MB has recorded the extraordinary conflict that Migration Council chair, Innes Willox, has developed as he simultaneously campaigns for more more migrants and less migrant wage protections. Last week the Migration Council chair produced dubious statistics to argue for more migrants with science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) skills even though STEM graduates have the highest unemployment rates in the country.
This followed three separate occasions in recent months when the Migration Council chair and his Australian Industry Group argued 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.
This is despite the staggering array of evidence showing ubiquitous migrant wage exploitation:
- 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 months 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 exploited particularly by bosses of the same ethnicity.
Now the Migration Council CEO, Carla Wilshire, has put her weight behind keeping migrants in the cities, via The Guardian:
Wilshire said many immigrants had specialised skills that were best utilised in urban areas.
“Migration is immensely important to Australia’s economic future and we need to be careful not throw the baby out with the bath water,” Wilshire said.
“A migration program that addresses the needs of regional Australia does not solve basic infrastructure problems.
So we need more migrants to solve the problems created by excessive population growth? An obviously circular argument. Where is the counter-balancing view to point this out? Why does the The Guardian see it as OK to take the Migration Council as some supreme authority when it is clearly operating with a badly conflicted executive intent on keeping pressure on wages? Has The Guardian checked out the Migration Council’s business stacked board? Has it investigated the funding sources of the Council which have deep roots in the property development sector which directly benefits from mass immigration whether everyone does or not?
No, no and no. This is not journalism. It is propaganda.
