Economy
457 Outrage
You may not have heard about it, but last week immigration officers visited Tasmania to assist employers with 457 visa applications. (See here).
What are 457s? They are the way that employers such as the big mining companies in WA bring in overseas workers to fill jobs that should have gone to Australians.
457s can be useful for small businesses, but all too often big WA companies con the Federal government by saying that they can’t get local workers, so they have to be allowed to bring in foreigners. They even con otherwise street-smart people like David Koch on Sunrise, who then do their campaigning for them.
Where are all the so-called skills shortages? And where are the jobs that they can’t find Australian workers for? Aquasure advertised jobs for tradesmen and assistants at the Victorian desalination plant recently and got 14,000 applications! Thiess advertised positions at the Gorgon offshore project in WA and got swamped by the huge number of applications they got from highly skilled workers including engineers. They turned away a huge number of applicants. A recent “investigation” by a WA Labor politician identified a shortage of welders and pipelayers. This is not a serious skills shortage, even if there are unfilled jobs in those trades. Pipelayers can be trained up in 6 months and welders in 12 months, if any government or company is genuine enough to provide the training places. I find the shortage questionable anyway – in respect of welding, Australia has huge numbers trained and some are the best welders in the world, courtesy of the Collins submarine project.
If Australia is experiencing, as Ms Ridout at the Reserve Bank says, “a very, very big investment boom”, then where is the very, very big training program?
My friends, family and I have directly experienced the con that is the so-called skills shortage. A large WA mining company advertises for labour for example – but specifies that they want people who are qualified and experienced. That means that they can reject most of us for these high-paid jobs. Even when we have the qualifications, we don’t have and can’t get mining experience. Then the big companies go to the government, complain about a “skills shortage” and get 457 visas to bring in foreign workers. But the foreign workers don’t have suitable qualifications and aren’t experienced! The companies give them minimal training and pay them less. Herein lies the key – their cost of labour falls.
The trouble with this is that Australia loses the benefit of the mining boom. The big companies in WA minimise their tax as much as possible, use foreign workers and pay large dividends offshore.
Meanwhile they deplete our resources and their activities push up the Australian dollar, crippling our other industries such as farming and manufacturing.
Then the Federal Labor government, instead of calling the big companies’ bluff and providing workers to the meet the alleged skills shortages, comes to the State with the highest unemployment – Tasmania – to assist employers to bring in foreign workers! What an outrage!
And where do they go for the seminars? Hobart, Launceston, Burnie and St Helens.
St Helens??? How many employers in St Helens are looking for foreign workers and having trouble with their 457 applications??? Or could this have been just another junket by overpaid and underworked Canberra bureaucrats who have absolutely no supervision from their incompetent Ministers?
Around 457oF is where paper spontaneously ignites. I have to say that 457 visas certainly make me burn!
First published: 2012-05-21 05:00 AM
• Herald Sun: Our richest woman, Gina Rinehart, accused of betraying Australians by importing foreign workers
Phillip Hudson, Olga Galacho, Herald Sun May 26, 2012 12:00AM
AUSTRALIA’S richest person, Gina Rinehart*, has won an historic deal from the Gillard Government to import more than 1700 foreign workers for a $9.5 billion mining project in the Pilbara.
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But the special visas for the mining billionaire have infuriated unions and split the Gillard Government.
Key union leaders, who had underpinned Julia Gillard’s leadership, said it was a “kick in the guts” for 130,000 manufacturing workers who had lost their jobs since Labor came to power, including Qantas workers this week.
As the Prime Minister faces renewed rumblings about her leadership, some senior Labor MPs turned their anger on Immigration Minister Chris Bowen and vowed to fight to water down the deal.
…
Mr Bowen said Ms Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting would be allowed to sponsor up to 1715 foreign workers under a new type of 457 visa for the three-year construction phase of its Roy Hill iron ore mine.
Mr Bowen said his first priority was ensuring Australian jobs and the deal required Roy Hill to hire 6700 Australian workers.
…
Resources Minister Martin Ferguson said it was “a great outcome for the industry” that would deliver long-term benefits.
Business leaders welcomed the deal but union chiefs, who found out about the decision while they were in a manufacturing crisis meeting with Ms Gillard in Canberra, went ballistic.
ACTU secretary Dave Oliver said it was “reprehensible” and urged Ms Gillard to overturn the decision.
Australian Workers Union boss Paul Howes said it was “sheer lunacy” coming after a recent spate of big job losses in manufacturing.
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“It’s a massive kick in the guts. Chris Bowen is announcing that Gina Rinehart gets an early Christmas present. I thought we were actually attacking these guys at the moment. Whose side are we on?”
…
One senior Labor figure said it undermined Treasurer Wayne Swan’s campaign against the mining billionaires, whom he had accused of putting their interests ahead of the nation.
The Enterprise Migration Agreement for Roy Hill is the first of potentially a dozen more that could let in up to 25,000 foreign workers.
•* Adele Ferguson, SMH: Rinehart world’s richest woman: BRW
She could buy two iPads for each of her fellow 22.9 million Australians, or eliminate world hunger for a year. If that should not appeal, she could play her own game of Monopoly with all the mansions in the nation’s most expensive address, Wolseley Road, Point Piper.
Gina Rinehart has just become the richest woman in the world – and Australia’s wealthiest person – with the BRW Rich 200 list estimating her wealth has nearly tripled in the past year to $29.17 billion.
She roared past Christy Walton, a widow with a large stake in the US retail giant Wal-Mart, who is reputedly worth $25 billion.
It was only 20 years ago that Ms Rinehart debuted on the list with a relatively paltry $75 million, after the death of her father, Lang Hancock. Apart from the West Australian billionairess, whose estimated fortune rose from $10.3 billion to its current peak, most list veterans had a difficult year, with 104 losing money.
With an estimated fortune of $675 million, Canberra airport owner Terry Snow has again been confirmed as the richest person in the ACT.
South African-born commodities trader Ivan Glasenberg retained second spot, behind Ms Rinehart, although his wealth dropped to $7.4 billion from $8.8 billion.
Property mogul Frank Lowy climbed to third place with $6.47 billion.
WA miner Andrew Forrest fell from third to fourth, as his wealth shrank slightly to $5.89 billion.
The Victorian manufacturer and property developer Anthony Pratt and family fell from fourth to fifth.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/executive-style/management/rinehart-worlds-richest-woman-brw-20120523-1z4lb.html#ixzz1vv3J3pUt