Wayne Swan has rejected calls for a large boost to permanent migration. Instead, he claims that his budget will create 500,000 new jobs and drive unemployment to 4.5 per cent. Short-term shortages in the mining and other industries can be met through temporary skilled migration, he argues, but permanent skilled migration is not the way to go.
“I don’t see the need for a dramatic increase in permanent skilled migration,” Mr Swan told The Courier-Mail. “I think what we have to do in the first instance is train Australians.”
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ironmind
Mr Swan, NSH Corp Aust, and others, action is needed today. The bulk of mining work is ‘semi-skilled’, meaning that initial training need only be very brief. 3 weeks is not unreasonable. This contrasts starkly with the delay inherent in training a trade-qualified worker and the two shouldn’t be confused.
It doesn’t take a clairvoyant to see that federal government, in concert with mining employers have the financial and logistic capacity to deliver the miracle of employment, not benefits, to thousands more Australians right now.
Please read this. Equally important will be to connect money and workers efficiently. The less the bureaucracy, the better. The less that third-party groups hijack the process, and the money, the better. What we want is to connect the Australians who are ready and eager to work in mining with the *opportunities to work* that they do *deserve*.
And, employers please let us remember that only a small proportion of the workforce exists in the preferred 25-35 years demographic, ‘competent, energetic and still malleable’. We all have parents and many of us have children. This needs to be inclusive.