I agree, when we started to elect people who had no real world experience, is about the time we became the stupid country? We once made all our own trains, rolling stock in govt owned railway workshops. Those were the same workshops that trained most of our boilermakers, welders and blacksmiths. It was dirty work that left the ears ringing at the end of every working day, as apprentices followed welders, knocking off slag from welded products.
You can't un-shear a shorn sheep.
These straight from unions or university, or thick between the ears Pollies, were far too quick to rip up rail and tram lines. And thought we'd save money via private bus lines and highway freight forwarders.
That was extremely short-sighted or simply stupid, given the exponentially rising cost of fuel, and peak oil.
We used to make good cars that were designed to last the lifetime of the buyer. That was until bean counters replaced engineers in the automotive manufacturing industry.
Things that used to be made on site were out sourced in the endless drive to increase profit margins, or build cheaper cars. So, and in 20/20 hindsight, stupidity flourished during the age of the extreme capitalism and or the bean counters?
As for Gina doing something that smacks of a generosity of spirit? Well, given the seemingly ruthless way she seems to have treated her own flesh and blood? Don't hold your breath.
If we don't have enough boilermakers and welders willing to relocate, we will simply have to import them, as temporary guest workers.
And if we need to import skilled labour in order to create a project and more permanent employment opportunities for Australians, then that is what we must do.
Just don't expect people who have houses, friends and relatives to give all that up just to go to some barren wilderness hell hole, thousands of miles away, where the only thriving life-forms seems to be flies, and the only constant seems endless unrelenting heat.
I simply couldn't make that choice and suspect the author never ever would? Rhrosty.

You can't blame people for wanting to turn the clocks back to Pig Iron Bob, high tariffs, protectionism, the six o'clock swill, when women and Aborigines were second class citizens and industrial democracy was a contraction in terms.

I fear people like Rhosty are echos of the Country Party under Diamond Jack, pining for a monochromal world captured by the TV program 'The Sullivans'.

The movement of labour and services across borders has been with us for 10 years or more.

Rhosty, unfortunately you seem to be typical of those people who abound in today's society. Back in the sixties when I needed to get a job in my chosen profession I went to Mt.Isa and then the N.T. The pay and conditions were no where as good as they are today but I spent six years away from "civilisation" with few regrets.

The author is placing blame in the wrong place. As someone once said, "Life wasn't meant to be easy". Those who are not prepared to move in order to gain employment when it is obviously so readily available should wake up to themselves, particularly the young.

David

Naomi

sorry but your arguement is quite flawed.. I think you're use to conventional HR in places where people want to work.

The problem with getting workers at those mines is that no one will move or take the jobs even on a fly-in, fly-out basis.. mines have taken innovative approaches such as offering FIFO shifts to locals with hobby farms, say.. but that is for relatively settled areas.. So there is a distinct skill shortage in those remote mines (of which ther are quite a few) despite the best efforts of specialist recruitment firms. In fact, some of those firms have already given up trying to recruit Aus workers and recruit only in places like Ireland.

And we're talking about a booming sector and quite a few mines in remote areas so 17,000 is not surprising.. that figure is less than 10 per cent of our annual immigration intake, incidentally..

The point about this whole issue is that the govt has totally mishandled it.. it should never even have become an issue..

I suspect that people like Cheryl are very skilled a quite deliberately misinterpreting and misrepresenting the views of others.
Given some of my forbears were also Aborigine, and I am the very proud dad of 2 young women, her unnecessarily critical and patently sexist remarks can't be aimed at me.
My past included extreme poverty and a three mile daily walk to school over rough gravel roads in bare feet, and absolute hell on a cold and frosty morning, compounded by chilblains, a product of malnutrition. I find very little in the past to pine for.
I was merely pointing out that a skills shortage is a fairly recent phenomenon, possibly contributed in no small part by the sacrifices made by our people during 2 world wars?
We were once the third wealthiest nation on the planet and a creditor one at that. And, a past tense fact actually worth pining for.
David, I worked many thousands of miles from home, in mines/tunnels, for around half my adult working life and have never ever been afraid of hard work, which by the way, was responsible for all my promotions.
Moreover, I come from a generation that knew real hardship and didn't have virtually everything handed to them on a platter.
Parenthetically, the whole quote goes, life wasn't meant to be easy, but rather, delightful.
Yes, some of the things we did were both very dumb and included, throwing the baby out with the bath water in a mad rush to modernise and privatise. Rhrosty.

I suspect that the real issue here is that the capable, motivated, educated young Australians are already in worthwhile jobs. The unemployed pool, in my experience, certainly cannot be described that way.

I am deeply familiar with the issues in a family close to mine. Two early 30s GenY youngsters, despite being brought up in a loving, supportive, encouraging environment, became seduced by computer games when in their teens. They rocked off to university, but each dropped out within a month or two. They then reverted to computer games and watching television. They decline to do any course that could help them gain basic skills. I have tried to encourage them to do a diploma in project management (widely needed) or other vocations that interest them. They express interest, but nothing ever happens. Instead, they slope off to watch the NBA.

There is an issue with their work ethic. One of those youngsters turned his computer interests into a job in IT support. He used to leave home at 9:30am, and return home at 3:15. Asked why, he said that he was only required to put in five billable hours each day. Soon enough, he was retrenched when a downturn came. He is still unemployed, but not on the dole, coz he lives with his family. He has done some work for a friend, fencing and the like. His idea of a hard day is one where he does 4 billable hours.

I think that you will find that the mining companies know from experience that if they take on a person that I have described, they struggle to comply with basic company expectations (turning up on time, not leaving early, meeting safety requirements) or to gain from company training programs. Naomi will likely have a view on this.

I accept that there does seem to be a lack of support for youngsters like those I described. But I think that there are an awful lot of them out there if discussions with friends and acquaintances can be relied upon.

The author is missing quite a bit here.

Importing labour – especially semi-skilled labour – is the least preferred option of mining companies. They have to pay for relocation, accommodation, training etc and then pay market wages. It’s cheaper and easier to hire locals. They import labour from necessity, not choice.

Training to meet your own anticipated needs doesn’t guarantee you avoid skill shortages. Trained employees are marketable and mobile, so there’ a good chance you’ll wind up training someone else’s workforce, not your own.

Australians are reluctant to move West for jobs, and to work on the mines, as Curmudgeon points out. The pay is good but conditions are hard, and people spend a long time away from home. The WA media at the moment is full of stories of eastern “job snobs” refusing to move for work.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/newshome/13822281/move-west-or-miss-out-grylls/

In a labour market like ours, the long-term unemployed are that for a reason. Some might be job-shy, as other posters have indicated, but mostly there are other reasons – family, mobility, health etc. These can be particularly severe barriers to transition from long-term unemployment to working in mining, given its physical demands and social pressures. And frankly, given the risks and demands of mining and construction work, workers need to be capable and motivated.

Finally, many of the jobs on offer are temporary. Large resource projects typically employ a large number of construction workers during the development phase and a smaller number of operational workers once production starts. Give the number and scale of projects under way or about to start in WA, we’re going to need a large number of construction workers in the next five years or so, but demand for construction skills could tail off quite sharply after that. Training up tens of thousands of workers for a job surge that will last only a few years doesn’t make sense. Better to skill up for the longer-term sustainable jobs, and meet temporary demand with temporary (imported) labour.

I spent many years in the North of WA, in mining towns.
The ones that were successful, were the towns that did not FIFO and actually had infrastructure for families and kids. Yes it was hot, yes there were flies, no there were no malls ( in those days) to hang out in but there was a community life.
Now back to our rich lady who wants to make an even bigger profit.
Is it going to stop at 1700? Of course not, the precedent has been established. There will more cases each one "essential to have these imported workers" to get the vital big project started.
They will get the same wages and conditions as Australian workers. Oh yes and I came down in the last shower.
There have been numerous cases where "guest" workers have been found to be living in a state of poverty, wages not paid and wages well below the going rate.
Sorry but this is yet another try on by the ultra rich to take over the country and run it the way they want it.
The mining boom is not going to last for ever and when it does collapse along with the rest of the world economy, there are going to be a lot of people far from there homes, out of work and broke, wanting help. Who is going to provide it? The tax payer of course. You wont find Gina, Twiggy or anyone else of that ilk within miles.

What short memories we seem to have.

>>I was merely pointing out that a skills shortage is a fairly recent phenomenon, possibly contributed in no small part by the sacrifices made by our people during 2 world wars?<<

How recent is "fairly recent", Rhosty?

I came here a few decades ago, when the country was giving out visas to skilled Poms like confetti. In my case, it took less than four months, from a standing start, to a) get a job over here b) get a permanent visa for me and my family and c) get on a plane and land here.

There was no obvious skills shortage in the UK, despite their own small sacrifices "during 2 world wars". They also endured several years of post-war food rationing, a shortage of housing (due to the bombs, you see) and years of making do with "utility" furniture because they couldn't afford anything else. In contrast, Australia had both jobs and prosperity, just as we do now, so for a couple of decades there was a constant procession of passenger ships carrying entire families from London, Piraeus, Naples etc. to Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney.

This country has had a policy of topping up its workforce with skills from overseas for many years. I suspect that the only reason it seems to be a problem these days is the dog-whistle undercurrent of racism, because so many of them are not, for a change, from Europe.

Pericles.
Or....it could be that they're not permanent residents and that the money they earn is mostly going to be remitted overseas anyway, this was the issue which led to the immigration restriction act of 1901, though I accept that one could hardly make the same case today.
This is not 1949, there is no organised resistance whatsoever to people of "other than European heritage" entering the country so "Racism" is a baseless charge against our wholly Anti Racist governing and managerial castes.

Naomi, how can anyone who claims 15 years in human resources have so little idea.

What were you doing.

You must have been involved in something like the fashion industry, or perhaps union office staff. You obviously have no idea about steel work.

Yes there are plenty of welders. Some make farm gates, & hand rails. Some make house stumps, & steel trusses for industrial sheds. Some do higher tech work on industrial equipment. It is hot hard work, & some youngsters love it, but I don't know very many mature welders who would not take a large cut in their pay to get a nice soft cop in an air conditioned human resources office.

Then apparently unknown to this "human resource" lady, we have the top range of welders. Those who build industrial processing plant. Stuff like pressure vessels, where each weld has to be x-rayed for quality control.

We have never required all that many of these welders, particularly since we stopped building things like oil refineries & such years ago. However with gas pipe lines running all over the place, liquefaction plants required to export gas, along with all the new mines, we suddenly have a huge boost in demand for these skills.

This type of welder is somewhat equivalent to the brain surgeon in his profession. You don't get too many of them, & you don't train them quickly. Not many make it through the course, when one is run. It's a matter of importing the skills in the short term, to build the plant , or not get the permanent jobs the mine will bring.

So may I suggest Naomi, a little research before you burst into print next time, it may even stop you showing your lack of understanding of your subject.

Just like more than a few here, I am totally against imported semi skilled labor, like dump truck drivers, or plant operators to work in established mines. We can & should be training them ourselves. Still many should be undertaking their own training, at their own expense. It is a really disgraceful we don't have competent career advisers in our high schools to guide kids to what is available & growing.

I am not too happy to see Perth becoming like a London suburb, when judged by the accents. We are importing so many poms to run our mining industry, it indicates a distinct shortage of university trained people.

It does seen ridiculous to have hundreds of arts graduates flipping burgers, but be training so few in project management that we can't supply those required for the highly paid professional jobs available in the mining sector.

I don't quite know what to make of this article, then reading some of the comments it did dawn on me the author doesn't really know what she is talking about. Have you ever been upside down under an abattoir kill conveyor, welding the stress fractures back together, all you can smell is the stench of scorched blood bubbling away, 40+ degrees in-side your clothing, bile clawing at the back of your throat ? I haven't either but a very good friend used to, often... and you wonder why he might like to leave and sit behind a desk in an air conditioned office ? There is a HUGE difference between working in Sydney and working in the Pilbra.

I think it wonderful they bring these guys in, it gives them an incredible opportunity to allow them to earn a few $'s, hopefully remit most back home and improve their Country and themselves. Good on them for doing a job that most Australians would never WANT to do. Aus is in for a long steady decline, ur unemployment rate is 5% and our welfare budget is huge... and the Government just raised the debt ceiling to $300 Billion :( Like the rest of the western world, money is no object, until it is. It is interesting to watch all this stuff unfold and voters jump up and down like spoiled brats and vote their own spoilt brats back into political office, with the Unions full of similarly spoilt brats.

It's only newsworthy because all those in the service industry that the Greens espouse as the new paradigm, are envious of a six figure salary but not envious enough to have to go do something about it. Doesn't matter they will get billions of dollars of tax revenue to be able to spend in their part of the country, for doing... well, nothing at all to earn it really, they will just complain and want more :) That sees like a fair reward !

Deceleration: I worked in mining from the late 80's to the early 90's FIFO and loved it.

In 1983 Hawke declared that Labor would never lose another election. What he meant by that was he would immigrate specific minorities like muslims who because of anti democratic traditions were vote one vote all communities headed by Imams or other patriarchs.

Well Liberals saw they could play that game too and from that moment Australia became a stupid country.

Multiculturalism is a hodge podge of dual citizenries with high exclusivity ratios that lead to violence and destitution in poorer communities into which immigration is politically ENGINEERED. Think Auburn, punchbowl for example.

When EVERY suburb has High density migrant hostels so that every person rich and poor are bearing the brunt of the external costs of immigration. Or alternatively if every immigrant pays their $300,000 infrastructure levy to make crowded slums socially acceptable, two outcomes will occur to bring back sanity, intelligence and decency to the Australian socio-political landscape:

1. The wealth creators who depend on high immigration as proxy slavery will feel the HEAT of their own lust for easy power and baulk at further demands for high immigration

2. All but the genuine immigrants will baulk at carrying the burden of their own infrastructure costs and go to some other stupid-country destination like Canada.

Either way Australia will root out the greatest legalised systematic corruption seen since the slave trade era. No longer will profiteers be able to brand and wish for justice in our communities as xenophobia or racism from the vantage of Anglo Vaucluse or Jewish St. Ives

Ya think, Jay Of Melbourne?

>>...so "Racism" is a baseless charge against our wholly Anti Racist governing and managerial castes<<

So where does this offering from KAEP fit into your worldview?

>>...he would immigrate specific minorities like muslims who because of anti democratic traditions were vote one vote all communities headed by Imams or other patriarchs... Multiculturalism is a hodge podge of dual citizenries with high exclusivity ratios that lead to violence and destitution in poorer communities into which immigration is politically ENGINEERED... EVERY suburb has High density migrant hostels so that every person rich and poor are bearing the brunt of the external costs of immigration... Australia will root out the greatest legalised systematic corruption seen since the slave trade era. No longer will profiteers be able to brand and wish for justice in our communities as xenophobia or racism from the vantage of Anglo Vaucluse or Jewish St. Ives<<

Or perhaps you believe that is a lone voice in the wilderness?

Pericles,

I am not racist.
Immigration like any policy can be used for the common good or for a minority of corrupt vested interests.
I like many of Julia Gillard's sovereign Australians are against:

* People profiting from immigration while dumping the REAL social, justice and infrastructure costs onto poor communities.

* The same people having undue political and media clout to further this unjust immigration schema while creating bogus statistics that always show the results of suicides, drugs, urban warfare are decreasing when everyone knows they are increasing.

* The improper use of the term RACIST to describe intelligent people who would like to see a just migration program where immigrants pay up front for infrastructure costs and all suburbs equally share the migrant burden with EVERY community from the elite suburbs to the greenfield slums. Far from being racist this policy shift would negate the dumbing down of Australian society and give us the community resources to show that we really have a care for citizens beyond the profit margins of a few elite individuals.

If you cannot discern the difference between racism and a call to truth and justice then maybe you have some vested interests you wish to hide and profit from.

PS people labelling others racist to get "ahead" generally are hiding the most sociopathic tendendies of all.

It's hard to believe that someone who works in HR could be unfamiliar with the Human Resources difficulties mining (and other big companies) in WA face.

It's quite difficult to bring workers across from the eastern states (this is reflected in the higher salaries), possibly even more difficult to train up the jobless (and those who due to our education system may be severely lacking in basic literacy and other important core skills) and then bring them across.

Forcing mining companies to ignore the rest of the world and operate with only the local pool of labour would inflict them with a burden that not even the most heavily unionised government department would need to operate under.

Seems the media has finally found some immigrants they don't like.

This time they come with passports and a willingness to work.

Let them in, I say, and let them stay afterwards and contribute to our great nation.

The way countless other immigrants have done in our nations past. Who cares if a tiny percentage of them may be from Shanghai or Guangzhou instead of London or Belfast?

Pericles.
Your point?
Kaep is, as far as I can gather calling for greater assimilation, which puts him squarely in the Anti Racist camp.
Leftists and "respectable "conservatives agree on assimilation as the end point of multiculturalism, they concur that the state should step in and force people to assimilate, the only difference is in rhetoric.
Why, did the description of Anglo Saxons and Jews as privileged groups rattle you?
I think this whole debate would flow a lot better if people were just honest, I'll be "objective" for a second and suggest that Kaep makes the suburbs sound like warzones and depicts our society as fractured along ethnic lines, which is far from the truth.
I live in Darebin, a very mixed locality both in racial and socio economic terms, it's a highly agreeable environment, even places like Sunshine and Dandenong are still seing steady increases in housing prices, so they can't be too bad if people with jobs and access to finance are willing to buy a home there.
If Kaep wants to talk about dysfunctional communities, crime and racial strife he needs to look at Brixton, Detroit or Oakland, we're nowhere near that scenario, it's not even on the horizon.

Jay,

Darebin was rated 386th of 590 Australian Local Government Areas in the BankWest Quality of Life Index 2008.

A lot of your fellow citizens don't agree with you. That doesn't sound too agreeable to me. This makes you sound more like a property developer than an unbiased citizen.

Further, the Greek dominated council had to be sacked in 1997 because factional brawling over development applications brought rendered the council dysfunctional.

Timeo danaos dona ferentes.

Also the film Death in Brunswick highlights the DUMB modus operandi of suburban warfare along racial lines over property and women in Victoria. Its appalling. I see attempts to sweep it under the carpet to protect vested interests as the dumbest thing about this, if we are honest, not so great nation.

Now I've outlined how to fix the situation and its not just to do with making migrants assimilate. The real key is forcing those who profit from engineered immigration to realise they are the real racists by insisting that their elite suburbs share as many immigrants and boat people as any other suburb in Australia. This can be done and it WILL put an end to the national utter dumbness that the author of this blog speaks of.

A succinct summary of why Australia is a stupid country:

"Why, pharaohs have slaves, in all of Europe noblemen had peasants and in Australia Local Government aldermen have immigrants.
Eventually, ownership consolidates and the devil takes the hindmost to whoops of joy and BIGGER casinos"

But not on MY WATCH.

I don't have the time to read through all the comments but I'd like to have my say on the issue of import labour and why it IS needed.

Mining is one of the few industries that can afford to pay excessive wages for people & skills in regional Australia, which should be good for the economy as a whole, but it is not.

What high wages in areas like Mackay have done is:
- Drive up the price of living for everyone in the town to the point where kids can't afford to move out of home, so instead move to Brisbane (or similar).
- Knock on effect is a "brain-drain" for the rest of the economy, as mining only requires a very small number of skill areas.
- People can't afford to "move up there for work"; they simply can't afford the rent without a garanteed mining job.
- Local industry can't afford skilled labour, so many small businesses go bust, or have negative growth despite demand from the other half of the economy (but its a HR issue!)
- The town is hollowed out by the mining boom, leaving mining and hospitality (if you can find enough 16 & 17 year olds to wait tables, clean dishes, and cook) the only industries in town

Problem with all this? When they shut the mine, they leave a once thriving town a mere shell of its former existence with no industry, no jobs, and no hope.

Now how does cheap imported labour fix this? well for one, you can start to fill a lot more unskilled positions (janitorial, etc) with migrant workers meaning the local workers - skilled or not - are in less demand, lowering the overall wage bill for the area. This should in turn prevent the massive spike in the cost of living.

So it's not simply a case of putting more money in the pockets of the miniers, it is helping prevent more social and economic problems from spiralling out of control in the two-speed economy of regional Australia.

Ahh, wasn't the Snowy Scheme built using imported migrant labour? In Tasmania it was migrants from Europe who were the backbone of the labour force that built dams in isolated areas. Importing workers is nothing new. This is a $9 billion project that needs 6000 workers and there is no way this country can provide all them, particulary skilled and semi-skilled. Seems some are spooked because some ALP dinosaur happened to say they would be Chinese when there was no substantive evidence.

Typical of the ALP government to turn a good news story about a massive project that will earn future governments billions into a story of mismanaged xenophobia.