Business leaders have gone on a full blown whinge over the Turnbull Government’s modest changes to Australia’s temporary ‘skilled’ visa system. From The AFR:
A collection of business heavyweights have blasted the Turnbull government’s move to scrap the 457 visa system as populist, blunt and a knee-jerk reaction that will hurt business and the economy.
The leading chairmen from across the mining, healthcare, finance and property sectors unanimously voiced their concern that while the visa system needed tightening, the government’s response was a dramatic overkill.
“The changes which have been promulgated are a very blunt instrument,” chairman of Tabcorp and Healthscope Paula Dwyer told the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors annual conference in Melbourne on Thursday.
“I think it’s a disappointing, knee-jerk reaction to what is this world of populist politics and protectionism we are living in,” Aurizon chairman Tim Poole said.
Chairman-elect of Oz Minerals and Investa Office Management chairman Rebecca McGrath agreed.
“There is a role for immigrant labour absolutely, there are many sectors and quite a few have already spoken up who have said how will we attract the people we need; sure jobs are paramount but the mix of migration has got us to where we are and it absolutely needs to be there in the future if we are going to be a successful economy,” Ms McGrath said.
From their whining, you’d think that the Turnbull Government had totally abolished immigration altogether, rather than making minor adjustments to the temporary ‘skilled’ visa system, which was clearly being overused if not outright abused.
If the business leaders had bothered to examine the facts pertaining to 457 visas, they would have identified four major problems with the system that need fundamental reform, namely:
- There are way too many occupations on the skills shortages list.
- Those working under the skill level 1 (so-called “Managers and Professionals”) and skill level 2 (so-called “Associate Professionals”) are not subject to any labour market testing to determine whether an Australian can do the job first. Hence, nearly 80% of total 457 visa holders are not subject to labour market testing.
- Where labour market testing is required it can be overcome by putting an ad on Facebook or other social media and that is enough to show that you’ve tested the labour market – basically a farce.
- The 457 visa system is not sufficiently responsive either to higher levels of unemployment, or to labour market changes in specific skilled occupations.
Indeed, the recent Senate Report, entitled A National Disgrace: The Exploitation of Temporary Work Visa Holders, identified massive flaws in the Consolidated Sponsored Occupations List, which it saw as ad hoc and ineffective. The Senate Committee also claimed the 457 visa system was”not sufficiently responsive either to higher levels of unemployment, or to labour market changes in specific skilled occupations”.
Joanna Howe, Senior Lecturer in Law at University of Adelaide, has identified major flaws in the 457 visa program, which has meant that many foreign workers are being used in areas where there are no labour shortages:
The mechanism for identifying who can apply for these [457] visas is the Consolidated Sponsored Occupations List. This is a list that has no requirement that the occupation be in demand in the Australian labour market. It includes more than 600 occupations, most of which are not in shortage. So long as an employer nominates an overseas worker to perform a job on this list, then the occupation is deemed to be in need.
Nursing, teaching, engineering and law are all on this list, and are also occupations where Australian graduates are struggling to enter the labour market.
This means the 457 visa can be used by employers who wish to access foreign labour for an ulterior motive.
The Department of Employment has for several years shown that skills shortages are near ‘historical lows’. In a similar vein, almost 90% of 457 visas issued have gone to the cities rather than the regions, where skills shortages are supposedly the most acute.
And let’s not forget the the Australian Population Research Institute’s (APRI) recent report entitled “Immigration overflow: why it matters”, which examined the widespread rorting of Australia’s 457 visa system, especially by Indian IT firms, and showed how the biggest sources of skilled migrants – engineers, accountants and IT professionals – are also the areas with the biggest surplus of workers:
Against this widespread rorting of the skilled visa system, let’s consider the Turnbull Government’s supposed “populist, blunt and a knee-jerk” reforms, which are summarised below:
- Implementing a new two-year temporary visa system that has no path to permanent residency, as well as a four-year scheme for highly skilled positions where there is a proven labour shortage;
- Cutting the range of jobs that foreign workers can apply for by more than 200 occupations;
- Mandatory employer-conducted labour market testing for all visas issued under the new scheme; and
- Mandatory English language proficiency.
These are modest reforms at best and hardly worth howling outrage. As noted by Labor, the Coalition’s reforms would only reduce the use of temporary skilled visas by 9%, meaning the changes are merely tinkering at the edges.
The only “dramatic overkill” seems to be coming from our business leaders, who are whining like stuffed pigs over what are essentially very modest reforms.
