National Farmers’ Federation (NFF) CEO Tony Mahar says the Australian Workers Union’s (AWU) national secretary Daniel Walton should apologise to the nation’s farmers over comments he made regarding a new agricultural visa (reported on MB yesterday). Walton alleged amongst other things that the new visa will give “dodgy farmers” access to more “exploitable workers”. However,
Australian Workers Union (AWU) national secretary Dan Walton is highly critical of the new agriculture visa that is due to take effect at the end of September. Walton says the visa will clash with the Pacific Labour Scheme, and will cause great damage to Australia’s relations with Pacific Island nations. Walton claims the agriculture visas
A new report from the Senate select committee on temporary migration has found that Australia’s temporary migration system is “broken” and allowing the easy exploitation of foreign workers. According to Labor’s committee chair Raff Ciccone, the closed international border in response to COVID has “exposed the dependence our economy has on temporary migration”: “There is
Another foreign worker visa scam has been uncovered by the mainstream media. This time it involves Australia’s meat industry, which has been accused of “lies, bribery and prostitution” in the “recruitment of the Australian meat industry’s foreign workforce”: “Foreign meatworkers might have been involved in a form of visa fraud in a process overseen by
As reported yesterday, the Morrison Government will on 30 September launch its Agricultural Visa, which will allow regional businesses across the horticultural, meat processing, fisheries and forestry sectors to hire indentured migrant labour from 10 South-East Asian nations with the promise of permanent residency if they commit to working beyond three years: “This is about
According to the Housing Industry Association (HIA), 2021 will mark a record year of detached house construction: However, HIA Economist Angela Lillicrap has called on the federal government to reboot pre-COVID levels of extreme immigration to ensure that housing demand remains strong: “Australia is experiencing a building boom with a record level of detached homes
Recall that the Australian Treasury’s latest Intergenerational Report (IGR) projects that Australia’s population will grow by a whopping 13.1 million people (~50%) over the next 40 years to 38.8 million people. This is the equivalent to adding another Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to Australia’s existing population. Moreover, 74% of this growth will come directly from
Infrastructure Victoria has forecast that the state’s population will grow from around 6.6 million at the moment to 10.8 million by 2051, and that the population of Melbourne’s ‘fringe’ suburbs will increase by over 900,000 people over that time. The body also warned that infrastructure and services are failing to keep pace with population growth
Employers continue to complain of massive skills shortages due to the closure of Australia’s international border to migrants: Angela Thwaites runs a boutique nursing recruitment firm in Sydney. Even at the best of times, she might find herself one or two nurses shy of being able to fully meet demand… At the heart of the
Yesterday’s employment report from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) revealed that Australia’s youth – defined as those aged 16 to 24 – continue to benefit immensely from the closure of Australia’s international border to immigration. While overall youth employment is still yet to return to its pre-COVID level, with total jobs still down 9,700
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released Overseas Arrivals and Departures data for June 2021, which confirmed that net migration into Australia has moved further back into positive. There were a net 2,540 permanent & long-term arrivals in June, which followed May’s 3,480 net arrivals: Over the June quarter, there were 6,290 net permanent
Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) governor Philip Lowe sparked a debate over immigration when he claimed in a July speech that high immigration levels were in part to blame for years of low wages growth. Documents obtained under freedom of information (FOI) laws reveal that the RBA’s economics research department had been doing research on
Analysis of 800 jobs by the National Skills Commission (NSC) claims that one in five occupations in Australia is suffering from skill shortages. Occupations suffering the most acute skills shortages include: Accountants and auditors; Cooks and Chefs; and Engineers. Curiously, the NSC’s skills shortage lists have been developed with heavy input from industry (no conflict
RMIT public policy professor David Hayward has analysed unemployment and immigration data over the pandemic and estimates that Victoria’s unemployment rate would have exceeded 7% if regular immigration flows had continued. Professor Hayward also believes that the pre-COVID mass immigration policy was a key driver of the nation’s decade of anaemic wage growth: The closed
Australia is set to resume negotiations with India with regard to a free-trade agreement (FTA). The two nations had initially commenced discussions on a trade deal in 2011, but the negotiations stalled in 2015. Trade Minister Dan Tehan has advised that India’s Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal has agreed to resume negotiations after a recent meeting with
The Morrison Government has signaled loud and clear that it will reboot mass immigration at the earliest opportunity. The Government’s Interim Report of the Inquiry into Australia’s Skilled Migration Program recommended opening the migrant floodgates via: Abolishing labour market testing requirements. Lowering costs and speeding up approval times for importing foreign workers. Expanding the skilled occupation
I have read some poor mass immigration spruik pieces in my time. But few were as factually incorrect and lacking in commonsense than Angela Shanahan’s effort in The Weekend Australian entitled “Post-pandemic, we’ll need a boost from immigration”. Let’s examine her key arguments. First Shanahan argues that Peta Credlin’s argument for a cap of 100,000
NSW Planning Minister Rob Stokes has called on the federal government to develop a national population policy discussing the size of the country it wants: Mr Stokes said that, despite having policies on everything from fruit flies to mythical panthers, NSW had no “policy on people”: “how many we can expect, where we want them
Fairfax reports that while tens-of-thousands of Australians remain stranded abroad during the pandemic, the Morrison Government has granted nearly 15,000 rich foreigners entry to Australia via the business innovation and investment visa program (BIIP): Nearly 15,000 visas have been granted to foreign millionaires under the controversial business innovation and investment visa schemes. These types of
Recruiters Robert Half Australia are reporting a tighter labour market and higher wage offers thanks to the collapse in immigration: Covid is rewriting the job descriptions – and the salaries – of many employees in finance and accounting, technology, business support and marketing areas, according to a report from recruiters Robert Half Australia… The firm’s
In last week’s speech, RBA governor Phil Lowe explained how Australia’s pre-COVID mass immigration program played a direct role in Australia’s decade of anaemic wage growth by lifting labour supply: Strong growth in labour demand was closely matched by a strong increase in labour supply. With both demand and supply rising, there was little need
Labor has called on the federal government to lift the pay floor on temporary ‘skilled’ visa holders, claiming that it is mugging Australians of job opportunities and contributing to the nation’s low wage growth: Aussies are missing out on pay rises because employers are able to fill gaps with cheap overseas workers, according to the
Last week, the Guardian’s Greg Jericho attacked Reserve Bank Governor Phil Lowe for daring to suggest that 15 years of mass immigration has harmed Australian workers: Last week the head of the Reserve Bank suggested migration could have caused lower wages growth. It was an unfortunate statement that goes against evidence and ignores the many
Amid the reams of evidence showing that temporary migrants have been ruthlessly exploited on Australia’s farms, which has frequently been labelled “modern slavery”, the Australian Workers Union (AWU) recently lodged an application with the Fair Work Commission (FWC) to amend the Horticulture Award to guarantee a minimum casual rate of pay ($20.33 an hour) for
Economics Professor Bill Mitchell’s report on the ABS’ labour market survey for June noted that the collapse in immigration has played a key role in lowering Australia’s unemployment rate to a 10-year low of 4.9%: Given the variation in the labour force estimates, it is sometimes useful to examine the Employment-to-Population ratio (%) because the
In the 20 years before COVID hit, Australia’s population increased by 6.5 million people, with Sydney and Melbourne each adding around 1.6 million and 1.8 million people respectively over that time. The experience on the ground was infrastructure bottlenecks, rising congestion, and reduced livability as our major cities were crush-loaded by the extreme population growth.
The Fair Work Commission has accepted a proposal by the Restaurant and Catering Association (RCA) that aims to simplify the payment of chefs. It comes in the wake of a number of underpayment scandals at fine food restaurants which the restaurant sector has blamed on the complexity of wage payment systems. The new pay deal
For years MB has argued that the massive increase in Australia’s immigration intake from 2005 has played a key role is suppressing that nation’s wage growth. Australia’s annual net overseas migration (NOM) jumped from an average of 89,000 between 1991 and 2004 to an average of 215,000 between 2005 and 2020 – an annual average
The AFR has taken another shot at RBA governor Phil Lowe for daring to admit that Australia’s mass immigration program pushed down wage growth. The robber baron’s paper of choice has now enlisted economics editor John Kehoe to cherry-pick research and testimony claiming that immigration does not push down wages. Below are Kehoe’s main arguments:
Amid the conga-line of evidence showing that temporary migrants have been ruthlessly exploited on Australia’s farms, which has frequently been labelled “modern slavery”, the Australian Workers Union (AWU) has lodged an application with the Fair Work Commission to amend the Horticulture Award to guarantee a minimum casual rate of pay for all farm workers. As
