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.