporary visa holders, but most are already being paid much more.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Bill Shorten is holding out the prospect of protecting Australian workers from foreign ones. </p>
<p>He has pledged to <a href="https://www.billshorten.com.au/protecting_local_workers_restoring_fairness_to_australia_s_skilled_visa_system_tuesday_23_april_2019">tighten the visa system</a> for short-term skilled migrants, ensuring they have to be paid more so that “it isn’t cheaper to pay an overseas worker than pay a local worker”.</p>
<p>But the evidence does not support his claim that his policy proposal will boost local jobs and wages. He said</p>
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<p>There are more than 1 million underemployed Australians wanting more work and youth unemployment is at 11.7%</p>
<p>At the same time, there are almost 1.6 million temporary visa holders with work rights in Australia, with the top end of town turning to temporary work visas to undercut local jobs, wages and conditions</p>
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<h2>Requirements have already been toughened</h2>
<p>The first point to note is that Shorten’s policy relates only to short-term visas for skilled migrants. Up until 2017, these were known as 457 visas. Their number peaked at 126,000 in 2012-13.</p>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1617/Quick_Guides/457Visa">Parliamentary Library</a></span>
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<p>Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull replaced the 457 visa with the <a href="https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/getting-a-visa/visa-listing/temporary-skill-shortage-482">482 visa</a>, partly in response to evidence that some employers had <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/leaked-report-raises-concerns-over-457-visa-20141018-117wfc.html">exploited the 457</a> to employ foreign workers on low wages.</p>
<p>The new visa required</p>
<ul>
<li><p>applicants to demonstrate work experience (minimum two years) and English language proficiency</p></li>
<li><p>the sponsoring employer to demonstrate lack of success in finding a local worker to do the job </p></li>
<li><p>the salary level to be at the market level for the role, and above what is known as the Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold. This is now about A$54,000. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Since August 2018, employers of workers with 482 visas have also had to pay a fee to the Department of Education and Training to subsidise apprenticeships. Known as the <a href="https://www.tssimmigration.com.au/migration-news/blog/the-new-skilling-australians-fund-saf-levy/">Skilling Australians Fund Levy</a>, it ranges from $2,400 to $7,200, depending on the length of the visa and the employer’s annual turnover. </p>
<p>The core of Labor’s policy is to increase the income threshold to $65,000, a figure that will be indexed annually. The skilling levy would be 3% of the income threshold, a level that for some businesses would be <a href="https://www.australianchamber.com.au/news/labors-proposed-changes-to-temporary-skilled-migration-impose-big-costs-on-small-business/">an increase of 63%</a>.</p>
<h2>Skilled migrants are not the problem</h2>
<p>The most recent statistics published by the federal government (for 2017-18) show a total of <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/research-and-stats/files/temp-res-skilled-rpt-summary-30062018.pdf">83,470</a> people on temporary skilled worker visas (both 482 visas and residual 457 visas). </p>
<p>This means Shorten’s reference to the almost 1.6 million temporary visa holders with work rights in Australia – such as backpackers and international students (who we know are often <a href="https://theconversation.com/weve-let-wage-exploitation-become-the-default-experience-of-migrant-workers-113644">exploited by unscrupulous employers</a>) – is something of a red herring. Labor’s proposal won’t make any difference to them. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/crackdown-on-foreign-workers-is-part-of-shortens-wages-campaign-115816">Crackdown on foreign workers is part of Shorten's wages campaign</a>
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<p>Even if the 83,470 workers that the policy would affect were being employed to undercut local wage expectations, their number – less than 1% of Australia’s <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/6306.0May%202018?OpenDocument">10 million</a> total employees – is simply not enough to influence market wages. In no occupation are visa holders more than 1% of total employees.</p>
<p>But there’s scant evidence to suggest the 482 visas are routinely used to employ cheaper workers. The average base nominated salary for visas in 2017-18 was <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/research-and-stats/files/457-quarterly-report-31122017.pdf">$94,800</a>, well above the <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/6306.0May%202018?OpenDocument">average full-time wage</a> (about $85,000) and even higher than the $54,000 or Labor’s proposed $65,000 minimum.</p>
<p>Admittedly, averages don’t <a href="https://thenewdaily.com.au/money/finance-news/2018/06/08/average-australian-wages-revealed/">tell the full story</a>. But in only one sector – food and accommodation, accounting for 10.7% of visas granted – was the average wage lower than $65,000. </p>
<p>It suggests that raising the income threshold won’t have much impact.</p>
<h2>Labor’s proposals would be felt in the regions</h2>
<p>There is one possible exception to this: regional and remote Australia, which has benefited the most from temporary skilled worker visas. If the market wage for say, an early career chef, is below $65,000 (which it could be for some places in Australia), a restaurant or café employer in a small town would no longer be able to employ a migrant worker at the going rate, and it might also struggle to find would be be a $7,800 levy. </p>
<p>Labor’s proposal would impose higher relative costs on regional employers. </p>
<p>Claims about the impact of temporary work visas on employment and wages have been heard but seldom subject to rigorous analysis.</p>
<p>A significant inquiry into short-term migrant work visas in Australia was conducted by a <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BriefingBook44p/TempSkilledMigration">Senate select committee</a> in 2015-16. It <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Education_and_Employment/temporary_work_visa/Report/c03">noted an inverse relationship</a> between 457 visas granted and the unemployment rate. In other words, the visas were associated with low, rather than high unemployment rates.</p>
<p>This suggests visas are meeting genuine skills shortages rather than displacing Australian workers.</p>
<h2>Migrants create as well as fill jobs</h2>
<p>Migrant workers are also consumers. They spend their income, contributing to demand for goods and services from local businesses, which adds to the demand for workers generally.</p>
<p>The same dynamics apply as those involving all migrants. As peer-reviewed <a href="https://crawford.anu.edu.au/files/uploads/crawford01_cap_anu_edu_au/2018-05/policy_note_-_immigration.pdf">research</a> by researchers at the Australian National University has shown, migration has had “no detectable effect on employment or wages of all workers who have lived in Australia for more than five years”.</p>
<p>These findings are essentially supported by the <a href="https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/migrant-intake/report/migrant-intake-report.pdf">Productivity Commission</a>. </p>
<p>In sum, there’s little evidence that Australia’s current visa program for temporary skilled migrants has a negative effect on local jobs or wages. </p>
<p>Labor’s plans are unlikely to achieve anything positive. They might even hurt.</p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dog-whistles-regional-visas-and-wage-theft-immigration-policy-is-again-an-election-issue-113557">Dog whistles, regional visas and wage theft – immigration policy is again an election issue</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115844/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ross Guest does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Bill Shorten’s promise to tighten the visa system for short-term skilled migrants won’t do anything for local jobs or wages.Ross Guest, Professor of Economics and National Senior Teaching Fellow, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/963402018-05-25T01:50:18Z2018-05-25T01:50:18ZWhy some migrants in abusive relationships don’t receive help, and are deported<p>Earlier this month, Bernadette Romulo, a Philippine immigrant to Australia, made a <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/filipino-single-mum-s-heartbreak-as-deportation-date-looms">desperate plea</a> to Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton to allow her to stay in the country to care for her children.</p>
<p>Bernadette came to Australia 11 years ago with her husband, who held a 457 visa (a temporary skilled-work visa), and two daughters. Following the breakdown of their marriage, Bernadette began a relationship with a Filipino-Australian man, with whom she later had a son. Her partner was abusive, and the relationship ended. During this time, Bernadette remained on a visa connected to her former husband.</p>
<p>But Bernadette’s immigration status eventually became problematic. She is currently on a bridging visa. The only hope she has for a long-term visa to remain in Australia with her 8-year-old son and two older daughters is ministerial intervention. </p>
<p>In this midst of this complex story is the reality of a hidden aspect of family violence: the experience for women on temporary visas. The one section of Australia’s immigration system that protects temporary visa holders who experience family violence – known as the family violence provision – is not accessible to women like Bernadette, because she was not on a partner visa sponsored by the man who abused her.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Bernadette is not alone.</p>
<h2>A little-understood problem</h2>
<p>As the law stands, migrants who are not on a specific partner visa – a visa sponsored by an Australian citizen or permanent resident – have no rights or protections when it comes to domestic violence. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about/corporate/information/fact-sheets/38domestic">family violence provision</a> was introduced in 1994 (as the Family Violence Exception) and has undergone some minor changes since this time. The family violence provision provides a formal protection mechanism for partner visa applicants (and a limited number of other visas) whose relationships break down due to family violence perpetrated by their sponsors. </p>
<p>By providing a pathway to permanent residency, the family violence provision acts as a safety net to ensure victims of domestic violence are not forced to remain in abusive relationships to stay in the country. Temporary partner visa holders who are eligible can therefore, in theory, access permanent residency as long as their applications meet the evidentiary requirements. </p>
<p>However, this safety net is only available to those on one type of visa.</p>
<p>Just how many temporary visa holders experience domestic violence is unknown. A person’s migration status isn’t <a href="https://arts.monash.edu/news/craf-final-report-release/">recognised as a specified risk factor</a> within the context of family violence risk assessment. The visa types of domestic abuse victims aren’t recorded by police or service providers, either.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/infographic-a-snapshot-of-domestic-violence-in-australia-30017">Infographic: A snapshot of domestic violence in Australia</a>
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<p>However, an extrapolation of immigration data offers us some idea of the size of the problem. From 2013-17, an average of 36,450 temporary partner visa applications were approved for female applicants each year. Based on <a href="https://d2c0ikyv46o3b1.cloudfront.net/anrows.org.au/s3fs-public/Key%20statistics%20-%20all.pdf">data indicating</a> one in four women experience emotional abuse in Australia, it could be assumed that potentially 9,000 women on temporary partner visas experience this kind of abuse each year. One in six Australian women experience physical violence at home, which means that potentially 6,000 women on temporary partner visas are physically abused each year, as well.</p>
<p>Given these estimates, how well does the existing safety net work? What is evident is that the system designed to protect women on temporary partner visas is barely used. As <a href="https://arts.monash.edu/gender-and-family-violence/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2017/11/Temporary-Migration-and-Family-Violence-An-analysis-of-victimisation-vulnerability-and-support.pdf">my recent report</a> indicates: </p>
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<p>In 2015–16, there were 529 family violence provision applications made by women on such visas, of which 403 were successful – meaning that 403 women were able to access permanent residency via the recognition of family violence being the cause of the relationship breakdown. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is a small amount compared to the potentially large number of abuse victims in the country.</p>
<h2>Opportunities for improvement</h2>
<p>While there are a range of reasons why temporary migrant women may not come forward to seek support or assistance, one of the main problems is the immigration system itself. It’s clear that few women are even aware the family violence provision exists, let alone how to access it.</p>
<p>The government should also reconsider its refusal to provide a clear and supported pathway to help those women who are not on temporary partner visas and therefore don’t have access to the provision. </p>
<p>Some critics maintain there will be false claims of abuse if support is too easily available. But it’s important to understand what’s really happening in the immigrant community. For example, some abusers refuse to sponsor women on partner visas, which leaves them vulnerable to continued violence and without access to the safety net. </p>
<p>The Women’s Legal Services Queensland says this means many “women are faced with the horrific choice to stay in violence to protect their children, or leave and know that the family court will not allow them to take the children to safety.” </p>
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<p>The lack of financial and accommodation support services for women on temporary visas has been noted repeatedly, specifically in the <a href="http://www.rcfv.com.au/">Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence</a> and the <a href="https://www.communities.qld.gov.au/resources/gateway/campaigns/end-violence/about/special-taskforce/dfv-report-vol-one.pdf">Not Now, Not Ever Report of the Queensland Special Taskforce on Family Violence</a>. </p>
<p>Australia has also finally put family violence and support for migrant women on the agenda. The Council of Australian Governments’ National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women and their Children <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/10_2016/fact_sheet_on_how_the_third_action_plan_supports_culturally_and_linguistically_diverse_women_and_their_children.pdf">specifically commits</a> to provide better support for temporary residents experiencing violence through appropriate visa arrangements. </p>
<p>However, there is little evidence, to date, that anything substantial has changed. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/piecemeal-responses-show-australia-still-doesnt-get-domestic-violence-48102">Piecemeal responses show Australia still doesn't 'get' domestic violence</a>
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<p>For women like Bernadette Romulo, who have no access to the existing safety net, protection remains hard-fought. They must seek help through a migration system not set up to deal adequately with family violence, and then be subject to the whim of ministerial discretion.</p>
<p>While the Department of Home Affairs has considered stepping in to protect women <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/alleged-victim-of-domestic-violence-risks-being-deported">in the past</a>, it’s a lengthy and uncertain route. </p>
<p>As for Bernadette, it remains to be seen if she’ll be granted a reprieve. She met with <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/filipino-single-mother-to-meet-immigration-officials-in-deportation-battle">immigration officials on Thursday</a> to continue her fight against deportation. More than 33,000 people have also <a href="https://www.change.org/p/peter-dutton-please-don-t-tear-my-family-apart">signed a petition on change.org</a> on her behalf, entitled, “Peter Dutton: Please don’t tear my family apart”.</p>
<p>“My boy cries himself to sleep every night and having nightmares,” she wrote in a petition earlier this month, “knowing we will soon be leaving him behind”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96340/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marie Segrave receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>Migrant women experiencing domestic violence in Australia can end up trapped with abusive partners if they don’t have the proper visa.Marie Segrave, Associate Professor, Criminology, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/909442018-02-07T19:08:34Z2018-02-07T19:08:34ZAustralia’s jobs and migration policies are not making the best use of qualified migrants<p>Australia’s skilled migration system has helped us <a href="https://wol.iza.org/articles/using-a-point-system-for-selecting-immigrants/long">attract hundreds of thousands</a> of highly qualified immigrants since 1988. But one side effect of the policy is that we seem to waste many of these skills.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775706000446">Up to 40%</a> of recent immigrants in Australia are over-educated (having more qualifications than necessary), making it hard for them to find suitable employment. This is almost four times the level of over-education seen in native-born Australians. </p>
<p><a href="http://ftp.iza.org/dp11241.pdf">The problem</a> could be a lack of coordination between Australia’s migration system and employment policies. The migration system is devoted to supplying immigrants for perceived labour market skill shortfalls but employment policies pay less attention to getting the most out of every immigrant. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/governments-play-flawed-skilled-jobs-guessing-game-22527">Governments play flawed 'skilled jobs' guessing game </a>
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<p>As a result we can simultaneously have a skill shortage and qualified migrants who are unable to fill these positions. This often occurs because, for example, they do not have relevant Australian experience.</p>
<p>This is an issue not only for the migrants themselves - who are under-used as employees - but for the rest of Australian society as well. The government receives less tax revenue than it otherwise would have from the migrants, which in turn has implications for public funding, savings, consumption and investment expenditure. </p>
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<p>Australia’s <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/trav/work/work/skills-assessment-and-assessing-authorities/skilled-occupations-lists">skilled migration program</a> favours immigrants with particular characteristics - namely, they are young, university-educated, and English-speaking. </p>
<p>Australia still admits people who do not possess these characteristics, but in streams that are not directly motivated by economics – for example via family reunification or humanitarian visas.</p>
<p>The current system can lead to mismatches between the skills available in the market and those that employers actually need. One possible reason is the lag between the time employers inform immigration authorities about the skills they most need (or envisage needing in the future) and when migrants enter the labour market, which can be years later. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-has-outsourced-migration-policy-to-the-private-sector-30347">Australia has outsourced migration policy to the private sector</a>
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<p>Addressing this gap requires tighter coordination between immigration and employment policies. But this is at odds with the current practice.</p>
<p>Australia’s skilled migration policy is currently informed by employers (who say what skills are needed) but ultimately focuses on population management. Whether new immigrants find adequate employment to use their skills to the full is the responsibility of a different area of government, if at all. </p>
<p>No Australian employer has an incentive to be the first in offering new migrants the local labour market experience they so critically need. This seems especially so for professional jobs that are subject to occupational licensing. For example, migrants get accredited shortly after settlement but if they cannot acquire relevant Australian experience they either delay entering their desired field or move into a different one.</p>
<h2>Coordinating immigration and employment</h2>
<p>Coordinating Australia’s immigration and employment policies could reduce some of this skill wastage. </p>
<p>For example, data on the employment outcomes of recent migrants could be compared to skill shortages identified by employers. This should be carried out jointly by an immigration-employment task force. </p>
<p>This would help to pinpoint the most serious cases of migrant over-education. The reasons could be identified (whether it is because of too many skilled migrants, skills of poor quality, or a lack of demand), and solutions developed. </p>
<p>Using these data, Australian immigration and employment policies could include targets related to migrants’ skills. Doing so would rebalance the current focus of both immigration and employment policies so that Australia more efficiently uses all the resources we have available, and for which it competes internationally, as in the case of highly qualified migrants.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/employers-playing-crucial-role-in-skilled-migration-screening-33136">Employers playing crucial role in skilled migration screening</a>
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<p>Since 1988, when the points-based system was introduced, Australia has been at the forefront of designing immigration policies that are attuned to the needs of the labour market. Immigration policy has focused on attracting migrants that could be immediately employed. </p>
<p>But the evidence shows we are wasting skills in levels <a href="https://www.oecd.org/eco/growth/Skill-mismatch-and-public-policy-in-OECD-countries.pdf">similar to those of countries</a> that do not implement selective immigration policies. </p>
<p>This suggests that immigration policy by itself is not the only tool responsible for migrants’ labour market outcomes. Better coordination between immigration and employment policies is needed if we want to use skills from abroad to fill gaps and become more productive.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90944/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Massimiliano Tani received funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>Hundreds of thousands of migrants have come through Australia’s skilled migrant program. But we are wasting many of their skills.Massimiliano Tani, Professor of Finance and Economics, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/870972017-11-09T01:12:31Z2017-11-09T01:12:31ZAustralian companies should cultivate local tech workers not play the 457 visa game<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193723/original/file-20171108-6747-ckkwoo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mike Cannon-Brookes (centre), and Scott Farquhar (3rd L), co-founders and CEOs of Atlassian Software Systems, smile during its successful entry into the Nasdaq in New York.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>There is a degree of mythology in the tech world surrounding people who have worked in Silicon Valley. </p>
<p>As the birthplace of computing and tech giants like HP, Apple and Google, there is a view that the best developers come from companies located there even though 90% of software developers in the US actually work <a href="https://qz.com/729293/90-of-software-developers-work-outside-silicon-valley/">elsewhere</a>. </p>
<p>According to Australian-made but internationally renowned tech company Atlassian, the skills it needs can only be found from deep in the heart of the <a href="http://www.afr.com/technology/atlassian-boss-scott-farquhar-warns-visa-rule-changes-risk-stunting-local-tech-growth-20171101-gzd1vv">Silicon Valley</a> - and not in Australia. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-government-axes-457-work-visa-experts-react-76321">Australian government axes 457 work visa: experts react</a>
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<p>Atlassian co-founders Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes have <a href="http://www.afr.com/technology/atlassian-boss-scott-farquhar-warns-visa-rule-changes-risk-stunting-local-tech-growth-20171101-gzd1vv">argued</a> that Australia needs to keep schemes like the 457 visa to enable companies like theirs to bring workers from the United States because they can’t find them locally.</p>
<p>The irony of this is that the founders were reportedly University of New South Wales <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/small-business/entrepreneur/from-uni-dropouts-to-software-magnates-20100715-10bsm.html">dropouts</a>. Neither finished a degree before founding a company that is today worth <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TEAM?ltr=1">nearly</a> US$12 billion (A$15.62 billion). And they achieved all of this in Australia with no previous tech experience. </p>
<h2>Atlassian’s staff preference</h2>
<p>About 250 of Atlassian’s 1,000 employees in Australia are on <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/atlassians-mike-cannon-brookes-on-peter-dutton-this-bullshit-makes-me-mad-2017-4">457 temporary migration visas</a>. The justification for this has been that it is easier to get senior staff with 10 years’ experience from Silicon Valley than it is to find them locally, or train them from existing domestic staff. </p>
<p>If indeed all of the 457 visa staff are senior members of Atlassian, it would represent a very high ratio of senior to junior staff. </p>
<p>From the company’s short-term perspective, it is obviously better to hire experience that somebody else has invested the money to develop - rather than spend that time, effort and money themselves. </p>
<p>All of the jobs advertised <a href="https://www.atlassian.com/company/careers/all-jobs?location=Sydney">currently</a> by Atlassian are for “senior” staff. There are currently no <a href="https://www.atlassian.com/company/careers/students?tab=development#graduateListingSection">advertised positions</a> for graduates on the Atlassian site in Australia.</p>
<p>From Australia’s employment market perspective, such preferencing denies graduates and entry-level workers the opportunity to get started in the workforce and to develop those skills and experience domestically rather than abroad.</p>
<h2>Graduates face employment barriers</h2>
<p>The challenges for graduates entering the local workforce are highlighted by the Australian Department of Employment, which has <a href="https://docs.employment.gov.au/documents/information-technology-professions-australia">reported</a> that for IT graduates, full-time employment has become harder to find than it was in 2008. </p>
<p>One of the factors that the Department blames for this <a href="https://docs.employment.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/ausitprofessions_1.pdf">is the</a> “increasing reliance on the use of 457 visa holders by businesses”. An example of this is the NSW government, which was <a href="http://thenewdaily.com.au/money/work/2017/04/20/457-visa-tech/">accused</a> of bringing in Indian IT workers as part of its outsourcing service ServiceFirst that provides human resources and payroll services. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-startup-employment-dream-the-pros-and-cons-53110">The startup employment dream – the pros and cons</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The perceived, and real, prospects for IT graduate employment have driven a massive drop in enrolments in IT degrees from a peak in 2002. The run up to 2000 was the time of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble">Dot-com Bubble</a> where the rapid rise and success of tech firms, even in Australia, was being highly publicised. </p>
<p>When that bubble burst, it left a supply of graduates that have been absorbed into the market with a rapid decrease in interest in pursuing careers in the IT sector.</p>
<p>IT degree completions for domestic students in Australia are about 60% of the levels of their <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/au/Documents/Economics/deloitte-au-economics-australias-digital-pulse-2017-010617.pdf">peak</a> in 2003 and are increasing only slowly.</p>
<h2>457 threat overstated?</h2>
<p>The threat posed by government changes to the 457 visa system have been largely overblown. </p>
<p>IT-related jobs are still covered by the 457 visa’s <a href="http://www.border.gov.au/Trav/Work/457-abolition-replacement">replacement</a>, the Temporary Skills Shortage (TSS) visa. The changes are unlikely to have <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/08/10/numerically-insignificant-457-visa-overhaul-unlikely-be-game-changer-local-jobs">any impact</a> on the employment of IT staff for companies in Australia, including tech firms like Atlassian. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-podcast-jenny-lambert-on-the-457-visa-scrapping-76420">Politics podcast: Jenny Lambert on the 457 visa scrapping</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The <a href="http://www.afr.com/technology/atlassian-boss-scott-farquhar-warns-visa-rule-changes-risk-stunting-local-tech-growth-20171101-gzd1vv">comments</a> from tech firms when there are any threatened changes to this system can reflect their own self interest in satisfying their business priorities in getting talent as easily as possible. </p>
<p>These companies’ social concerns for the development of the local workforce are often secondary to their interest in maximising profits. This in part comes down to the concerns of shareholders who, in Atlassian’s case, are based in the US as it is a US-listed company.</p>
<h2>Fostering local talent</h2>
<p>Companies like Atlassian and other tech firms that operate in Australia could be doing far more to develop experience in the local workforce by scaling up their efforts to offer internships and graduate entry programs from Australian universities. </p>
<p>This is standard practice in other industries but this approach has not been adopted by the tech companies. Instead, tech companies largely rely on graduates applying directly <a href="https://www.glassdoor.com.au/Interview/Atlassian-Graduate-Java-Developer-Interview-Questions-EI_IE115699.0,9_KO10,33.htm">to them</a> for jobs.</p>
<p>Universities teaching computer science and software engineering normally take guidance from industry to shape the content of the curriculum. Usually, the computer languages and technologies taught follow the requirements of the companies that engage with these programmes. </p>
<p>By not engaging with universities across Australia, tech companies like Atlassian are potentially missing out on graduates being trained to meet their needs. The energy being expended on defending the need for temporary skilled worker visas would be better spent on cultivating and providing opportunities for the workforce available on their doorstep. </p>
<p><em>*A representative from Atlassian has pointed out that contrary to the report in the Sydney Morning Herald cited in this article, both Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar graduated from the University of New South Wales with degrees in Information Systems.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87097/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Glance does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Australian tech firm Atlassian has recently warned that changes to 457 visas threatens to stunt industry growth. But is there more Oz tech firms could be doing to cultivate local talent?David Glance, Director of UWA Centre for Software Practice, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/785352017-06-04T20:25:05Z2017-06-04T20:25:05ZHow can Australia have too many doctors, but still not meet patient needs?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171944/original/file-20170602-25664-qdxhuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">If you live in a rural area, you would never think Australia had too many doctors.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The statement “we have plenty of doctors in Australia” would probably not pass the pub test. Especially if the pub was in a regional city, a remote town or a less-than-leafy suburb. But it is true all the same - statistically at least. </p>
<p>With <a href="http://www.oecd.org/health/health-data.htm">3.5 practising doctors</a> for every 1,000 people in 2014 (<a href="http://www.aihw.gov.au/workforce/medical/how-many-medical-practitioners/">4.4 per 1,000 in major cities</a>) we’ve never had so many. In 2003, there were 2.6 doctors for every <a href="http://www.oecd.org/health/health-data.htm">1,000 people in Australia</a>, which is closer to the proportion in similar countries now, such as New Zealand (2.8), the UK (2.8), Canada (2.6) and the USA (2.6).</p>
<p>Yet at 2.6 per 1,000 was when <a href="https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2003/179/4/medical-workforce-issues-australia-tomorrow-s-doctors-too-few-too-far">we decided we were “short”</a> and went on to <a href="https://www.mja.com.au/">double the number</a> of medical schools and almost triple the number of medical graduates in a little over a decade. </p>
<p>And then there’s this question: if we are now so flush with medicos, why do we still need to import so many from overseas? To fill job vacancies, the Australian government <a href="http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/work-pubs-mtrp">granted 2,820 temporary work visas</a> to overseas-trained doctors in 2014-15. In the same year, Australian <a href="http://www.medicaldeans.org.au/statistics/annualtables/">medical schools graduated</a> another 3,547.</p>
<p>This heroic level of doctor production and importation is right up there internationally. Among wealthy nations, Australia is vying for the top spot, with only <a href="http://www.oecd.org/health/health-data.htm">Denmark and Ireland</a> in the same league of doctor-production for population.</p>
<p>So why do we have too many doctors, but think we have too few?</p>
<h2>Our approach to medical training</h2>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.mja.com.au/">Medical Journal of Australia</a> editorial published today, we examine the question of “work readiness” in our new medical graduates from arguably the most important perspective: what the community needs from future doctors.</p>
<p>To what extent is our medical training system producing doctors who will be providing the high quality, person centred, affordable health services we need, given we are an ageing population living with higher levels of chronic and complex health conditions?</p>
<p>There have been arguably three problems with the Australian approach to the medical workforce to date. First, we didn’t finish the job of production; second, we’ve allowed too much medical specialisation in major cities; and third, our models of health care and the ways we pay for it are out of step with where community needs are heading.</p>
<h2>1. Production</h2>
<p>Back in the early 2000s, the biggest issue relating to the <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BN/%7E/link.aspx?_id=4FB58821DB2B49F58743E7802D1C4ED3&_z=z">training of Australia’s medical workforce</a> was a shortage of doctors in regional and remote areas. So, in addition to boosting medical student numbers overall, we set up rural clinical schools and regional medical schools, and increased admission of students who were already residents of rural areas. </p>
<p>While <a href="http://www.rrh.org.au/publishedarticles/article_print_2991.pdf">results of these policies</a> have been positive in terms of graduate rural career intentions and rural destinations, the job was really only half done. What we didn’t do is reform the training that goes on after medical school. </p>
<p>That involves internships and training for one of 64 specialty fellowships, including general practice. Because of that, too many of our medical graduates are now piling up in capital city teaching hospitals, locked in a <a href="https://ama.com.au/ausmed/trainee-doctors-face-uncertain-future">fierce competition</a> for ever-more sub-specialised training jobs. </p>
<p>Meanwhile regional Australia remains hooked on a temporary fix of importing doctors from overseas. Hence the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-13/government-bid-to-keep-medical-specialists-in-rural-areas/8440474">recently announced</a> funding for 26 new regional training hubs. The aim is to “flip” the medical training model, so the main training is offered regionally with a city rotation as required.</p>
<h2>2. Excessive specialisation</h2>
<p>There’s no question we need a reasonable number of doctors who are experts in a narrow field. However, <a href="https://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/F3F2910B39DF55FDCA257D94007862F9/%24File/AFHW%20-%20Doctors%20report.pdf">there’s now an imbalance</a> between an inadequate number of medical generalists and excessive numbers of specialists in every major medical field. </p>
<p>Regional Australia in particular needs more generalists; that is rural generalist GPs, general surgeons, general physicians and the like.</p>
<h2>3. Financing and models of care</h2>
<p>Health expenditure is driven by three main factors: growth in population, providing more care for each patient and the increase in the proportion of older people with increased complex care needs. </p>
<p>Improvements in health-care technology means we can diagnose illness more accurately, less invasively and earlier, and we have more effective treatments. </p>
<p>However, in a system that pays on the basis of every service provided (regardless of need) there is also a risk of provider-induced demand. This can lead to <a href="https://www.safetyandquality.gov.au/atlas/">inappropriate medical care</a>, with examples in unwarranted eye, knee and back surgery, imaging, colonoscopy, and medication for depression and other conditions. </p>
<p>An undersupply of doctors is associated with lower rates of health-care use, whereas oversupply or mis-distribution can <a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/research/supporting/supplier-induced-medical-demand">lead to higher rates</a> of inappropriate care. Balancing the distribution of doctors according to need has important consequences for health-care costs.</p>
<h2>Time for action</h2>
<p>Make no mistake, Australia’s current health system is good by world standards. But the headwinds are building. The population is ageing, we’ve got more people with chronic and complex health-care needs, and the costs of new medicines and technologies continue to escalate. </p>
<p>Having injected a massive boost of doctors into a fee-paying healthcare system without regard to population need, workforce mix, geographic location, health-care models or financing reform, we have put the future at risk.</p>
<p>Let’s not let this bold experiment fail for want of follow-through. We need more urgency in providing the incentives and training opportunities to get our growing junior medical workforce into the specialties and areas that are underserved. </p>
<p>We have to stop allowing medical specialty training to be driven by the work rostering requirements of metropolitan hospitals. We must increase the number of specialist training positions based in regional centres. </p>
<p>And we especially need to expand the number of broadly-skilled <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2016-06-24/rural-health-election-promises/7540768">rural generalists</a> and get serious about efficient, team based, health-care models. This requires cooperation by all governments, medical schools, specialist colleges and the profession - and the time to act is now.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78535/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Murray is Dean of a medical school and President of the peak body representing Australian and New Zealand medical schools. He is a past President of the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Wilson is a professor the University of Sydney Medical School. In 2015 he conducted a national review of medical internships for the Australian Health Ministers Advisory Committee. He is chair of the Pharmacuetical Benefits Advisory Committee. </span></em></p>Australia has more doctors per population than most comparable countries, yet many living in rural and remote areas don’t receive the care they need. Changing the way we train doctors will fix this.Richard Murray, Dean of Medicine & Dentistry, James Cook UniversityAndrew Wilson, Co-Director, Menzies Centre for Health Policy, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/765792017-04-24T06:41:58Z2017-04-24T06:41:58Z457 visa changes won’t impact on wider temporary education workforce. And maybe that’s deliberate<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166417/original/file-20170424-12650-s7r721.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">International student visa allows you to work up to 20 hours a week.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Turnbull Government’s decision to scrap the 457-skilled temporary worker visa puts the spotlight on temporary migrant workers in Australia. </p>
<p>This is not surprising, since each year Australia takes in some 700,000 temporary migrants and 200,000 permanent migrants.</p>
<p>What is surprising is the under-estimated role of the Australian tertiary education sector in temporary worker migration, the reason why universities have been among the most <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/apr/20/universities-fear-457-visa-changes-will-harm-ability-to-attract-academic-talent">outspoken critics</a>. </p>
<h2>Bulk of temporary migrant labour force will remain</h2>
<p>Most obvious here is the demand side - universities employ about <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/04/20/pure-lunacy-university-heads-warn-turnbull-visa-changes-will-gut-teaching-staff">1,500 lecturers</a> and 250 tutors on 457 visas. </p>
<p>Universities are also worried about the impact of the axing of the 457 visa on international PhD students gaining Australian employment after graduation. They could not fulfil their research, teaching and innovation agendas without ready access to globally-mobile academics. </p>
<p>Less obvious is the supply side: the fact that international students enrolled at Australian universities provide temporary work that is the equivalent of more than three times the size of the 457 visa program. </p>
<p>In addition to the 457 program, Australia receives about 250,000 temporary migrants on working holiday maker visas (WHMs) a year, who also add considerably to the temporary migrant workforce.</p>
<p>If the problem the government was addressing - by abolishing the 457 program – is that of temporary migrant workers, their impact on jobs in Australia and their experiences of exploitation, it has targeted a fraction of the problem, leaving the bulk of the temporary migrant labour force unchanged. </p>
<h2>International students bring in the money</h2>
<p>Could this be because international education is the third largest export earner in Australia, contributing <a href="https://internationaleducation.gov.au/research/.../Export%20Income%20FY2015-16">$19.9 billion in 2015-16</a>, while a continued resupply of WHMs are critical for the seasonal labour supply for <a href="https://rirdc.infoservices.com.au/items/16-027">Australia’s agricultural industry</a>, as well as restaurant and services jobs in the cities?</p>
<p>We know that Australian universities rely on international students much more than universities in other countries. </p>
<p>International students are more prominent in Australia than in any other OECD countries, with the exception of Luxembourg:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>In 2012 international students comprised 18.3% of all tertiary enrolments in Australia compared to the <a href="http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-health/international-migration-outlook-2014_migr_outlook-2014-en">OECD average of 7.6%</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>In 2015, <a href="https://www.universitiesaustralia.edu.au/ArticleDocuments/169/Data%20snapshotv6%20webres.pdf.aspx">271,354</a> international students were enrolled in Australia universities.</p></li>
<li><p>In 2016, Australia took in a record <a href="https://internationaleducation.gov.au/research/International-Student-Data/Documents/MONTHLY%20SUMMARIES/2016/12_December_2016_FullYearAnalysis.pdf">554,179</a> full-fee paying international students. </p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Student visa also a temporary work visa</h2>
<p>Because the international student visa permits international students to work up to 20 hours per week, it is also a temporary migrant worker visa. </p>
<p>Assuming all international tertiary students work 20 hours per week, this is the equivalent workforce impact of an extra 146,677 457 visa holders working a 37 hour week, or more than three times the total intake (<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-15/what-is-a-457-visa/8026280">45,400</a>) of 457 visas workers last year.</p>
<p>This is a conservative estimate, since research suggests that many are forced to work longer hours to make ends meet in Australia.</p>
<p>According to many judgements and reports made by the Fair Work Commission, the evidence suggests that many international students are exploited, paid under award wages in often substandard workplaces. </p>
<h2>International students working longer hours</h2>
<p>The most notorious recent example of systematic exploitation of international student workers is the case of the international 7-Eleven franchise.</p>
<p>According to one <a href="https://www.fairwork.gov.au/about-us/access-accountability-and-reporting/inquiry-reports#7-11">report</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A common payroll fraud employed by 7-Eleven franchisees is known as the ‘half-pay scam’, where staff members are paid for only half the hours they work. Under the half-pay scam, a worker is forced to work for 40 hours a week for an average of $12 per hour against an award rate of $24 per hour. </p>
<p>As part of the scam the franchisee will doctor the roster and fudge time sheets to make it appear that the staff member has only worked half the hours in the store that they have actually worked.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>According to the <a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/migrant-intake/report">Productivity Commission</a>, about half of permanent visa grants are to people who are already in Australia as temporary immigrants.</p>
<p>Many 457 and international student visa temporary migrants eventually become permanent. This makes a lot of sense: those on one or more temporary visas have experience living and working in Australia, have often accumulated human capital from Australian universities and developed social networks (social capital) within Australia and improved their English (linguistic capital). </p>
<p>It is this ability for migrants to transition from temporary to permanent visas that is the strongest argument against the claim that Australia has abandoned the settler immigration model that worked so well for five or six post-war decades in favour of a guest-worker immigration model.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166415/original/file-20170424-23807-1buefge.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/166415/original/file-20170424-23807-1buefge.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166415/original/file-20170424-23807-1buefge.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166415/original/file-20170424-23807-1buefge.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166415/original/file-20170424-23807-1buefge.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166415/original/file-20170424-23807-1buefge.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/166415/original/file-20170424-23807-1buefge.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/migrant-intake/report/migrant-intake-report.pdf">Department of Immigration and Border Protection/ Productivity Commission report p.420</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Ripped off?</h2>
<p>Sometimes the journey to permanent residence in Australia is via a series of temporary visas, a sort of boomerang migration pathway. </p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/migrant-intake/report">Productivity Commission</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The number of former international students who use the multi-step pathway to a graduate visa followed by permanent skill stream immigration has increased”. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>For example, over the period 1991–2014, 34,340 people transferred from an international student visa to a temporary skilled visa (12,870 of these to a 457 visa).</p>
<p>However, one consequence of the decision to scrap the 457 visa and replace it with a temporary skilled workers visa with a short-term stream (two years without a pathway to permanent residence) and a medium-term stream (four years with a pathway to permanent residence) is that it reinforced the guest-worker character of Australia’s current immigration program. </p>
<p>This undermines national building in Australia and seems at odds with the Turnbull Government’s increased focus on <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-20/migrants-to-face-tougher-tests-for-australian-citizenship/8456392">successful citizenship outcomes</a> and a redefined multicultural policy that recognised that the country’s <a href="http://www.news.com.au/national/politics/three-changes-the-turnbull-government-has-made-to-australias-multicultural-statement/news-story/772da543dbda3650ccf9eba818747a61">“multilingual workforce”</a> is a competitive edge in an increasingly globalised economy. </p>
<hr>
<p>• <strong>This article was amended on 24 April to correct a factual inaccuracy. The article said “Australia receives about 250 million temporary migrants on working holiday maker visa”, when it should have said 250,000.</strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76579/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jock Collins receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>By abolishing the 457 visa program the government has targeted a fraction of the problem, leaving the bulk of the temporary migrant labour force unchanged.Jock Collins, Professor of Social Economics, UTS Business School, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/765062017-04-21T03:11:02Z2017-04-21T03:11:02ZVIDEO: Michelle Grattan on 457 visas and the citizenship changes<figure>
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<p>The University of Canberra’s vice-chancellor and president, Deep Saini, and professorial fellow Michelle Grattan discuss the week in politics, including the implications of scrapping the 457 visa, the new tougher citizenship requirements – which include testing language and Australian values – and how this change is going to be received by voters.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76506/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Deep Saini and Michelle Grattan discuss the week in politics.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraPaddy Nixon, Vice-Chancellor and President, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/690422016-11-18T03:04:39Z2016-11-18T03:04:39ZVIDEO: Michelle Grattan on 457 visas<figure>
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<p>Looking to America, Australia’s politicians are reaching out to voters feeling left behind in times of economic transition. The push by Labor and the government to restrict access to the skilled 457 visa for foreign workers is an example. Michelle Grattan tells University of Canberra vice-chancellor Professor Deep Saini that this is “picking up on the Trump feeling”. </p>
<p>“The question of foreign workers coming in, taking Australian jobs inevitably comes to the surface, as it did this week and we saw both sides responding,” Grattan says.</p>
<p>“We need to interpret this in the terms of that overall political messaging. We are saying, on both sides of politics, ‘well we hear the pain, we understand your feelings. We need some foreign workers but there will be some tough rules.’”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69042/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Looking to America, Australia’s politicians are reaching out to voters feeling left behind in times of economic transition.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraPaddy Nixon, Vice-Chancellor and President, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/689952016-11-17T10:36:05Z2016-11-17T10:36:05ZGrattan on Friday: Trumpism has Shorten and Turnbull focusing on the politics of ‘disquiet’<p>Pauline Hanson knows how to hurt. She tweeted this week: “When you look at Bill Shorten’s recent rhetoric it seems Labor is now taking its cues from Pauline Hanson’s One Nation. Good to see.”</p>
<p>Of course Shorten strongly rejects any such thing. But after Donald Trump’s win, the mainstream parties are looking towards those people who, squeezed by economic change, alienated and often angry, swelled One Nation’s vote in July.</p>
<p>Their concerns will be increasingly accommodated in the next couple of years. The question is how far that accommodation will push policy towards more inward-looking and status-quo stances.</p>
<p>In a speech warning against countries retreating from openness, Malcolm Turnbull on Thursday said in an understatement: “The need to undertake reforms that will deliver long-term gains – but which may create winners and losers in the near term - isn’t keenly felt in many parts of Australian society.”</p>
<p>The disruptive effect of Trump’s victory is rippling through Australian politics, delighting Hanson – who is relishing the possibilities that lie in the next Queensland election – but discombobulating the main parties, which know its risks, although for Labor there is also the smell of opportunity.</p>
<p>Trading on the perceived unpopularity of Trump here – 59% believed Australia’s economy would be worse off with Trump in the White House, according to a <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/ipsos-poll-shows-what-australians-really-feel-about-donald-trump-20161111-gsnbdt.html">post-election Ipsos poll</a> – Shorten is now referring to Turnbull’s company tax package as his “Donald-Trump-style corporate tax cuts”.</p>
<p>When Shorten addressed the Victorian ALP conference on Sunday the United States was firmly in his mind.</p>
<p>He pointed to “the long-term decline of the economic security of working people [there] – the squeezing of the middle class, the rise of the working poor”.</p>
<p>And “some of the seeds of the disquiet we see overseas are present [and] growing in this country, although we are not there yet”, he said. Labor would “heed the lessons from the mines and mills and factories of Detroit, of Ohio, of Pennsylvania”.</p>
<p>Shorten has a set of slogans, likely to appeal to the disquieted: “Build Australian first. Buy Australian first in our contracts. Employ Australians first.”</p>
<p>Turnbull is also looking to what he describes as the “rising disquiet”, saying the presidential election had taught that policy changes must be fair.</p>
<p>But more problematically, Turnbull wants to define fairness “in a very broad sense”. Rather than looking at winners and losers narrowly, decision by decision, he sees it as a matter of “making sure our overall system is fair, examining the transfers of goods and services over a person’s lifetime and asking ourselves, does this reflect the benchmarks we set ourselves of an open, fair and just society?”.</p>
<p>Short-termism is the hallmark of our politics, however, and the prospect of voters adopting Turnbull’s “broad” concept of fairness in the current environment wouldn’t seem high.</p>
<p>This week the Trump ripples played out particularly over the issue of foreign workers with Shorten, who toured regional areas in Victoria and Queensland, revisiting 457 visas.</p>
<p>“Employers are using and abusing temporary work visas to bring in cheap labour,” he said. “Manipulating the visa system to import and exploit overseas guest workers.”</p>
<p>The government’s reaction was to have things both ways, attacking Shorten for hypocrisy – saying as employment minister he was an “Olympic-grade 457 visa issuer” – but also announcing a tightening (a decision it had already taken) and flagging further action.</p>
<p>At the same time, government and Labor are jostling over the tax arrangements for backpackers, with the opposition trying to cut back the tax rate for them from the Coalition’s proposed compromise.</p>
<p>Labor is also seeking to position its foreign policy stance for the age of Trump but it has found this slippery ground.</p>
<p>Shadow Foreign Minister Penny Wong wrote in an <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/comment/trumps-election-is-a-turning-point-for-australian-foreign-policy-20161114-gsp5kd.html">opinion piece for Fairfax</a>: “We are at a change point, and face the possibility of a very different world and a very different America. Our collective task now is to carefully and dispassionately consider Australia’s foreign policy and global interests over coming months, and how best to effect these within the alliance framework.”</p>
<p>While reaffirming Labor’s commitment to the US alliance she said that Australia needed “to work harder in our region”.</p>
<p>The article was unexceptionable, and the Shorten office had seen a draft. Nevertheless, the government was quick to exploit it, with Turnbull saying this was an instance of “Labor being hopelessly divided on national security”.</p>
<p>It’s not just the government that will face a challenge on foreign policy in the Trump era. For Labor, it’s a matter of striking the right rhetorical balance.</p>
<p>The ascension of Trump will add a new element of uncertainty for Turnbull as he faces trying to regroup in 2017.</p>
<p>With the final parliamentary fortnight starting next week, he hopes to end this year by securing the passage of the industrial relations legislation, including to re-establish the Australian Building and Construction Commission.</p>
<p>The deal with the US to take the refugees from Nauru and Manus Island can be claimed as an achievement, though it can equally be seen as belatedly dealing with a problem. The tough lifetime ban on visiting rights for ex-Nauru and Manus people faces a struggle in the Senate. And the government can only hope there is no reassessment of the refugee deal from the Trump administration when it takes power.</p>
<p>The government’s priorities for next year look demanding. As part of refreshing its agenda, it wants to do something on housing affordability, as well as focus on infrastructure (Turnbull has an infrastructure statement due next week) and cities, linked closely to the jobs narrative. There is a tertiary education policy to be unveiled (finally). A review of climate change policy has to be made.</p>
<p>As we move through 2017 the implications of the Trump revolution for Australia and the responses required will become clearer.</p>
<p>And all this will be against the need for Turnbull to improve perceptions about his performance.</p>
<p>Sydney shockjock Ben Fordham was blunt and brutal when he interviewed Turnbull this week. “Can I tell you prime minister what people are actually saying about you at the moment? … They’re saying you’re not doing a good enough job as prime minister. They’re saying that you are out of touch with the average Australian.”</p>
<p>In the time of Trumpism, there are few worse things to be condemned for than being “out of touch” with average people.</p>
<iframe src="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/5utrs-649e6b?from=yiiadmin" data-link="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/5utrs-649e6b?from=yiiadmin" height="100" width="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player"></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68995/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Pauline Hanson knows how to hurt. She tweeted this week: ‘When you look at Bill Shorten’s recent rhetoric it seems Labor is now taking its cues from Pauline Hanson’s One Nation. Good to see.’Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/689132016-11-16T03:24:22Z2016-11-16T03:24:22ZBusiness Briefing: breaking down the 457 visa myths<p>Peter McDonald, a professor of demography at the University of Melbourne, says a 457 visa worker is more likely to take the job of a young academic than that of a blue collar worker.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.100positivepolicies.org.au/a_fairer_temporary_work_visa_system_fact_sheet">Labor</a> and <a href="http://www.afr.com/news/malcolm-turnbull-tightens-screws-on-foreign-workers-too-20161115-gsq774">the Coalition government</a> are suggesting changes to the 457 visa workers scheme to ensure these workers aren’t taking jobs that would otherwise be filled by Australians. </p>
<p>However Labor’s plan is misguided because the majority of 457 visa holders are skilled workers who are more specialised and experienced compared with those who are unemployed in Australia, McDonald says.</p>
<p>In fact, often if 457 visa workers weren’t employed, these jobs wouldn’t exist in the first place, he says. This is because employers specifically need the skills of these workers and, in general, these workers create jobs in Australia.</p>
<p>McDonald says there is a case for targeting the scheme so that 457 visa workers take certain jobs in the workforce and in certain locations, where there is demand. However, he says most of the recommendations from <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Education_and_Employment/temporary_work_visa">an earlier inquiry to improve 457 visa workers</a> program have not been implemented by the government yet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68913/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Policies targeting the 457 visa workers scheme aren't going to improve the employment prospects for low skilled workers and Australia's unemployed, an expert says.Jenni Henderson, Section Editor: Business + EconomyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/664222016-10-11T19:08:14Z2016-10-11T19:08:14ZHow migrant workers are critical to the future of Australia’s agricultural industry<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140218/original/image-20161004-20221-lg6zhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Australia takes in about half of all working holidaymakers who enter OECD countries.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dan Peled</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>More than 900,000 immigrants on permanent and temporary visas enter Australia each year. Most live and work in Australian capital cities; immigrants are more urbanised than the average Australian today.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140388/original/image-20161004-20239-1ti049h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140388/original/image-20161004-20239-1ti049h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140388/original/image-20161004-20239-1ti049h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140388/original/image-20161004-20239-1ti049h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140388/original/image-20161004-20239-1ti049h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140388/original/image-20161004-20239-1ti049h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140388/original/image-20161004-20239-1ti049h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140388/original/image-20161004-20239-1ti049h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">New Immigrants Improving Productivity in Australian Agriculture report.</span></span>
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<p>However, in the last decade or so, new visa pathways have opened up to attract new immigrant workers and their families to the Australian bush. Increased chances of selection attracts permanent skilled immigrants to accept employment in regional and rural towns.</p>
<p>At the same time, increasing numbers of temporary migrants on working holiday, student and skilled 457 visas are attracted to the bush. A new program for Pacific Seasonal Workers has also been introduced. </p>
<p>Immigrant workers add substantially to productivity in the Agricultural industry, a <a href="https://rirdc.infoservices.com.au/items/16-027">new report</a> reveals.</p>
<h2>Growth and benefits</h2>
<p>For policymakers, the attraction of getting migrants to rural areas is that it helps reduce labour shortages – particularly during seasonal harvesting peaks – and counteracts the trend of population movement away from the bush to the metropolis.</p>
<p>Immigrants, including refugees, play a critical role in the Australian agricultural industry. Some of these immigrants become entrepreneurs, opening up a business. Skilled immigrants in the agricultural sector were also much more likely to have set up their own business (15%) than those in other industries (9.6%).</p>
<p>When set against the Australian average rate of entrepreneurship (those in the workforce who are self-employed or employers) of 10%, this propensity for immigrant entrepreneurship in the Australian agricultural sector is very encouraging, since entrepreneurs drive employment and productivity growth in the industry.</p>
<p>457 visa skilled workers find employers in the bush eager to sponsor their immigration application, particularly in professional and technical occupations. Working holiday makers fill critical jobs during harvesting and picking seasons.</p>
<p>Seasonal workers from the Pacific are eager to supplement the income of their families back home via remittances. They also get to learn new skills.</p>
<p>Immigrant farmers fill the growing intergenerational gap in farm succession and bring with them new technologies and innovations to Australian farming. Zimbabwean immigrant Nicky Mann and her husband introduced hydroponic rose-growing at their NSW central coast operation. Vietnamese and Chinese market gardeners have introduced many new vegetables to expand Australians’ food horizons.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140389/original/image-20161004-16660-189oxbv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140389/original/image-20161004-16660-189oxbv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140389/original/image-20161004-16660-189oxbv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140389/original/image-20161004-16660-189oxbv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140389/original/image-20161004-16660-189oxbv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140389/original/image-20161004-16660-189oxbv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140389/original/image-20161004-16660-189oxbv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140389/original/image-20161004-16660-189oxbv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">New Immigrants Improving Productivity in Australian Agriculture report.</span></span>
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<p>Australia takes in about half of all working holiday makers who enter OECD countries. They can work and travel around Australia from job to job. The carrot is a 12-month extension to their visa if they work more than 88 days in the bush. The agriculture, forestry and fishing industries receive the greatest benefit from this arrangement.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140403/original/image-20161005-16660-deu9w0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140403/original/image-20161005-16660-deu9w0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140403/original/image-20161005-16660-deu9w0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140403/original/image-20161005-16660-deu9w0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140403/original/image-20161005-16660-deu9w0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140403/original/image-20161005-16660-deu9w0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140403/original/image-20161005-16660-deu9w0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140403/original/image-20161005-16660-deu9w0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">New Immigrants Improving Productivity in Australian Agriculture report.</span></span>
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<p>Working holiday markers come from more than 20 countries. The UK, South Korea, Ireland, Germany, Taiwan and France provide the largest numbers. Fieldwork with Korean working holiday makers found the majority arrived with the intention of working in the agricultural industry.</p>
<p>Most reported that the best thing about their experience was that they had good relations with the non-Koreans they worked with in Australia, learned new skills, had to opportunity to improve their English, and received good wages.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.employment.gov.au/seasonal-worker-programme">Pacific seasonal workers program</a> allows workers from East Timor, Nauru, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu to work in low-skilled jobs for up to seven months in a 12-month period. Most work in the horticultural industry.</p>
<p>The annual intake has grown from around 400 in 2010-11. It is now an uncapped, demand-driven immigration stream that has expanded to jobs in the broader agriculture industry – including the accommodation sector.</p>
<p>Many permanent and temporary immigrants in the bush, particularly those who work in the agricultural industry, report receiving a warm welcome. This undermines existing stereotypes.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140406/original/image-20161005-30459-18cjv58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140406/original/image-20161005-30459-18cjv58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140406/original/image-20161005-30459-18cjv58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140406/original/image-20161005-30459-18cjv58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140406/original/image-20161005-30459-18cjv58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140406/original/image-20161005-30459-18cjv58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140406/original/image-20161005-30459-18cjv58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140406/original/image-20161005-30459-18cjv58.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">New Immigrants Improving Productivity in Australian Agriculture report.</span></span>
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<p>Many skilled permanent immigrants report strong local connections through sporting, community, school and religious social activities in their regional, rural and remote towns.</p>
<p>Those who work in the agricultural industry report a higher level of social engagement – with the exception of sporting activities – than do other immigrants.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140407/original/image-20161005-14595-1gnlgcs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140407/original/image-20161005-14595-1gnlgcs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140407/original/image-20161005-14595-1gnlgcs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140407/original/image-20161005-14595-1gnlgcs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140407/original/image-20161005-14595-1gnlgcs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140407/original/image-20161005-14595-1gnlgcs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140407/original/image-20161005-14595-1gnlgcs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140407/original/image-20161005-14595-1gnlgcs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">New Immigrants Improving Productivity in Australian Agriculture report.</span></span>
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<p>However, working holidaymakers had <a href="https://www.fairwork.gov.au/ArticleDocuments/710/fair-work-ombudsman-annual-report-2013-14.pdf.aspx">more than three times</a> the rate of finalised Fair Work Ombudsman complaints compared to all other workers in 2013-14. This suggests a high incidence of exploitative work arrangements.</p>
<p>The research also noted numerous examples over time of exploitation of temporary migrants on temporary student, skilled work, working holiday or Pacific Seasonal worker visas. Examples of co-ethnic exploitation are also common.</p>
<p>The research does not clarify the extent to which temporary migrants working in agriculture experience exploitation. However, experiences of migrant worker exploitation do jeopardise future migrant flows into agricultural jobs. </p>
<p>International migration decisions are often based on the experiences of friends and family around the world. This means that unscrupulous employers can undermine the benefits of migrant employment programs for the majority of Australian employers who provide appropriate pay and work conditions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66422/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jock Collins held a three year Rural Industries Research and Development Council Research Grant (2012-15) PRJ-007578 "New Immigrants Improving Productivity in Australian Agriculture" with Associate Professor Branka Krivokapic-Skoko (CSU) to conduct this research. The Office of Multicultural Affairs and Citizenship, Department of Premiers and Cabinet, Victorian Government and the Working Holiday Supporting Centre were Industry Partners.
Jock Collins is currently lead Chief Investigator on two Australian Research Council grants.</span></em></p>Unscrupulous employers who exploit migrant labour are posing a large threat to the continued contribution that immigrant workers make to the agricultural industry, a new report reveals.Jock Collins, Professor of Social Economics, UTS Business School, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/469412015-09-04T00:23:35Z2015-09-04T00:23:35ZTemporary migrants are people, not ‘labour’<p>This week’s <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2015/08/30/4301164.htm">Four Corners expose</a> on the plight of underpaid international students at 7-Eleven franchises comes as a <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Education_and_Employment/temporary_work_visa">Senate inquiry</a> investigates the rights of temporary migrant workers.</p>
<p>The inquiry is looking at the vulnerability of migrant workers to exploitation; the compliance challenges of temporary migration; and the question of whether migrants are displacing local workers. Yet many larger questions about what temporary migration means to Australian society remain unanswered and indeed are rarely asked.</p>
<p>More than one million temporary migrants are currently resident in Australia, making up approximately 6-8% of the workforce. </p>
<p>The huge increase in temporary migration programs that we are seeing today represents a disruption of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/report-marks-australias-shift-from-settler-to-temporary-migrant-nation-34794">“settler migrant” paradigm</a> of old. Yet we don’t know enough about the lives of temporary migrants outside the workplace. What are the social circumstances of nearly one million residents living and working on temporary visas? And what are the consequences of temporary migration for these migrants’ families and for communities and Australian society overall?</p>
<h2>A path to permanency</h2>
<p>Both statistical and sociological work shows that temporary migration programs are in fact very closely connected to permanent intakes. About 50% of permanent residencies are now granted to migrants already living onshore on temporary visas, and a proportion of offshore PR grants go to migrants who have previously lived in Australia on temporary visas. </p>
<p>Almost 50% of Temporary Work (Skilled) or subclass 457 visas are also granted to onshore applicants. Around 142,405 student visa holders transitioned onto another visa after study in 2012-2013. </p>
<p>What these figures show is that for many migrants temporariness has become long-term and multi-staged, with the path to permanent residency and citizenship non-linear. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14747731.2011.576850#.VefjtfmqpBc">Overseas research</a>, especially from Canada, has shown that extended periods with a temporary status have long-term impacts on migrants even after they become permanent — in terms of labour market integration and income, but also in terms of social wellbeing. Living in Australia for a long time across different visa statuses is “precarious” both within the labour market and more broadly. This precariousness is characterised by a general uncertainty about the future; pressures to make decisions about careers and other life choices in relation to migration outcomes; and a lack of access to social and political rights despite extended periods paying tax and living in the Australian community.</p>
<h2>Families and temporariness</h2>
<p>The focus on temporary migrants as workers often leaves out any analysis of their social and family lives. </p>
<p>Several temporary visa categories (including students, 457 workers and graduate workers) grant the right to have spouses and dependants in Australia. This sets them apart from temporary migration programs in many other countries. However, these families have limited access, depending on their specific visa category, to free public education, Medicare, government-funded legal assistance and many other forms of social security. </p>
<p>There are a wide-range of potential implications for areas like education, domestic violence prevention and maternal child health. With spouse visas being a key pathway to permanent residency for temporary migrants, visa conditions also have significant impacts on intimate relationships. Marriage and children can be delayed until migration goals are achieved, or relationships can be accelerated or sustained past their use-by date for the sake of partner visas. </p>
<p>Continued periods on temporary visas can also affect migrants’ relations with offshore family and how they negotiate care of elders, marriage and financial support across borders. Family reunion is available only to those with permanent residency or citizenship, so an individual’s migration journey can in fact be a collective investment in the future of a family. For example, permanent residency can enable better options for children’s future education, parents’ retirement, or siblings’ work opportunities. This raises the stakes of the transformation of temporariness into permanence.</p>
<h2>People need people</h2>
<p>Understanding the social networks of temporary migrants is also crucial. Social networks can be highly supportive and dramatically improve migrants’ sense of wellbeing and belonging, as well as access to work. Peers can educate each other about rights, trade information about support services, and develop grassroots institutions that assist other temporary migrants.</p>
<p>NGOs or informal support networks (including online networks) often fill the gaps for those without access to government-funded services, providing advice on everything from legal rights to health and housing. Established ethnic communities can provide a basis of support for temporary migrants, but there is also concerning evidence of co-ethnic exploitation, where employers or intermediaries such as labour hire companies benefit from the particular vulnerabilities of temporary migrant workers. </p>
<p>It is time for a more rigorous discussion of temporary migration that includes but goes beyond the labour market experiences of migrant workers. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“They called for labour but people came.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This much-quoted observation on the European guest worker programs of the 1960s by Swiss writer Max Frisch still rings true.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46941/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shanthi Robertson currently receives funding from the Australian Research Council for the Discovery Early Career Researcher Award Project 'Staggered Pathways: Temporality, Mobility and Asian Temporary Migrants' (DE150100748).
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martina does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.
</span></em></p>Australia’s current interest in the work temporary migrants do is laudable but needs to extend to other important issues of this million-strong community.Shanthi Robertson, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney UniversityMartina Boese, Lecturer, Sociology, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/414432015-05-08T04:00:01Z2015-05-08T04:00:01ZEvidence of employers misusing 457 visas shows need for reform<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80923/original/image-20150508-1212-dfxo0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In the hospitality sector, employers are 13 times more likely to prefer 457 visa workers than similar Australian workers, data shows.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/takoyaki_king/8440137668/"> George Alexander Ishida Newman</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-06/parliamentary-inquiry-into-labour-hire-industry/6449714">South Australian</a> and <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-05/vic-government-to-begin-inquiry-after-four-corners-report/6444806">Victorian</a> governments have announced inquiries into abuse of migrant workers in the agriculture sector hired on 417 “working holiday” visa, following an <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-04/supermarkets-food-outlets-exploit-black-market-migrant-workers/6441496">expose</a> by ABC TV’s Four Corners this week. </p>
<p>However, our <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=ce2f8c67-65f4-42a3-86fd-a352b3ce07e8&subId=350945">research</a> shows that the problem of employers evading their obligations is not limited to workers on the 417 visa. Some are also misusing the 457 temporary skilled visa.</p>
<p>The 457 visa is supposed to be used in industries suffering a skills shortage to allow employers to hire a skilled migrant worker for up to four years. </p>
<p>But new analysis shows that some employers readily admit they use 457 visa workers even when there is no skills shortage in their industry, suggesting that tougher regulation is needed. </p>
<h2>Why hire a 457 visa worker?</h2>
<p>The temporary skilled 457 visa, introduced in 1996 to address skills shortages, is supposed to allow Australian businesses to recruit workers with specialised qualifications, knowledge and experience.</p>
<p>In fact, our results found 457 visas were seen by many employers as an easy way to fill jobs without boosting pay, working conditions or other aspects of job quality.</p>
<p>Our <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=ce2f8c67-65f4-42a3-86fd-a352b3ce07e8&subId=350945">research</a>, presented to the <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Education_and_Employment/temporary_work_visa/Submissions">Senate Education and Employment References Committee’s</a> inquiry into the impact of Australia’s temporary work visa programs, analysed survey responses of 1600 Australian employers conducted in 2012. The data has only recently been made available to academic researchers.</p>
<p>The phone survey was conducted and designed by the <a href="http://www.srcentre.com.au/">Social Research Centre</a> and commissioned by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection. The survey received a 90.3% response rate.</p>
<p>While the data has been previously used in a report by the <a href="http://www.migrationcouncil.org.au/assets/files/8168a3189.pdf">Migration Council of Australia</a>, our study is the first to use techniques testing for significance and variation in the data. </p>
<p>We sought to answer the crucial question: why do employers recruit workers on 457 visas? This question is important for understanding the impact of immigration on the labour market.</p>
<p>We found that a significant minority of employers are using the scheme to engage workers they saw as harder working or having a “better attitude” (19%) or are more loyal than their Australian counterparts (19%). Of employers surveyed, 10% said that Australian workers do not like doing the job and 6% claimed Australian workers have a poor attitude.</p>
<p>However, we found significant variation in these responses between employers in different industries.</p>
<p>Employer respondents across all industries are three times more likely to be more satisfied with workers on 457 visas than similar Australian workers, but most employers (67%) are equally satisfied with both groups.</p>
<p>The picture is rather different in the hospitality industry, where employers are 13 times more likely to prefer 457 visa workers than similar Australian workers, and only a minority (45%) are equally satisfied with both groups. </p>
<p>The risk is that some employers may develop an inherent preference for 457 visa holders in ways that could inhibit workers’ rights, advantage some employers over others and potentially deny employment opportunities to citizens and permanent residents.</p>
<h2>So-called skills shortages</h2>
<p>The current policy grants visas based on employer claims that they are experiencing skills shortages. But this policy is fundamentally flawed. </p>
<p>While the vast majority (86%) of employers surveyed say they experience challenges recruiting workers locally, this does not equate to a skills shortage. What they’re short of is workers willing to do the work for the wages and conditions currently being offered, which in some cases won’t be high enough to attract more people locally.</p>
<p>Fewer than 1% of employers address skilled vacancies by increasing the salary being offered, which economists generally consider to be necessary for a skills shortage to exist. </p>
<p>At least 14% of employers surveyed said they did not have difficulties recruiting from the local labour market, which begs the question why they were allowed to hire workers on 457 visas in the first place. </p>
<p>The 457 visa has elicited intense political controversy in recent years. Some unions claim that the scheme is taking opportunities for employment away from Australians, while business groups argue the visa is vital for meeting critical skills shortages. </p>
<p>Our research makes it clear that unions and employers are both wrong in this debate. Misuse of the scheme does not appear to be widespread; in fact, many employers (such many in education and health) are largely using the scheme for its intended purpose of addressing skills shortages. </p>
<p>But this is not the case in some industries, especially hospitality, where misuse of the scheme appears to be widespread. For instance, while addressing skills shortages is the visa’s main objective, only 42% of hospitality industry respondents cited “they have filled skilled job vacancies” as a benefit of sponsoring 457 visa holders, compared to 52% of employers across all industries. </p>
<p>By contrast, 41% of hospitality employers cited “increased loyalty from 457 workers” as a benefit of the 457 visa, compared to 19% of all employer respondents. Hospitality employers were also much more likely than average to prioritise interpersonal competencies over specialised qualifications, knowledge and experience when selecting potential skilled migrants.</p>
<p>Our research shows that the 457 visa clearly needs to be fixed. Currently, it is up to employers to determine whether they have a skills shortage that can only be addressed via the visa scheme. That right should be handed to an independent body that can identify skills shortages and rule the occupations for which 457 visas can and cannot be used.</p>
<h2>Migrant workers are needed</h2>
<p>However, the claim by unions that the 457 visa deters employers from training is somewhat misplaced. Australia’s education and training systems suffer from major deficiencies that will take a long time to address and, in any case, will never be completely adequate for meeting our skills needs. Immigration needs to play a role.</p>
<p>Skilled immigration produces substantial benefits for Australia. It delivers economic advantages, opens trade opportunities and helps to address the challenges of population ageing and declining workforce participation. The former Immigration Minister Scott Morrison was right to <a href="https://www.travel-impact-newswire.com/2014/03/australian-minister-lists-full-range-of-measures-to-balance-facilitation-security-interests/">say</a> that skilled immigration is “an integral part of the economic machinery that creates Australian jobs”. </p>
<p>Employers need to focus more on improving job quality and working more closely with the Australian education and training system in addressing skills shortages where they genuinely do exist.</p>
<p>But the practices of employers using the 457 visa need to be regulated more effectively to ensure the scheme meets its stated purpose.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41443/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The funding for Chris F. Wright and Andreea Constantin's research on migrant workers is provided under the University of Sydney Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Scheme (Project ID G162129). Chris F Wright has received external funding from the Australian Department of Industry, the UK Economic and Social Research Council and the McKell Institute for projects unrelated to this research.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andreea Constantin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New analysis shows that some employers readily admit they use 457 visa workers even when there is no skills shortage in their sector, suggesting that tougher regulation is needed.Chris F. Wright, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of SydneyAndreea Constantin, Research Assistant, Work and Organisational Studies, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/347942014-12-01T19:07:26Z2014-12-01T19:07:26ZReport marks Australia’s shift from settler to temporary migrant nation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65892/original/image-20141130-20572-16fgoa6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Australia has the second-highest number of immigrants – in relative terms – among OECD countries, according to a new report.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dan Peled</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Immigration is a political hot potato. On the day the OECD published its latest <a href="http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-health/international-migration-outlook-2014_migr_outlook-2014-en">annual survey</a> of global migration, Swiss voters <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30267042">rejected</a> a referendum to reduce annual migration numbers. </p>
<p>A few days earlier, yet another UN committee <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-29/un-torture-commitee-criticises-australias-asylum-seeker-policy/5927542">criticised</a> Australia’s asylum seeker policies. Meanwhile, British Prime Minister David Cameron <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/11250220/Cameron-still-wants-to-cut-immigration-to-under-100000-as-Home-Secretary-ditches-target.html">announced plans</a> to reduce annual immigration from 260,000 to below 100,000 per year in response to the UK Independence Party (UKIP) <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/11/21/uk-britain-politics-idUKKCN0J509720141121">securing</a> its second parliamentary seat. And on November 20, US President Barack Obama <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/11/20/obama-immigration-full-remarks/70030636/">announced</a> his intention to permit millions of resident undocumented migrants’ access to permanent residence.</p>
<p>The 2014 International Migration Outlook report reveals that there are 115 million first-generation migrants in OECD countries today, accounting for 10% of the OECD population. Another 5% of people in OECD countries are second-generation migrants. </p>
<p>Both permanent and temporary migration numbers are down on the pre-global financial crisis record levels of 2007-08. This is in line with the trend of international migration to synchronise with the economic rhythms of globalisation.</p>
<p>The report revealed that highly educated immigrants accounted for 45% of the increase in the foreign-born population of OECD countries in the last decade. Political conflict also drives international mobility: the report noted that flows of migrants seeking asylum increased by 20% in 2013.</p>
<p>The OECD report presents data that confirms Australia’s place as one of the highest western immigration nations in per capita terms: 27.3% of all Australians today are born overseas. That is higher than countries in North America (Canada 19.8%, US 13%), Europe (UK 11.9%) or neighbour New Zealand (24.1%). Only Switzerland (27.7%) has more immigrants than Australia in relative terms among OECD countries.</p>
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<p>There are a number of major drivers to international migration. One is economic. Globalisation has increased international labour migration as most countries seek to attract professional and highly skilled immigrants to fill labour shortages in areas such as health and informational technology, as well as other immigrants with trades in shortage in the labour market of the host country. In Australia, accountants, chefs, nurses, engineers and software developers top the skills-in-demand list for recent immigrants.</p>
<p>Another major driver of international migration is global inequality. As scholars such as <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674430006">Thomas Piketty</a> and <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/05/joseph-stiglitz-the-price-on-inequality">Joseph Stiglitz</a> have pointed out, globalisation has not delivered on its promise to reduce global inequality. Inequality drives international mobility for those who can turns dreams into reality.</p>
<p>Another related driver of immigration is political. The expansion of the European Union, for example, enables people from the new member states (Romania joined in 2007 and Croatia in 2013) to move to other countries within the EU to seek employment. </p>
<p>At the same time, political conflict such as that seen recently in countries in Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe unleashes the movement of many millions of people within and beyond national borders to seek refuge and protection. Estimates put the number of refugees at 16.7 million, asylum seekers at 1.2 million and internally displaced people at 33.3 million for a total of 51.2 million people. As The Guardian recently <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/20/global-refugee-figure-passes-50-million-unhcr-report">put it</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If displaced people had their own country it would be the 24th most populous in the world.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Countries of settler immigration – who wanted immigrants and their families and subsequent generations to stay and become part of nation building – have been the exception and not the rule. Australia, the US, Canada and New Zealand are most prominent in this regard.</p>
<p>However, trends in Australian immigration in the past two decades strongly suggest that Australian can no longer be regarded as a settler immigration nation. <a href="http://www.immi.gov.au/pub-res/Documents/statistics/migration-trends-2012-13-glance.pdf">2012-13 immigration data</a> shows that 190,000 arrived under the permanent immigration program (or 192,599 when Trans-Tasman migrants are included).</p>
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<p>But in the same year, 725,043 – or 766,273 including Trans-Tasman migrants – migrants arrived on temporary immigration visas. This included 258,248 on working holiday visas, 259,278 on international student visas and 126,350 on temporary work (skilled) visas.</p>
<p>This shift of Australia from a settler immigration nation to a temporary migrant nation has been the biggest change in nearly seven decades of post-war immigration history. Yet, remarkably, there has been virtually no debate about it other than understandable concerns about abuses of workers under the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-457-scheme-is-changing-australian-immigration-13000">temporary 457 visa</a> and of some <a href="http://www.anao.gov.au/%7E/media/Uploads/Documents/2006%2007_audit_report_72.pdf">working holiday makers</a> by unscrupulous employers or agents. </p>
<p>The available oxygen for Australian immigration debates today has been captured almost exclusively by the “boat people” debate. However, the 15,827 humanitarian entrants to Australia in 2012-13 comprised only 8.3% of entrants under the permanent immigration program and 1.9% of the total (permanent plus temporary) program in that year.</p>
<p>The OECD report concluded that immigration had strong public support in Australia. It found:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… a high level of support in 2012 for all immigration categories in Australia, with the public most favourable towards skilled migrants.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Unfortunately, this flattering conclusion cannot be extended to humanitarian immigration and boat arrivals. It is an aspect of Australia’s remarkable immigration history that should bring shame to the country and its political leadership.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34794/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jock Collins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Immigration is a political hot potato. On the day the OECD published its latest annual survey of global migration, Swiss voters rejected a referendum to reduce annual migration numbers. A few days earlier…Jock Collins, Professor of Social Economics, UTS Business School, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/150282013-06-10T20:26:44Z2013-06-10T20:26:44ZThe challenge to migration policy is to go beyond easy headlines<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/25228/original/zqr2whbg-1370588079.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Debate around skilled migration can degenerate into political footballs.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It seems the broad debates around migration, and often skilled migration, are little different from one country to the next. </p>
<p>The United States is <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/05/the-gang-of-eights-immigration-fight.html">currently considering sweeping migration reforms</a> that include the provision of citizenship pathways for the 11 million undocumented workers residing and working in the US, as well as the relaxation of restrictions on guest workers. There are hopes these amendments will improve an immigration system many feel is broken. But the process has been mired in <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/06/05/both-parties-lukewarm-on-senates-immigration-reform-package">predictable bitter political wrangling</a>.</p>
<p>Here in Australia though while we can always strive for improvements, our migration system is far from broken. While the context of the debates may be different to the US, the nature and lack of bipartisanship of the debate around skilled migration can be remarkably similar. </p>
<p>For example, discussions around the 457 visa category ignites a variety of predictable responses from various interest groups. Like many, I abhor Gina Rinehart’s approach to labour relations, which seems to a rely on a “race to the bottom” approach of opening the labour market to cheap labour. </p>
<p>However, let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. We need to value what’s working with our work visa policies and fix what’s not. There is no doubt that like many other economies, we have skill shortages in some key occupations. While training should (but unfortunately has rarely been) the first priority of the government, employers and industry groups, immigration has always been a mainstay to our economy. </p>
<p>Also why should Australian workers be forced to relocate their families to remote areas of West Australia or Queensland if they have no community or family networks there? By the same token why should workers on 457 visas attract inferior rates of pay and conditions as those doing the same work? Both suggestions go against our tradition of protecting labour standards and giving all workers a fair go.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/48a-enterprise.htm">Enterprise Migration Agreements</a> for the resources sector, as well as the 457 visa system can be sound policy innovations that seek to address some of the problems of skill shortages. However schemes such as these need to be closely monitored. </p>
<p>In both cases, employers should be made to show categorically that they have attempted to recruit workers locally and they should put medium-term programs in place to train in the areas they have a shortfall rather than relying on temporary stopgap measures. Indeed, like all systems, these visa schemes can be rorted with ANU demographer Peter McDonald estimating perhaps modestly that 2 or 3% of employers are exploiting the system.</p>
<p>Also we shouldn’t forget that the temporary worker and student visa categories have become important pathways to permanent settlement for many migrants. As such we need to avoid scapegoating (skilled and student) migrants and recognise their contribution to this nation, both now and in the future. </p>
<p>Just like the Hispanic gardeners that sculpt the beautiful front lawns of many Los Angeles suburbs and the backpackers who pick fruit in rural Australia, the contribution of migrant workers should not be overlooked. Nor should their rights to fair wages and conditions.</p>
<p>In the last few months, both sides of politics have weighed in on the migration debate, but not always in very useful ways. Joe Hockey’s “accusation” that the Prime Minister’s communications director John McTernan was on a 457 visa, was just one example of how discussions around migration can become an irrational and tiresome political football.</p>
<p>While such posturing might attract momentary headlines, they suffocate more important discussions about how to deal with global issues of migration and for that matter integration. If we don’t have the skills locally, then there have always been two options, train within or import from outside. We need to do both. </p>
<p>That means not tainting 457 visa and other temporary workers as “the other” as well as getting serious about training and upskilling local labour by supporting rather than destroying our TAFE system; resourcing rather than retreating from our tertiary sector and targeting investment in training at reasonable cost to all Australians. As such the bigger failing is that Australian governments continue to disinvest in education and training for local workers.</p>
<p>Migrants buffer an economy and continue to shape the places we live and work in positive ways. They are people, not numbers in a visa sub class. As we heard at the conference in Los Angeles, migrants make a valuable contribution not only because of their readiness to contribute their job-ready skills but also in making the short-term transition, at their own cost often, to a new country. </p>
<p>Whether they sculpt your garden, pick the apples you eat, design your house or teach your children, migrants often migrate with the clear intention of contributing to their own and their new country’s quality of life. The real challenge of migration policy is to consider all these factors free of corporate opportunism and political populism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/15028/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Diane van den Broek does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It seems the broad debates around migration, and often skilled migration, are little different from one country to the next. The United States is currently considering sweeping migration reforms that include…Diane van den Broek, Senior Lecturer, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/132402013-04-18T19:56:14Z2013-04-18T19:56:14ZThey’re long-term, temporary and invisible: our other migrant workers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/22062/original/jqvkktv3-1365052408.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Backpackers and international students provide a significant source of labour that is often long-term: but this is ignored by policy makers.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>While 457 temporary visas are currently under political scrutiny, thousands of other temporary migrants are now able to work in Australia for extended periods - most notably through working holiday visas and temporary graduate visas. </p>
<p>These visas primarily attract young people seeking an overseas work and life experience, or a pathway to more permanent migration. </p>
<p>Yet, because these visa categories are usually associated with international education and tourism, their significance as forms of labour migration are effectively hidden from public view and often underplayed by policy makers. </p>
<p>Unlike 457 workers, these workers don’t require employer sponsorship or specific skills, and participate in the labour market in diverse ways. Since 2006, the working holiday scheme has offered a second visa, extending stays from one to two years for migrants willing to spend three months doing regional work in specified industries such as agriculture, fishing and pearling, or mining and construction. </p>
<p>This has been a boon to regional employers, particularly those needing seasonal labour. Working holiday makers are picking grapes in our wine regions, or serving us in bars and cafes in our major cities. But they also participate in jobs beyond the typical “backpacker” stereotypes, in areas like IT, healthcare and skilled trades. <a href="http://www.anao.gov.au/%7E/media/Uploads/Documents/2006%2007_audit_report_72.pdf">There is also increasing evidence that women on working holiday visas are a source of foreign labour for the Australian sex industry.</a></p>
<p>With the global economic recovery still limiting employment options for young people in core source countries such as Ireland, working holidays are increasingly more about work than an extended tourist experience. At the end of 2012 there were 162,000 working holiday makers in Australia, with the number of arrivals increasing by nearly 60% from 2005-06 to 2009-10.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.immi.gov.au/students/_pdf/2011-knight-review.pdf">The 2011 Knight Review</a>of the student visa system has also liberalised temporary post-study work options for international students. From early 2013, international students who have completed at minimum a Bachelors level qualification (involving at least two years study in Australia) are eligible for a two to four year post-study work visa, depending on their level of qualification. In 2012 there were over 216,000 international students in university courses in Australia. </p>
<p>If only one third of these take up the temporary graduate visa, this constitutes 72,000 new temporary migrants into the workforce. Employers can benefit from the temporary graduate scheme, gaining locally qualified workers, often with valuable multilingual skills and cultural capital. If these workers fill “in-demand” gaps on the Consolidated Sponsored Occupations List, they could also be sponsored and stay on at the end of their graduate visa period. </p>
<p>However, international graduates are not always considered “work ready” by industry, and Australian employers are often generally reluctant to hire workers with temporary visa statuses, particularly for professional positions. The new temporary graduate visas are primarily a means to maintain Australia’s education export market, as post-study work rights have become, globally, an important factor in international students’ choice of study destination. </p>
<p>What remains to be seen is whether Australian employers will give temporary graduates a go, or if too many graduates will end up underemployed and deskilled - reiterations of the old student-migrant trope of the taxi driver or convenience store worker with an Australian MBA.</p>
<p>Working holiday and temporary graduate schemes are important to the Australian economy and to Australian business. They shore up the international student market and the tourism industry. They allow important cultural and professional links to be forged between Australia and migrants’ home countries. And, they provide a workforce to fill specific skilled and unskilled labour market gaps.</p>
<p>However, these visa categories need to be properly acknowledged as important forms of labour migration, and the consequences of a long-term temporary workforce need to be carefully considered by both government and industry. “Visa churn” means temporary migrants can often remain in Australia on a series of temporary visas for far longer than their graduate or working holiday period allows. A migrant can arrive in Australia as an international student, complete an undergraduate and a Masters degree, and then work under a Temporary Graduate 485 visa for three years. </p>
<p>Similarly, a migrant could begin on a working holiday visa for two years, gain sponsorship and work on a 457 visa for four years, and then commence postgraduate study on a student visa. With casual work rights available to student visa holders, both pathways encompass at least eight to nine years of work and residency in Australia with a temporary status. Generally, the longer people stay, the longer they want to stay, yet these pathways do not guarantee permanent residency.</p>
<p>Socially and politically, legal classifications of “temporary” are problematic when migrants have many years of labour market participation, residency and paid taxes behind them. Moreover, Australia will have long-term members of society without access to many government-funded social services and welfare benefits, as well as potential for worker exploitation, and for the integration of temporary workers into grey labour economies. </p>
<p>For these schemes to be successful for both employers and migrants, we need acknowledgement that temporary graduates and working holiday makers are important sources of migrant labour, and ensure their skills are properly utilised, and their rights adequately protected.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/13240/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shanthi Robertson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While 457 temporary visas are currently under political scrutiny, thousands of other temporary migrants are now able to work in Australia for extended periods - most notably through working holiday visas…Shanthi Robertson, Research Fellow, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/130002013-04-02T03:24:44Z2013-04-02T03:24:44ZHow the 457 scheme is changing Australian immigration<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21916/original/6jcvqtwx-1364858927.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Changes to 457 visas by the Gillard government has divided political and public opinion in Australia.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1743844/Factbox-what-is-a-457-visa">current public debate</a> over temporary employment 457 visa holders has thrown a spotlight on a major shift in Australia’s migration program.</p>
<h2>Historical context</h2>
<p>Prior to the introduction of the Temporary Business (Long Stay) visa <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/library/pubs/rn/2006-07/07rn15.pdf">by the Howard government</a> in 1996, Australia prided itself on being a country that did not recruit guest workers, in which the emphasis was on immigration for nation-building. </p>
<p>Employer recruitment of workers who would have an automatic right to permanent residence was widespread, and indeed had been the heart of the immigration program from the 1950s. Australian governments regularly pointed to Switzerland and Germany as exemplary cases of the problems of social cohesion and integration that guest-worker programs would necessarily produce. </p>
<p>When <a href="http://www.migrationcouncil.org.au/resources/temporary-business-subclass-457-visa/">planned</a> under the Keating government, the temporary visa idea was to see the system as part of a major investment in training of Australians, and as a short gap cover until the training system was expanded.</p>
<p>However, in a strategy that was designed to allow a public perception that immigration was being reduced, employers were guaranteed they could recruit workers when needed. The then-recently-elected Howard government set in place the new visa sub-category that allowed short-term employer sponsorship of skilled employees. </p>
<p>The training wing of the Keating strategy of course atrophied, while simultaneously the 457 visa widened as an avenue for immigration. Official immigration indeed fell heavily in the first five years of the Howard government, picking up again as 457 visas reached the end of their contracts and converted to permanence, and as immigration more generally was expanded.</p>
<h2>Recent reform</h2>
<p>Over the past fifteen years, hundreds of thousands of sponsored workers have come to Australia, with just under half opting to take out permanent residence. After 2000 and the introduction of dual citizenship, even more of these permanent residents applied successfully to become immigrants, and later to gain citizenship. </p>
<p>Except for a dip each Christmas as people return home for the festive season and recruitment slackens off over the summer holidays, 457 visa holders have continued to increase in number month-on-month: new recruits feeding in at one end, leaving at the end of their contracts or converting to permanent residents at the other. </p>
<p>However as Peter Mares <a href="http://inside.org.au/temporary-migration-is-a-permanent-thing/">points out</a>, the tank is backing up the sluiceway as the uncapped 457s pour into the channel already clogged with applicants for permanent residence for whom entry is quota-controlled. The pressure in the floodway is growing, and something has to give way.</p>
<p>In November 2012 - with very little fanfare - the Gillard government <a href="http://www.immi.gov.au/visas/temporary-visa/">changed the rules</a> in relation to 457s, tightening the requirement that the jobs be real and real efforts be demonstrated that no qualified Australians are available. The government was apparently prompted to act by some factors within the 457 scheme, and some factors outside it. It was thought that this would reduce the inflow of 457s, but also designed to speed up the pathway to permanent residency.</p>
<p>The pressures within the scheme are not only to do with numbers and the downstream effects of upstream recruitment. While the majority of 457s appear bonafide arrangements, whether they be country doctors and midwives or Italian pastry chefs, some rorting of the system also appears in significant sectors. </p>
<p>In an almost parallel process in Australia to that which is causing the almost unheard of phenomenon of street demonstrations against the government in <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21485729">Singapore</a>, labour contractors are apparently arranging for the employment of significant streams of workers from particular sources in specific industries. In the past Korean building workers and Indian IT specialists have been mentioned, though IT in particular is dropping. </p>
<p>Working at a legal but potentially lower wage, more vulnerable to employer manipulation and exploitation, more willing to take conditions that are less acceptable in the wider community, such contract workers could be more easily made to fit the conditions of the older system than the revised and renamed Temporary Work (Skilled) category.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21920/original/wdwwj75d-1364860764.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21920/original/wdwwj75d-1364860764.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21920/original/wdwwj75d-1364860764.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21920/original/wdwwj75d-1364860764.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21920/original/wdwwj75d-1364860764.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21920/original/wdwwj75d-1364860764.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21920/original/wdwwj75d-1364860764.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21920/original/wdwwj75d-1364860764.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cafes and restaurants have been accused of rorting the 457 visa scheme to gain access to skilled foreign workers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Angela Brkic</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The November revisions also addressed one of the issues identified above: it made it easier and quicker for 457 holders to transit to permanent residents as a sponsored immigrant after two years. While this made becoming “an Aussie” potentially quicker (and allowed them to leap-frog the queued and barely moving thousands of waiting ex-international students on bridging visas) - and thus reduced the “guest worker” problem - it increased the pressure on the throttle of PR processing.</p>
<h2>The current debate</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1743844/Factbox-what-is-a-457-visa">posts</a> on SBS’ Factbox page on 457s capture the flavour of the debate, which marries rancour with pleas for fairness, and unashamed self-interest. </p>
<p>Those critical of 457s include people who see migrants as competing for jobs, who complain that their families are filling up the TAFEs and preventing Aussies from getting training, who believe that they are guest-workers who should be barred from permanent residency because they are “bringing the entire village, having babies here, never learning English and working in black economy”. </p>
<p>One Australian recently returned from overseas claimed that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In reality firms are pulling people from China on these visas instead of hiring locals. Couldn’t get an interview. Australia is in trouble. Isn’t it called scab labour?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Then there are those who are critical of “the boat man” and want the asylum seekers blocked, so that 457s can have a better go in Australia. The 457 holders complain they pay full taxes and super, are more heavily taxed on their super, don’t get Medicare, and have to pay for public schooling. 457 holders are, as one says, “hardworking, educated people…I am sure we will contribute positively to the Aussie economy-look what has happened to the Aussie economy from 1996?”</p>
<p>So when prime minister Gillard announced the tightening of the 457 category and the “pursuit of rorts” to the <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/immigration/more-457-rhetoric-in-speech-to-actu/story-fn9hm1gu-1226596743870">ACTU conference</a> on March 14 she was fishing in already heavily burleyed waters. The envy and suspicion of foreign workers goes well back into Australian history: White Australia was built on hostility to the Chinese miners and furniture makers and seamen who sought work in the Australian colonies. The ACTU was carefully duchessed with promises that no Australian jobs would be threatened nor conditions undermined when the great post-war immigration program was launched. </p>
<p>Now with the prime minister <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-class-war-searching-for-labor-values-in-the-labor-party-13047">announcing forthrightly</a> that she leads a Labor government not a social democratic one, the placing of the apparent protection of Australian workers at the forefront of immigration policy performs a grandly symbolic function. </p>
<p>Whether it will backfire - leaving the ALP now even more divorced from one its two pillars of traditional support, middle class and progressive social democrats outside the Labor movement (less than 20% of employees are <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/6310.0main+features3August%202011">union members</a> and many of them are already strong Liberal supporters) - remains in part to be seen. </p>
<p>On the other hand the policy tweaking may actually herald real improvements, especially if augmented with a better human rights regime for 457 holders.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/13000/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Jakubowicz receives funding from the ARC for a Linkage project on Cyber racism, and has received funding from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship for research on Muslim youth. He also uses Brunetti's Carlton, one of the cafes named as a major user of 457 visas, as his preferred base in Melbourne; it is just across the road from the Australian Institute for Multicultural Affairs. His (over) enjoyment of Brunetti's product has not affected his analysis of this issue. </span></em></p>The current public debate over temporary employment 457 visa holders has thrown a spotlight on a major shift in Australia’s migration program. Historical context Prior to the introduction of the Temporary…Andrew Jakubowicz, Professor of Sociology and Codirector of Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Research Centre, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/126222013-03-13T22:56:48Z2013-03-13T22:56:48ZExplainer: 457 visas in Australia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21150/original/rbxz7c95-1363056324.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Most 457 visa holders are well-paid professionals or in management.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Angela Brkic</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With all the fuss over 457 visas <a href="http://www.afr.com/p/national/parliamentary_fight_looms_over_visas_dmVf1MewwkZTxwDJn3OYwM">in recent weeks</a>, and prime minister Julia Gillard due to address the issue at a conference today, it’s worth looking beyond the cries of vested interests and politicians trying to score a hit with the electorate to establish the facts about this much-debated migration program.</p>
<p>Demographers have studied the effect and take-up of these visas since their introduction. This data can give an important insight into how 457s work, who uses them, and whether they’re being misused.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, the reality of 457 visas doesn’t entirely tally with the agendas of unions, businesses or politicians. As usual, the answer lies somewhere in between.</p>
<h2>What is a 457 visa?</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/skilled-workers/sbs/how-the-visa-works.htm">Temporary Business (Long Stay) (Subclass 457)</a> visas are one of many of visa categories which are part of the national migration program. It is a temporary visa which allows skilled workers to be sponsored by a business in Australia to fill a vacancy which cannot be filled locally. </p>
<p>When the 457 was introduced in the second half of the 1990s <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BN/2012-2013/SkilledMigration">it represented a significant shift</a> in Australian immigration policy. Before this, Australia had eschewed temporary worker schemes, opting instead for large-scale permanent settlement migration. This approach valued immigrants not only as workers but future permanent residents and citizens. </p>
<p>But a government inquiry in 1996 found that sudden increases in the demand for skills and intense international competition for skilled labour meant there was an increasing international labour markets for the highly mobile, high skilled workforce. In this context, the permanent migration avenues were insufficient. </p>
<p>So 457 visas were introduced to achieve greater flexibility in the migration system to allow businesses to react quickly to skill shortages at times of economic growth.</p>
<h2>How many 457s are there?</h2>
<p>The 457 visa has a number of <a href="http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/skilled-workers/sbs/eligibility-employee.htm">major restrictions</a>. It is confined to only highly skilled workers. There are minimum salaries which apply so that they cannot be used to undercut Australian workers. Their stay is restricted to four years.</p>
<p>Demand for the visa can be seen in its rapid growth, as shown in Figure 1. As the scheme became better known, the numbers peaked in 2007-08. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21136/original/vtj3z4qm-1363048512.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21136/original/vtj3z4qm-1363048512.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21136/original/vtj3z4qm-1363048512.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21136/original/vtj3z4qm-1363048512.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21136/original/vtj3z4qm-1363048512.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21136/original/vtj3z4qm-1363048512.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21136/original/vtj3z4qm-1363048512.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21136/original/vtj3z4qm-1363048512.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=742&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australia: 457 visas granted, 1997-98 to 2011-12.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">DIAC Population Flows: Immigration Aspects, various issues and DIAC 2012</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There was downturn during the global financial crisis but it has <a href="http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/statistics/immigration-update/nom-jun12.pdf">quickly recovered</a>, and a new record was reached in 2011-12 when there were <a href="http://www.immi.gov.au/about/reports/annual/2011-12/html/performance/outcome_1/temporary_residents_economic.htm">125,070 grants</a> – 68,310 workers and 56,760 dependents. </p>
<p>In June 2012, there were <a href="http://www.immi.gov.au/about/reports/annual/2011-12/html/performance/outcome_1/temporary_residents_economic.htm">162,000 457 visa holders in Australia</a> including 91,050 workers. The <a href="http://www.immi.gov.au/media/statistics/pdf/457-stats-state-territory-june12.pdf">number of businesses</a> employing 457s increased to 22,450 in 2011-12.</p>
<h2>Who holds 457 visas?</h2>
<p>Almost 70% of visa holders are <a href="http://www.immi.gov.au/about/reports/annual/2011-12/html/performance/outcome_1/temporary_residents_economic.htm">highly paid managers or professionals</a>. Almost all (94.7%) <a href="http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/statistics/popflows2010-11/pop-flows-chapter6.pdf">work in the private sector</a> and <a href="http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/statistics/popflows2010-11/pop-flows-chapter5.pdf">more than a third</a> (34.1%) are in New South Wales, especially Sydney. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/statistics/popflows2010-11/pop-flows-chapter5.pdf">fastest growth</a> has been in Western Australia (22.5%) and Queensland (16.8%). <a href="http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/statistics/popflows2010-11/pop-flows-chapter5.pdf">Major countries of origin</a> are the U.K. (20.5%), India (20.4%), Ireland (8.5%), The Philippines (6.7%), the USA (5.5%) and China (4.6%).</p>
<h2>Do the visas work?</h2>
<p>Research has shown that the 457 visa has been effective in enabling businesses to access skilled workers quickly at times of economic growth. A significant number of 457s have subsequently applied to enter Australia as immigrants so that in 2010-11 40.3% of migrants to Australia <a href="http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/statistics/popflows2010-11/pop-flows-chapter1.pdf">were already in Australia under another visa</a> (student, visitor, working holiday maker or 457). </p>
<p>The scheme has been especially effective in recruiting skilled workers to regional and remote areas where there has been great difficulty in recruiting Australians, especially in medical services, engineering and specialised skilled trades.</p>
<h2>Are they misused?</h2>
<p>Throughout the life of the scheme there have been accusations of a small number of <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1708121/Are-457-visa-holders-being-exploited">employers misusing the scheme</a> by underpaying the 457s or not testing whether equivalently skilled Australians were available. From the beginning, the government <a href="http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/strengthening-integrity-457-program.htm">introduced a number of in-built protections</a> to prevent local workers conditions being undercut and overseas workers from being exploited and the latest changes need to be seen in this context.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.fairwork.gov.au/resources/fact-sheets/workplace-rights/pages/diac-457-visa-holders.aspx">first major intervention</a> to strengthen the integrity of the 457 scheme came in 2008 when a number of initiatives were introduced to ensure the working conditions of 457s met Australian standards. </p>
<p>The number of infringement notices issued to sponsors of 457s <a href="http://www.immi.gov.au/about/reports/annual/2011-12/html/performance/outcome_1/temporary_residents_economic.htm">increased from nine in 2010-11 to 49 in 2011-12</a>. The latest initiatives are designed, among other things, to ensure that sponsors of 457s have made genuine attempts to recruit Australians with the required skills and are putting in place the training mechanisms to ensure that long term demand for skilled workers are met by Australian and permanent migrants.</p>
<h2>The verdict</h2>
<p>The 457 visa has served the Australian economy well – both major parties agree on this. As with other visas, such as tourist and student visas, there have been attempts to misuse it. </p>
<p>Training Australians to meet skill shortages in the medium- and long-term must be a priority in Australia, but there are contexts where 457s are the most appropriate way to deal with short term shortages.</p>
<p>The answer is not to abolish the program but to ensure it works in the way it was intended – to meet a genuine need and benefit all Australians. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/12622/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Graeme Hugo has received funding from the ARC to research 457 visas in Australia as part of a wider project on migration.</span></em></p>With all the fuss over 457 visas in recent weeks, and prime minister Julia Gillard due to address the issue at a conference today, it’s worth looking beyond the cries of vested interests and politicians…Graeme Hugo, ARC Australian Professorial Fellow , University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/83902012-07-24T05:55:41Z2012-07-24T05:55:41ZNo boom without bust: a cautionary note about mining and employment<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/13333/original/bsmwbg36-1343093296.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Australia's boom investment conditions will begin tailing off by 2014, according to a Deloitte Access Economics report - so what does this mean for current labour shortages?</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Much public discussion around the current mining boom focuses on the lack of qualified staff to fill an expanding employment market. </p>
<p>But yesterday’s report by Deloitte Access Economics warning that the “peak of the project pipeline is already in sight” and expected to tail off in one to two years, brings into focus a little-discussed topic - the actual nature of economic cycles in mining. </p>
<p>The report says while Australia is still a global standout, it warns that “the strong bit of Australia’s two speed economy may not stay as strong beyond 2014.” </p>
<p>If this report is correct - and there are good reasons to suggest it is accurate - it brings into question whether labour shortages in regional and remote mining areas, particularly in the key states of Western Australia and Queensland, should continue to be the central focus of the discussion of the current mining boom. </p>
<p>If nothing else the Deloitte findings do point to the need for a closer examination of the actual nature of mining booms, and the capacity of the current conditions to deliver uninterrupted, long-term prosperity. </p>
<p>This analysis has been sadly lacking from the policy discussions of the mining boom, and so too have the lessons of previous mining cycles. </p>
<p>History tells us that mining is subject to boom/bust cycles where production expands in relation to demand, but when demand slackens, there are sudden corrections which come in the form of contraction of investment and production, mine closures and job losses. </p>
<p>It is important to point out that there is no immediate concern that this will occur in the current context. History does however provide some lessons that are worth considering. </p>
<p>Firstly, history tells us that commodity markets can be manipulated by consumers who can exert significant bargaining power. As an export rather than domestic producer of mineral resources, Australia is subject to fluctuations in the world export trade not only from pressure from consumers but also from entry of other suppliers. </p>
<p>Secondly, decisions about investment and production are based on forecasts of future demand, and consumers have a vested interest in over-forecasting their demand. The difficulty for resources firms is that there are long lead times between investment and actual production, meaning today’s investment must accurately predict consumer demand years into the future (as well as the investment decisions of other producers). </p>
<p>It is also in the interest of purchasers of export commodities to ensure security of supply. This means not only negotiating with many producers but also, where possible, contracting with suppliers of alternative fuels for energy or steel production. </p>
<p>These two consumer strategies are closely linked. Thus, to the extent that there is an over-investment in production across the resources sector, based on inflated demand, consumers are able to exert pressure on producers to reduce price. </p>
<p>This can and has occurred where a deal is struck with one key producer that provides for additional tonnage for that producer and potentially higher revenue, but at a lower unit price. </p>
<p>The danger is that this sets a new benchmark price and all produces must adjust. Even if expansionary conditions continue, and demand forecasts are accurate, it is questionable whether current commodity prices are sustainable (that is, affordable) for the end users of Australia’s key export resources. </p>
<p>History also tells us that employers face challenges in creating mining workforces, particularly in remote locations. While the nature of the discussion about the mining boom has been on whether expanding employment can be filled locally or with overseas workers, a key issue that has received less attention in this discussion is the associated benefits employers derive from experimenting with non-standard employment agreements, particularly where there are concerns about long-term employment prospects.</p>
<p>The Deloitte report may help to re-focus the current debate to shed light on why atypical employment is so attractive to resources employers who are looking forward to a slowing of the strong part of the two speed economy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/8390/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Barry does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Much public discussion around the current mining boom focuses on the lack of qualified staff to fill an expanding employment market. But yesterday’s report by Deloitte Access Economics warning that the…Michael Barry, Head of Department, Griffith Business School, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/78952012-07-09T23:50:21Z2012-07-09T23:50:21ZNew Migration Council to fight for a bigger Australia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/12296/original/622sw9sk-1340842705.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Council has its work cut out to facilitate a rational, evidence-based debate about Australian migration.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wenxiong Zhang</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The announcement of the formation of a Migration Council of Australia and its launch by the Governor General on August 1, confirmed by Department of Immigration and Citizenship official Gary Fleming at the Settlement Council of Australia <a href="http://www.scoa.org.au/content/conference">conference</a> in Adelaide in late June, marks a critical juncture in population and immigration policy. </p>
<p>The Council will operate as a non-government organisation, with its own board, and look more like the <a href="http://www.scoa.org.au/">Settlement Council of Australia</a> or the <a href="http://amf.net.au/">Australian Multicultural Foundation</a>, than the government’s own and somewhat tame <a href="http://www.amc.gov.au/">Australian Multicultural Council</a>. Hopefully it will not be confused with the migration agents’ lobby, the <a href="http://mia.org.au/">Migration Institute of Australia</a>. While it is independent of the Government, it is likely that the new body will fit snugly with the pro-migration wings of the both the major poltiical parties.</p>
<p>The MCA wants to find a new space to assert the importance of migration and effective settlement, and has brought together some heavy hitters to make this happen. Headed by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_R._Scanlon">Peter Scanlon</a> (ex Patricks Chair) – and bringing together Business Council of Australia chair <a href="http://www.bca.com.au/Content/101899.aspx">Tony Shepherd</a>, Australia Post head <a href="http://auspost.com.au/about-us/executive-profiles.html">Ahmed Fahour</a>, Ethnic Communities Federation chair <a href="http://www.culper.com.au/our_people_pino.htm">Pino Migliorino</a>, Adult Migrant Education Victoria head <a href="http://www.ames.net.au/organisation.html">Catherine Scarth</a> and a number of others – the organisation seeks to build a bridge between those with an economic interest in a big Australia, and those with a social interest in a fair Australia. </p>
<p>Scanlon has been a key figure in building an information base about immigration and settlement through his <a href="http://www.scanlonfoundation.org.au/">Foundation</a>’s financial support for the [Monash study](http://arts.monash.edu.au/mapping-population/–documents/mapping-social-cohesion-summary-report-2011.pdf](http://arts.monash.edu.au/mapping-population/–documents/mapping-social-cohesion-summary-report-2011.pdf) of social attitudes to immigration, diversity and levels of social cohesion. His leadership support, both political and financial, is seen to be critical for the effectiveness of the MCA. Scanlon has history as a strong advocate for his causes: in the Elders IXL struggle for BHP in the 1980s, with Patricks, and now with the Garvin Institute and the Scanlon Foundation. He is also a major real estate developer and will come under scrutiny for how this new lobby group might create benefits for his commercial interests.</p>
<p>The board has appointed Multicultural Minister Kate Lundy’s former advisor – the well connected and politically astute Carla Wilshire – to the CEO role, a challenging post which confronts the opportunities and pitfalls of the current immigration scene.</p>
<h2>Immigration vs small Australia</h2>
<p>There is <a href="https://theconversation.com/enterprise-migration-agreements-strike-the-right-balance-in-a-tricky-policy-area-7288">growing community acceptance</a> that a moderately bigger Australia is beneficial for the economy. Nevertheless, hostilities are also evident, and there is enormous distress over refugee and asylum seeker policy. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the environmental sustainability debate has frozen over since the hysteria of 2010 gave way to the astonishment of 2011, with the immigration curve’s steep rise suddenly levelling out and then coasting down again. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/12301/original/nx835b6g-1340847284.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/12301/original/nx835b6g-1340847284.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/12301/original/nx835b6g-1340847284.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/12301/original/nx835b6g-1340847284.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/12301/original/nx835b6g-1340847284.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/12301/original/nx835b6g-1340847284.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/12301/original/nx835b6g-1340847284.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Council will need to build support for the expansion of 457 visas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even so, the <a href="http://bobcarrblog.wordpress.com/2011/05/30/it%E2%80%99s-the-population-stupid/">small Australia lobby</a> (led by Foreign Minister Bob Carr and his mate Dick Smith) has not let up its push, and the Greens and the environmental lobby are still hammering away at reducing population growth. In the shadows behind them can be seen a collection of anti-immigrant and nativist activists.</p>
<p>Into the mix step Gina Rinehart and her Western Australian mining mates, whose <a href="http://www.minister.immi.gov.au/media/cb/2012/cb187050.htm">deal</a> with Immigration Minister Chris Bowen over 8,000 new jobs including nearly 2,000 457 visa recruits, hit a stumbling block with the unions. The unions, of course, are worried at the rapid destruction of industrial jobs in the east, and have opted for a tried and true anti-immigration reaction.</p>
<h2>Government challenges</h2>
<p>The creation of the Council also highlights two key failures of the government: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>There will clearly not be a statutory migration council, which would place migration and settlement planning at the heart of government, rather than palmed off to a civil society lobby group. The immigration councils of the post-war period did much to cement support for the immigration program among potentially conflicting interests; and </p></li>
<li><p>There will not be a government migration research institute (the Bureau of Immigration, Multicultural and Population Research, abolished by John Howard, played a crucial role in providing research-based information for the policy debates of the 1980s and early 1990s, a major hole in current policy).</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The decision to take the issue to the NGO sector provides an insight to the problem within government in handling migration issues.</p>
<p>Minister Bowen has very little purchase with Gillard, and seems unable or unwilling to communicate with her on wider issues, as the foreign workers issue in the mining industry reveals. </p>
<p>At the same time Lundy, who’s from a very different faction, seems to have limited purchase with Bowen. She has been unable to increase the funding of her settlement and multicultural responsibilities, one of the reasons the settlement sector fears the creation of the Migration Council (which is rumoured will be funded from money now allocated to the Settlement Council). </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Department of Immigration and Citizenship head Andrew Metcalfe (currently on leave but also prospectively on the board of the MCA), warned last year that the current immigration mess would produce major social unrest in Australia’s cities in coming years, a key problem for settlement. Governments have demonstrated their incapacity to resolve the many impasses that immigration highlights. At least two state governments, not consulted in the MCA development, remain wary about the potential impact of a new lobby.</p>
<p>On the sidelines, a joint <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House_of_Representatives_Committees?url=mig/index.htm">federal parliamentary committee on migration</a> will be reporting in August. It will be faced with reconciling the mass of public submissions (more than 500) that range from Anders Breivik-type White Power mania, to arguments from academics and others that the current policy environment is a logic- and information-free zone that requires major re-vitalisation, and a reassertion of social justice and human rights goals.</p>
<h2>Migration Council’s first steps</h2>
<p>The MCA has pulled some resources with it, but it will need a great deal of money and a fine feel for building community relations, if it’s not to alienate existing organisations or dry up its sources of meagre government support. </p>
<p>The Council will need to build a cross-party and community consensus on the need for continuing immigration and an expansion of its 457 component. But it needs to be wary that a rise in 457 visas sought by the mining lobby and other pro-growth advocates could increase already well-identified social problems of exploitation and isolation. </p>
<p>When you consider the inept and confused way the federal government has announced new immigration strategies, including the enterprise agreements with Rinehart, it seems that a broadly-based and responsive group concerned with ensuring rational, evidence-based policy, will have a critical role to play.</p>
<p>Even so, the MCA will have its work cut out to navigate the tensions and produce outcomes that work both for its economic and social backers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/7895/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Jakubowicz has received funding from the Scanlon Foundation for youth media production on a website he administers <a href="http://culturaldiversity.net.au">http://culturaldiversity.net.au</a>. He has been a consultant to the Settlement Council of Australia and is involved in a research consortium with FECCA. He is editing a book in which a number of people involved in this story have contributed chapters. </span></em></p>The announcement of the formation of a Migration Council of Australia and its launch by the Governor General on August 1, confirmed by Department of Immigration and Citizenship official Gary Fleming at…Andrew Jakubowicz, Professor of Sociology and Codirector of Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Research Centre, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/73452012-05-30T02:23:04Z2012-05-30T02:23:04ZEnterprise Migration Agreements - why won’t Australians do the work?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/11177/original/7z6qcxp8-1338337510.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An iron ore project in Western Australia similar to that proposed by Gina Rinehart at Roy Hill</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Rebecca Le May</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The announcement that controversial mining billionaire Gina Rinehart is to use <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/roy-hill-can-bring-1715-workers-from-overseas-over-next-three-years/story-e6frg9df-1226366861946">new Enterprise Migration Agreements</a> to employ 1715 foreign construction workers on her $9.5 billion Roy Hill iron ore project has sparked widespread debate.</p>
<p>With the economy slowing in eastern states like NSW and Victoria, why is Rinehart bringing in foreign labour? It is a ploy, as some in the union movement suggest, to lower wages and conditions?</p>
<p>Or does it illustrate a telling lack of labour mobility in Australia, where people are unwilling to move to the harsh environments where well-paid mining jobs are located? </p>
<p>Married to the emerging evidence of the physical and psychological toll suffered by Fly In, Fly Out (FIFO) workers, are we at a situation where we need to accept that foreign labour is the only way Australia will maximise its mining boom?</p>
<p>The Conversation spoke with ANU’s Professor of Demography Peter McDonald to discover where people are and are not coming from and what efforts are being made to entice Australians to move the boom states.</p>
<h2>Where are the key source states for internal migration to employment growth areas like Western Australia?</h2>
<p>Submissions to the <a href="http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CFAQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aph.gov.au%2FParliamentary_Business%2FCommittees%2FHouse_of_Representatives_Committees%3Furl%3D%2Fra%2Ffifodido%2Fsubs%2Fsub35.pdf&ei=jXHFT4CoE4OtiAeqxI3oAg&usg=AFQjCNH6I2yLTWES5aPCbdMU5Z6-FGvXgw">House of Representatives Standing Committee on Regional Australia’s inquiry into the experience of FIFO and DIDO</a> (drive in – drive out) workers provide the best indications of answers to this question. </p>
<p>These submissions state that overwhelmingly FIFO workers in Western Australia are sourced from the Perth and Peel regions of Western Australia. Companies are trying to spread the source destinations to include other regional areas of Western Australia. </p>
<p>So, most workers in the WA resources industry come from Western Australia itself, but this may include people who have moved to Perth and Peel from other parts of Australia or from the rest of the world. The Australian Bureau of Statistics publishes internal movement data showing both source and destination only at the state and territory level. </p>
<p>In the 2010-11 financial year, 36,815 people moved to Western Australia from other states and territories but 30,652 moved in the opposite direction yielding a net movement to WA of 6,162, a small number. The net movement to WA was dominated by New South Wales (2352), Queensland (1567), South Australia (925) and the Northern Territory (760). </p>
<p>For perspective, net overseas migration to Western Australia in 2010-11 was 30,805. almost six times the population gain from other parts of Australia. In turn, most of the gain from overseas was in the category “long-term visitors”, or temporary immigrants (25,623).</p>
<h2>What kind of programs has the Australian Government used to try and promote internal migration? What other levers could they use?</h2>
<p>I am not aware of any policy approaches that have been used to promote movement to Western Australia from other states and territories. There are programs to assist unemployed people to move to places of employment but these are not specifically directed at the mining industry or Western Australia. </p>
<p>Mining companies themselves, of course, will provide incentives to workers to come on board with their companies. It is highly likely that other states and territories would object to a policy approach that encouraged residents of State X to move to Western Australia. There is some FIFO movement to WA from other states and expansion of this option could be considered, but it is a relatively expensive option for the companies.</p>
<h2>How do EMAs and 457s compare to programs used by comparable Western countries to attract short term labour on individual projects?</h2>
<p>Most OECD countries are not comparable because they are not experiencing labour shortages. The reverse tends to be the case. </p>
<p>The only really comparable country is Canada. About 150,000 foreign workers enter Canada each year on a temporary basis to cover skill shortages, much higher than the equivalent category in Australia (the 457 visa subclass). The larger number going to Canada is associated with acceptance in Canada of lower skill levels than is the case in Australia and also with the loss of Canadians to the United States.</p>
<h2>Where are the current key source countries for migration to WA?</h2>
<p>The United Kingdom is by far the largest source of both permanent and temporary migrants to Western Australia. Around 10,000 people arrived in Western Australia from the UK in 2010-11 compared to the (net) movement from the rest of Australia of just over 6,000. </p>
<p>Other major sources of temporary immigrants are (in order after the UK) the Philippines, Ireland, the United States and India. South Africa is second to the UK as a source of permanent migrants to Western Australia.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/7345/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter McDonald performs occasional contract work for the Department of Immigration.</span></em></p>The announcement that controversial mining billionaire Gina Rinehart is to use new Enterprise Migration Agreements to employ 1715 foreign construction workers on her $9.5 billion Roy Hill iron ore project…Peter McDonald, Professor of Demography and Director of the Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/72882012-05-28T20:40:34Z2012-05-28T20:40:34ZEnterprise Migration Agreements strike the right balance in a tricky policy area<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/11124/original/rnrsj5qx-1338188663.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=62%2C14%2C1889%2C1275&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sitting between two hot potatoes: Gina Rinehart's Hancock Prospecting is the first company allowed to use an EMA.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sitting between the two hot potatoes of immigration control and labour market regulation, work visas are an inherently controversial public policy issue. It is therefore of little surprise that Immigration Minister Chris Bowen’s <a href="http://www.minister.immi.gov.au/media/cb/2012/cb187050.htm">announcement on Friday</a> that Hancock Prospecting will be the first company permitted to use an Enterprise Migration Agreement (EMA) on its Roy Hill mining project has <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-26/gillard-hits-back-over-foreign-worker-backlash/4034860">provoked the ire</a> of union leaders and Labor and crossbench parliamentarians.</p>
<p>The agreement will allow Hancock Prospecting and subcontracting employers on the project to engage up to 1,715 foreign workers on temporary visas. The main concern of unions and their parliamentary supporters is that the EMA will deny employment and training opportunities to resident workers. These concerns are not without foundation, but essentially they are misguided.</p>
<p>Let’s leave a few issues to one side. The internal Labor Party politics, the timing of the announcement given recent job losses and plant closures in manufacturing and the inconsistency of awarding the first EMA to a company owned by one of the government’s main political targets have all been discussed at length in <a href="http://afr.com/p/national/jobs_brawl_bruises_pm_0qqHkdAA6zpUCm2Wd9R2YL">recent media coverage</a> and do not warrant further attention here. But there has been little detailed analysis of the merits of EMAs as a policy mechanism for meeting a range of competing objectives.</p>
<p>Work visa policy is a very difficult policy area to get right. If visa regulations are too lax, then employers will have less incentive to recruit locally, to invest in developing the skills of their employees and to maintain wages at market rates. But if regulations are too tight and workers with the appropriate skills are not available locally, or cannot be trained quickly enough, then there is a risk that opportunities for new business investment will not be realised. Few countries have managed to strike a policy balance between work visa and skills policy to assist both the needs of industry as well as those of the workforce.</p>
<p>Australian governments have generally relied more on immigration policy to expand labour supply during periods of economic growth, on one hand, and on training policy to develop the skills of underutilised workers during downturns, on the other. But it is always a question of balance, as immigration is often needed to meet shortages in parts of the economy that are booming even when other parts are sluggish, as is currently the case. A key reason for this relates to the practical barriers associated with relocating unemployed workers to fill vacancies that exist elsewhere, particularly in remote communities (such as the Pilbara).</p>
<p>The right balance between work visa policy and skills policy in Australia has not always been found. In the late 1990s, the Howard government incrementally relaxed the rules for employers engaging temporary work visa holders on the grounds that existing regulations were too tight in a climate of growing labour shortages. But it went too far the other way. By 2007, stories of employers abusing the scheme were widespread. And <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2338.2012.00664.x/abstract">as I’ve suggested elsewhere</a>, the Howard government placed too much emphasis on work visa policy as a mechanism for meeting skills shortages and not enough on skills development.</p>
<p>The Rudd and Gillard governments have tightened work visa regulations to protect labour standards and given more attention to skills policy, without going over the top. Visa regulations have remained sufficiently liberal to permit entry to <a href="http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/statistics/trends-in-migration/trends-in-migration-2010-11.pdf">very high numbers of foreign workers</a> by historical standards, which has been important for meeting labour shortages in the sectors directly benefiting from the mining boom. The new <a href="http://www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/48a-enterprise.htm">EMA scheme</a> is an innovative measure that epitomises Labor’s concern to maintain a sufficiently liberal work visa policy framework without allowing employers to shirk their responsibilities to the Australian workforce.</p>
<p>The scheme is only applicable to major new projects in the resource sector worth more than $2 billion with a peak workforce above 1,500 workers. It allows subcontracting employers to engage foreign workers on temporary visas via the project owners or principal contractors, but only if they can demonstrate a shortage of resident workers with the appropriate skills. Work visas can only be used if attempts to recruit workers locally have proved unsuccessful.</p>
<p>Project owners and subcontracting employers must also make a defined investment in workforce training. This investment must be directed towards shortage occupations with the aim of reducing reliance on migrant workers. As with the temporary work visa program, employers must comply with certain regulations to prevent the EMA scheme from being used to undermine labour standards or to exploit visa holders.</p>
<p>Given that many more EMAs are likely to follow the Roy Hill project agreement, unions are correct to emphasise <a href="http://afr.com/p/national/unions_warned_bowen_about_roy_hill_5445REThavwkHDRZZPtu3M">the importance of getting the policy settings right</a> from the beginning. There are many examples in Australia and elsewhere of where lax labour market protections have produced unintended consequences and popular backlashes against liberal immigration policies.</p>
<p>But on the face of it, the EMA scheme is regulated in such a way to give employers in the mining sector ready access to migrant workers, which will allow the further continuation of the resources boom, without eroding employment and training opportunities for Australian residents. It therefore seems to be a rare example of a work visa policy containing the appropriate checks and balances to safeguard the interests of both employers and workers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/7288/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris F. Wright does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Sitting between the two hot potatoes of immigration control and labour market regulation, work visas are an inherently controversial public policy issue. It is therefore of little surprise that Immigration…Chris F. Wright, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Centre for Workforce Futures, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/64092012-04-15T20:36:43Z2012-04-15T20:36:43ZUS workers get the nod … but what does this mean for the local workforce?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/9586/original/ckvpqp9m-1334298138.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C26%2C1910%2C1056&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Federal Government has fast-tracked applications by skilled US workers to fill trades gaps in Australia, citing the close relationship between the countries. But motives of employers pushing the scheme should examined critically.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Federal Government recently announced that it would use the 457 visa skilled migration program to <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-02/new-visa-deal-between-us-and-australia/3927776">fast-track the number of skilled workers</a> applying from the United States.</p>
<p>In defending this move, Federal Minister for Skills Chris Evans suggested that this was not a case of discriminating in favour of US workers, but rather cementing an important, existing relationship between the two countries. </p>
<p>He also argued the move could redress acute labour shortages in some parts of the Australia economy while also providing employment opportunities for the workers from the US, where unemployment is running at 8.2% (considerably higher than Australia’s rate of 5.2%). </p>
<p>In particular, these employees would target the construction sector, where much of the current unmet demand for labour is in the development of large-scale mining projects.</p>
<p>Some benefits of this move appear obvious. In a <a href="https://theconversation.com/are-foreign-workers-really-the-answer-to-the-resources-skills-shortage-5576">recent article</a> examining employer calls for an expansion of 457 visas in mining, I argued that workers from different cultural contexts, with non-English speaking backgrounds, might face greater challenges at the workplace and in remote mining communities. In particular, that article highlighted workplace health and safety concerns, and this concern was raised by the Minister in explaining the move to expand the numbers of US migrant workers. </p>
<p>But there remains concern about the capacity of skilled migration to undermine employment opportunities for local workers, and a sense that Government and employers should be seeking to maximise local employment opportunities. Given that employers have pushed hard of an expansion of the skilled migration scheme, it is critical to examine the motives of employers in pressing this case. </p>
<p>Operating as an employer-sponsored employment scheme, a key benefit to employers of 457 visas is their capacity to tie employees to a particular firm. That employers are able to restrict worker mobility is crucial to understanding how employers manage labour in contexts where they are dealing with skilled workers in tight labour markets.</p>
<p>In human resource management (HRM) literature there is a well known “training paradox” that highlights the dilemma for employers in managing skilled workers in highly competitive markets. </p>
<p>The training dilemma occurs because acute labour shortages and high labour mobility act as impediments to the provision of training and development. Put simply, employers do not want to invest in workers who might leave, or be poached by other employers competing within the same labour pool. </p>
<p>On the other hand, not investing in employees also risks highly levels of turnover as skilled workers expect development opportunities, and perceive these to be part of the implicit employment contract. Even prior to training, skilled workers incur substantial recruitment costs and so the investment does not pay off without a period of sustained employment. </p>
<p>So the attraction of an employer-sponsored scheme is then twofold. First, the skills required are already provided, lessening the need to incur substantial training costs. This is a known as a “buy” rather than “make” decision. </p>
<p>Second, job hopping (or employer poaching) is limited by the very nature of the scheme: that employment is dependent on the sponsorship of a particular employer. While employees could, of course, change sponsors, there is still a strong moral, if not formal, contract to stay with the original sponsor. </p>
<p>Since the 1990s Australia’s employment relations system has been increasingly decentralised. We have moved away from standardisation of terms and conditions of employment across occupations and industries – which occurred under the previous industrial arbitration system – to enterprise and individual level bargaining. </p>
<p>Employers have welcomed this as a way of increasing workplace flexibility. The danger for employers however is that this decentralisation has exacerbated competition for workers, particularly in areas of skilled labour shortage, resulting in labour poaching, increased wages and the aforementioned HRM dilemmas. </p>
<p>In areas of skill shortages in particular, employers require measures to contain these competitive tendencies, and this would seem to highlight their desire for an expansion of the skilled migrant workers scheme. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/6409/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Barry does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Federal Government recently announced that it would use the 457 visa skilled migration program to fast-track the number of skilled workers applying from the United States. In defending this move, Federal…Michael Barry, Head of Department, Griffith Business School, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/11712011-05-10T04:26:35Z2011-05-10T04:26:35ZBoomerang boom or brain drain: Will Irish youths emigrating to Oz stay or go?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/999/original/mcfadden.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=445%2C55%2C2683%2C1998&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Singer Brian McFadden leads a steady stream of Irish imports.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Sydney in February displayed in full technicolor what is one of the big stories in Ireland - the latest phase of our history of being an emigrant race. </p>
<p>As we walked around the city, stopped for coffee or lunch, or traversed our way past roadworks in our rental car, familiar accents surrounded us at every turn. </p>
<p>Even our first cafe in Canberra was managed by a recently arrived Irishman - and there are only 20 of them in the ACT in any one year!</p>
<p>Ireland had been a big contributor to Australian’s population growth since the 19th century. The combination of push and pull factors that underpin how economists model migration are borne out in the history of Irish migration to Australia - from the assisted passage eras through to the smart yuppie Irish of the late 80’s and early 90’s.</p>
<p>It is unquestionably the case that Ireland is experiencing a new phase of migration. </p>
<p>The outward migration of the Irish has doubled to over 30,000 between 2006 and 2010, or about 1% of the workforce. This figure is projected to be closer to 50,000 in 2011, with the bulk coming from the 20 to 35 age group. </p>
<p>As a percentage of the workforce this is not too far out of line with the experiences of Ireland in the 1980s or earlier - what is unusual is the rapidity with which this has changed with most of the increase happening since the dramatic worsening of the Irish economy in 2009. </p>
<p>Moreover, Australia is perhaps now disproportionately one of the key destinations. The figures going to the United States are almost unchanged. In effect the Irish are going to the UK, Canada and Australia in larger numbers, with the percentages going to the latter two doubling. </p>
<p>Unfortunately we don’t have, in an easily sourced format, the breakdown of this data by key demographics like educational background or occupation. </p>
<p>But if I return to my recent trip, on reflection it struck me that the familiar accents were all in service or construction roles - waiting tables, staffing bars, working on sites, in the hotels. </p>
<p>When you chatted, nobody seemed to be planning too far into the future in either Australia or Ireland. They were not settling down, forming families - they were having fun by and large. When I sat down in the boardrooms of agencies like COAG, DPMC or the universities I was visiting, I was meeting many familiar names of Irish origin but the accents were well and truly Australian. </p>
<p>What is different on the Australian side is the far more structured migration process - visa types, guidelines, preferred skills etc. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that Australia is now clear about what it wants - the process is more demand led than supply led. This is not the era of assisted passage, of driving population growth.</p>
<p>What is different about the Irish side I have already alluded to - the rapidity of change suggests that we are dealing primarily with the immediately displaced as a result of the economic collapse: construction, semi-skilled service sector, perhaps newly minted graduates who are looking for a challenge or a deferred gap year. </p>
<p>The numbers imply temporary visitor visas and working holidays are driving this group. Few are in training, many are in relatively unskilled employment. This is not a group looking, initially, at making a life in Australia. The are mobile, move about, most likely spending as much as they earn in a relatively footloose fashion. </p>
<p>And they will have to return to Ireland. Relatively soon.</p>
<p>This is not a focus of attention in Ireland - and it will need to be and quickly. There are anecdotes that suggest that Ireland has a relatively fit and healthy older population because we exported so many of the now unhealthier Irish during their 20s to London building sites and south Boston railyards. </p>
<p>This is not the case with this recent outflow. What is problematic is that they do not appear to be gaining much more than experience of life, and have not gained much more on their CV over what was there when they left for Australia. </p>
<p>Ireland must not ignore this group as perhaps we have ignored our older diaspora, and needs to plan for a potential flow back to Ireland of individuals. </p>
<p>It is not clear that this is the case - in fact it could be said that mass emigration is almost factored in as an assumption of the economic recovery model through acting as a vent for unemployment.</p>
<p>This underlying story may be changing. The Irish are now the third largest migrant group in absolute terms for employer sponsored (457) visas, and proportional to our population by a large way the biggest migrant group in this category. </p>
<p>Ireland is sending about one-third the total numbers the UK is sending - with 20 times the population! More Irish are arriving on 457s then the total from the entire rest of the European continent. </p>
<p>The increase in this number year on year is about one-third more than the increase of UK or other Europeans, so the share is growing. </p>
<p>This suggests that the pattern of migration is settling back into the pattern experienced many times over Ireland’s history - exporting skilled employees across all areas of demand for the Australian job market. A good old fashioned “brain drain” in other words. </p>
<p>My hunch is that the Irish economic experience of the past two years - and the likely future for the country with a Latin-American style sovereign default on the cards - will radically change the role that these migrants can play in recovery. </p>
<p>In fact, they won’t have a role - their lives are, for the foreseeable future, in their adopted country. This may be the first Irish migrant cohort to Australia who won’t be looking over their shoulders at the old country, won’t have the sense of attachment that previous generations held. </p>
<p>This also makes them an incredibly important cohort to study. If I can make one appeal, I would urge the very many successful Irish-Australians - or even Irish in Australia - to consider endowing the costs of capturing the experiences of this group through research and understanding the life trajectory of this group compared to those that came before them, and those that remained in Ireland.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/1171/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Colm Harmon is also Professor of Economics at University College Dublin (UCD) and Director of the UCD Geary Institute. The Institute work program includes research on migration experiences of the Irish abroad.</span></em></p>Sydney in February displayed in full technicolor what is one of the big stories in Ireland - the latest phase of our history of being an emigrant race. As we walked around the city, stopped for coffee…Colm Harmon, Professor of Economics, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.