For years we have heard Australian employer groups and the federal government complain of skills shortages, which has then been used as a fig leaf to maintain a strong immigration intake.
The most recent example came earlier this month when Liberal MP Julian Leeser, who chairs a parliamentary committee looking into skilled migration, claimed that Australia is “facing a shortage of skilled labour almost unprecedented in our history, and we can solve this through skilled migration”.
Leeser’s committee then handed down its Interim Report, which recommended major changes to Australia’s ‘skilled’ migration program to give businesses easier access to ‘skilled’ foreign workers, namely:
