The newly signed Indian Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is an absolute shocker for Australian workers that opens the immigration floodgates and greatly improves access for Indian workers and students to stay in Australia long-term.
Under the deal, Australian and Indian architects, engineers and accountants will be recognised in each other’s countries. But the flow of professionals will obviously be one-way – from India to Australia – meaning local workers in these industries will have to compete with low cost workers that have graduated from lower-quality Indian universities.
Australia’s Trade Minister Dan Tehan spruiked that “mobility was one of the key outcome of this trade agreement” and said Australia could further consider requests in other visa sectors, which means even more imported competition for Australian workers:
“We could explore in the future, and I’m sure from the Indian side there will be further requests on the mobility side, and from an Australian point of view, one of the areas that I’m keen to see continue to develop is what we can do in the criteria”.
To add further insult to injury, post-study work rights for Indians studying at an Australian tertiary institution have been lengthened. Now Indians will be able to work temporarily for up to 18 months after the completing a diploma or trade qualification, two years after their bachelor degree, three years after their master’s degree, and four years after their doctoral degree. Thus, brace for thousands more Indians undertaking low cost ‘mickey mouse’ courses for backdoor work rights and potential permanent residency.
Dan Tehan spruiked that “one million Indians turn 18 every month, so there is a huge and growing demand for a high-quality education”, meaning there is potential for the Australian labour market to get literally flooded by Indian graduates willing to work for lower wages.
Tehan also noted that India would “provide a reciprocal work-based immigration route for Australians who successfully complete their studies and who wish to supplement their training with professional experience in India, to open up greater opportunities post-study”. But we all know the immigration flows will be one-way – from India to Australia.
Finally, Australia will grant visas to 1000 young Indians every year who want a working holiday in the country.
Last decade we witnessed widespread immigration scams involving students from India, who mostly came to Australia to work rather than study:
Student visas or work visas?
This FTA will merely turn student visas into fully fledged low-skilled work visas.
This deal is a slap in the face for Australia’s young people seeking careers in professional industries who will be shut out by Indians prepared to work for much lower salaries. More older Australian professionals will also find themselves increasingly unemployable over 50.
This FTA is all about providing cheap labour and demand for Big Business and Big Property, and students for the edu-migration lobby.
It will further suppress wage growth and exacerbate infrastructure and housing strains across Australia.
It is one final treasonous betrayal of Australian workers by a corrupt government before being booted from office.
Sadly, Australia’s trade union movement – which is supposed to represent Australian workers – has barely fought back against the FTA, merely noting that it would rather permanent residency to be handed out like tic tacs, thus worsening long-term population (infrastructure and housing) pressures:
The president of the ACTU, Michele O’Neil, responded to the deal by saying unions supported permanent migration. She said the visa system “should support workers with skills that we need moving to Australia long term”.
“Instead it has increasingly become a pool of exploitable labour for big business, which lobbies the government to remove protections,” O’Neil said.
“The Morrison government continues to sign us up to trade agreements that facilitate the growth of temporary, employer-sponsored migration. These workers are highly vulnerable to exploitation because in many cases their ability to stay in this country is in the hands of their employer”…
O’Neil raised concerns that the yet-to-be-negotiated broader free trade agreement “may end up waiving labour market testing”.
She reiterated the union movement’s longstanding concerns about how free trade agreements are negotiated in secrecy in Australia, arguing “workers will only know its contents when it is too late to do anything”.
“We need public oversight of this process, approval by parliament and accountability for the politicians who are signing away the rights of working people,” O’Neil said.
Why aren’t the Unions standing up for Australian workers and pushing back harder? And why is Labor dead silent about this deal?
Where is the representation for Australian workers who are being shafted all over again?
