Absolute drivel.

Big projects generally require high level technical skills in particular fields, with the experience to match. These skills and experience seldom take less than a decade to acquire and are often very specialised.

For an example, a control engineer that has a decade of experience in oil and gas is a valuable person in that industry, but of comparatively little use in pulp and paper, food, etc.

A decade ago, a particular speciality that was not particularly needed, is now. There is no chance of training someone to the required level of competency.

To say that "Large mining and gas projects have very long lead times - long enough in fact to train some of the existing workforce in skills that may be required for future projects." is pure fantasy, dreamt up by someone that has obviously never worked on big engineering projects.

That Australia has a net inflow of skills is because the resource industry is growing. Other industries may not be, and their skills migrate.

Blocking the inflow is not going to stop the outflow.

The author's article is full of holes in the real world.

Yes, we can train our own hairdressers and chefs, but it's
quite a different situation, when it comes down to large
engineering/mining projects.

We live in an increased age of specialisation. Having a
university degree is not enough to qualify for building
a multi billion gas plant. Specialists in all these
complex fields move around globally and so they should.

I recently watched a documentary about the building of
the soccer stadiums in South Africa. The local labour
provided the grunt, but the key personell were stadium
engineering experts, whose critical knowledge was vital
and saved mega millions in terms of design and construction
costs. You can only gain that kind of knowledge by
many years of experience.

The materials too were globally sourced for good reasons.
Some of these critical components are so specialised, that
there are only a very limited number of companies globally,
with the machinery and expertise to do the job. That
is what ever more complex specialisation is all about.

After the South African stadiums were finished, the
experts were moving on to Brazil, for their next
challenge.

Liquified gas plants too, are very specialised and complex
bits of gear. Companies should be able to source the very
best people for the job, given the huge investments involved.
These experts are also the best people to teach locals
with on the job training for the future.

If you really want to cut "skilled" migration, cut those
slipping in under the local university training programmes
to obtain an easy Australian residency visa

The author is really talking about population but he makes some interesting points.

Last year 508,000 people arrived to live in Australia as permanent residents, temporary workers or students. Just over 13,000 of them were refugees, or about one in 40. Even if all the asylum seekers arriving by boat were counted, the 2726 of them would make up about one in 200 of the arrivals.

Relying on importing foreign workers to provide us with the skills we need, rather than the Gov doing all it can to ensure that Australians are trained in the skills we need is problematic. It's a double bind problem.

It has a parallel with our reliance on foreign capital. Australia is one of the richest countries in the Western world, yet one of the poorest savers. Despite our wealth, every year we are in the bottom half of the OECD in savings rates. That's why our net foreign debt is now $654 billion, and doubling every eight years.

As the International Monetary Fund and many others have pointed out, our reliance on foreign borrowing is a risk to our economic future. Some suggest that our reliance on foreign skilled workers is a risk to something even more important: our social fabric, and our sense of national unity.

I think that last point is what the writer is worried about. Social upheaval. I can't see it myself but I'm willing to be convinced.

Shadow Minister and Yabby - sorry guys but the writer is making some excellent points.. if the big companies want skills then why not make them pay for those skills.. otherwise we discourage those who go to the time and trouble to acquire those skills.
However, I would take issue with the emphasis on resource projects where the specialised workforce is internationalised.. There are lots of other areas - pattern making, nursing - where workers do not nautrally cross international boundaries and where the usual laws of supply and demand do not quite work. If you double the wages of nurses, for example, would you get double the number of nurses (after a training lag).. doubt it. People will still not want to be nurses, unless they have the calling. In that respect immigration quots serve a purpose.

*if the big companies want skills then why not make them pay for those skills.*

Curmudgeon, a traindriver working for Rio, earns around 200k$
a year. I have yet to hear from anyone I know working for miners
in WA, complain about what they are paid.

Where we have a problem is this: Up to now we only really had
one serious LNG project, the NW shelf. Suddenly now, with the
rise of LNG, there are projects popping up everywhere. Not just
in WA, in Gladstones with CSG there are 4 on the drawing boards alone.

So a whole lot of really top expertise is required for a whole lot
of projects. It does not matter what you pay them, if the people
arn't there, they are not there. There is no magic fairy to create
them, so they need to come in from other LNG projects around the
world. Gorgon alone is a 43 billion$ project for instance.
Pluto is huge, so are some others.

These are the projects that are driving Australia's future
exports and given that our current account deficit remains a
disaster, we need these projects to pay the country's debts.

When "shadow minister" refers to the article as drivel and trys to cherry pick a minute employment component of a large project to justify support of the program does him no credit.
When two thirds of the migrants on Skilled program dont end up using their allegedly high value skills in Australia, when you can bring someone in on a 457 Visa to work in McDonalds you dont have to be to smart to know this program is an abject failure.
The "Education" route to residency migration racket is another matter.