In response to the ACTU’s proposal for a $91,000 minimum wage floor for temporary ‘skilled’ migrants, immigration talking head, Abul Rizvi, has jumped on board the Grattan Institute’s faux “high wage” temporary skilled visa reforms, which proposes an uncapped wage floor for temporary skilled migrants of $70,000 – i.e. $13,000 below the median full-time wage of Australians of $83,000 (which includes unskilled workers):
Memo to Grattan: $70,000 is by definition not “high-wage”, since it is well below the median.
Grattan also recommended abolishing any form of labour market testing or age limits, thus making temporary ‘skilled’ visas open slather by “allowing employers to hire temporary skilled migrants into any job”:
Open slather access to low-wage temporary ‘skilled’ migrants.
Thus, Grattan’s reforms would see older migrants with years of experience being used to undercut local workers.
According to Rizvi, via The AFR [my emphasis]:
Former Immigration Department deputy secretary Abul Rizvi said a minimum salary of about $70,000 a year for temporary skilled migrants would be appropriate and allow foreign teachers and nurses to fill critical skills shortages.
Mr Rizvi criticised the former Coalition government for freezing the cap and reintroducing burdensome red-tape labour market testing in 2018, which delays the entry of workers for three to six months.
“It costs the employer a bomb and achieves nothing,” he said.
“Whereas a minimum salary makes sure people are not being exploited and we are getting legitimately skilled people.”
Meanwhile, the slave driving Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry is pushing for a wage floor of only $60,000 – i.e. $23,000 below the median full-time wage of Australians (which includes unskilled workers):
“Raising the income threshold to not more than $60,000 would be more realistic,” ACCI chief executive Andrew McKellar said.
“Ideally, there should be more flexibility in setting thresholds that are tailored sector by sector, and skill level by skill level.”
The Albanese Government would be a fool to follow either approach over the ACTU’s minimum wage floor, which is set at average adult ordinary full-time earnings.
Skilled visa holders should be paid well above the population median, regardless of age. Otherwise they can’t be considered genuinely skilled. And the population median was $83,000 in 2021 – $13,000 above Grattan’s low-ball threshold.
According to Grattan’s report, “more than half of sponsored workers earn less than the typical full-time Australian worker, up from 38 per cent in 2005”. So why not set a salary threshold that ensures that 100% of skilled migrant workers earn more than the typical Australian worker? This would deliver a genuinely skilled system, not one that is designed specifically to undercut local workers.
By setting the temporary skilled wage floor at such a low level, and expanding access to it to every occupation, Grattan has set the scene for temporary skilled workers to be used by employers en masse to undercut locals and abrogate their need to provide training.
Labor must not fall for its fools gold (although we all know it will).
