Scott Morrison appears serious about doing something on immigration numbers, via Domainfax:
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has cleared the ground for a migration overhaul that confronts surging growth in Sydney and Melbourne, using regional rules to set a different approach for each part of the country.
Mr Morrison said there “could be a case” for tougher rules that slowed the intake of some temporary migrants into congested cities, but he warned against simplistic changes that would hurt areas that needed more workers.
“I’m happy to have a fair dinkum conversation about population, but we’re not going to do it in a vanilla sort of way, assuming that there is average population growth,” he said.
The government is working on a region-by-region approach to migration that puts a premium on migrants who go to parts of the country that need growth, including some capital cities as well as regional areas.
The Migration Council is not happy:
Carla Wilshire, from the Migration Council of Australia, says there are enormous benefits in regional resettlement for individuals and communities.
“However, it’s critical we have the necessary social infrastructure invested into these regional locations,” Ms Wilshire told AAP on Sunday.
“We also need to remember a lot of temporary workers that are settling in metropolitan areas are doing so because they have specific skills or qualifications that are vital to building the economy of the future.”
Why don’t you tell that to your chair, Carla? In recent days, Migration Council chair, Innes Willox and his AIG, has argued on three separate occasions against legislation designed to protect immigrants from wage theft:
- Innes Willox’s AIG attacks QLD legislation;
- Innes Willox attacks VIC legislation;
- Innes Willox’s AIG attacks Labor hire legislation.
Now Ms Wilshire appears to want migrants retained in crush-loaded cities where most of the wage theft is taking place. From Fair Work previously:
A concentration of underpaid workers has been uncovered in western Sydney, with almost two- thirds of businesses audited found to be seriously short-changing workers or failing to keep proper pay records.
The Fair Work Ombudsman investigation found that 64 per cent of almost 200 businesses audited were breaching workplace laws in suburbs including Cabramatta, Guildford, Mount Druitt, Fairfield and Merrylands.
Fair Work Ombudsman Natalie James said businesses that were underpaying workers and not issuing them with correct pay records were on notice that future breaches could result in serious enforcement action.
…The suburbs are also home to a higher than average proportion of migrants, with both Harris Park (85 per cent) and Parramatta (74 per cent) at more than twice the national average of 30.2 per cent.
…“When combined with a lack of familiarity with workplace laws, language barriers can present significant difficulties to employers seeking to understand and comply with their obligations.”
…She said new arrivals to Australia might have a limited awareness of Australian workplace laws.
Here’s the full spectrum of the migration wages disaster, again mostly in cities:
- For years we have seen Dominos, Caltex, 7-Eleven, Woolworths and many other fast food franchises busted for rorting migrant labour.
- The issue culminated in 2016 when the Senate Education and Employment References Committee released a scathing report entitled A National Disgrace: The Exploitation of Temporary Work Visa Holders, which documented systemic abuses of Australia’s temporary visa system for foreign workers.
- Mid last year, ABC’s 7.30 Report ran a disturbing expose on the modern day slavery occurring across Australia.
- Meanwhile, Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO), Natalie James, told Fairfax in August last year that people on visas continue to be exploited at an alarming rate, particularly those with limited English-language skills. It was also revealed that foreign workers are involved in more than three-quarters of legal cases initiated by the FWO against unscrupulous employers.
- Then The ABC reported that Australia’s horticulture industry is at the centre of yet another migrant slave scandal, according to an Australian Parliamentary Inquiry into the issue.
- The same Parliamentary Inquiry was told by an undercover Malaysian journalist that foreign workers in Victoria were “brainwashed” and trapped in debt to keep them on farms.
- A recent UNSW Sydney and UTS survey painted the most damning picture of all, reporting that wages theft is endemic among international students, backpackers and other temporary migrants.
- A few months ago, Fair Work warned that most of Western Sydney had become a virtual special economic zone in which two-thirds of businesses were underpaying workers, with the worst offenders being high-migrant areas.
- Dr Bob Birrell from the Australian Population Research Institute latest report, based on 2016 Census data, revealed that most recently arrived skilled migrants (i.e. arrived between 2011 and 2016) cannot find professional jobs, with only 24% of skilled migrants from Non-English-Speaking-Countries (who comprise 84% of the total skilled migrant intake) employed as professionals as of 2016, compared with 50% of skilled migrants from Main English-Speaking-Countries and 58% of the same aged Australian-born graduates. These results accord with a recent survey from the Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre, which found that 53% of skilled migrants in Western Australia said they are working in lower skilled jobs than before they arrived, with underemployment also rife.
- The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) latest Characteristics of Recent Migrants report, revealed that migrants have generally worse labour market outcomes than the Australian born population, with recent migrants and temporary residents having an unemployment rate of 7.4% versus 5.4% for the Australian born population, and lower labour force participation (69.8%) than the Australian born population (70.2%).
- ABC Radio recently highlighted the absurdity of Australia’s ‘skilled’ migration program in which skilled migrants have grown increasingly frustrated at not being able to gain work in Australia despite leaving their homelands to fill so-called ‘skills shortages’. As a result, they are now demanding that taxpayers provide government-sponsored internships to help skilled migrants gain local experience, and a chance to work in their chosen field.
- In early 2018 the senate launched the”The operation and effectiveness of the Franchising Code of Conduct” owing in part to systematic abuse of migrant labour.
- Then there is new research from the University of Sydney documenting the complete corruption of the temporary visas system, and arguing that Australia running a “de-facto low-skilled immigration policy” (also discussed here at the ABC).
- In late June the government released new laws to combat modern slavery which, bizarrely, imposed zero punishment for enslaving coolies.
- Over the past few weeks we’ve witnessed widespread visa rorting across cafes and restaurants, including among high end establishments like the Rockpool Group.
- Alan Fels, head of the Migrant Workers Taskforce, revealed that international students are systematically exploitedparticularly by bosses of the same ethnicity.
The so-called Migration Council says it is:
…an independent, non-partisan, not-for-profit body established to enhance the productive benefits of Australia’s migration and humanitarian programs.
Is “productive benefits” code for an endless supply of wages-squashing indentured slaves?
Anyone in the wider media awake?
