It is with disgust that i report that Dinmore Abbotoirs near Brisbane is employing 70 foreign workers and will employ 200 more by the end of the year, as no Australian worker wants to do it.

There are places in this country, such as regional areas, where you will find an abundance of desperate unemployed poeple who would give anything for an opportunity like this, yet it goes overseas.

Any trade or skill can be learned in an Abbotiors in a relatively short amount of time. It is absolutely disgusting that we are looking overseas when we have the resources in our own backyard, with less effort and less expense.

We need to look within for solutions before we look elsewhere.

I will bring anyone personally to some Areas in Regional NSW where you have fit, strong skilled men with little opportunity. What about giving them a fair go?

We dont want temporary overseas demand pushing up the lower end of the rental market, making it even harder for those on the cusp.

We dont want segregated parts of society with ghettos of short term visitors who send the rewards of their labour overseas, not keep it in our economy.

Pathetic and disgusting. The government should step in, perhaps to provide incentives or restrict the overseas labour trade so there are little alternatives.

Wake up.

More to the point Realist, perhaps many the unemployed of rural and regional NSW wouldn't be unemployed if their abattoirs hadn't been closed in the first place. For small towns such as Aberdeen in the Hunter Valley, and Guyra on the Northern Tablelands, the meat industry was the main source of income. When the abattoirs closed these towns virtually shut down. Now apparently the abattoirs that stayed open, and presumably took on the extra work, can't find the staff. Of course, I'm sure the good people of Guyra who have lived in the town their entire life would be delighted to move to, say, Warwick.

What happed to all the unemployed Australians that the Federal Government was going to take a big stick to because they were not accepting certain jobs, not retraining and not relocating?

Judging from the fuss made, it seemed that there would be ample employees for Australia’s needs if people were made to work instead of staying on the dole out of fastidiousness or sloth, or lack of training.

With all these ‘slackers’ out there, there should have been no need to import, semi-secretly (how many people knew about it?) 30,000 foreigners, who will send most of their earnings out of the country, in the last seven months, but further increase the strain on our utilities and infrastructure.

“Sponsor companies have to pay overseas workers $39,000 a year”. Is this irrespective of the type of work they do? What would an Australian worker doing the same work be paid?

These workers can apply for permanent residency after 30 months, and most wish to become Australian citizens, according to the agent interviewed. It would be interesting to know if those staying are included in the immigrant numbers revealed to the public, and if there is further tinkering with immigration numbers we don’t know about.

The PM might be truthful in his aversion to ‘guest workers’ in a technical sense, be his less honest in his claims about getting Australians back to work and training.

The ‘457 visa’ is a pretty slippery way to avoid his obligations to Australians in the area of training and work opportunities. Described by ‘The Australian’ as importing “guest workers by stealth”, there is apparently no limit to the numbers of these workers who can be brought in each year.

PS

I wonder how hard it is to “prove” you can’t find suitable Australian workers.

I wonder about a lot of this stuff,1 hour a day makes you employed,people over 50 laid off as being to old,i,m 59 worked in the construction ind most of my life,my knees have given out I have rung jobs first thing they ask how old are you or date of birth,once thats answered it pretty much dont call us we will call you,they have a massive underemployment problem in OZ but like most of the figures released by the Govt unemployment, inflation, ect its just bull,besides this Govt dont know anything and if there is a possibilty they do blame someone else,anyone else never themselves.

Realist, the thing is that you can't force people to move to areas where there is employment. Abattoirs in WA have been loudly screaming for workers for 3 years now, advertising on radio, you name it they have tried it. Alot of people simply don't want to work in abattoirs and alot of people don't want to move to WA regional areas, where the work is. Trucking sheep across Australia is not a solution. Thats in fact what has been happening, but it
makes no economic sense, nor is it acceptable from an animal welfare perspective.

Contract workers from overseas are the only solution left, unless you can think of a way of solving the problems that I have mentioned

Whether or not you can force workers to move to areas where there is work we will never know. The Government recently talked tough about people who seemed to prefer the dole and other social welfare benefits to much of the work available. But, as usual, it was all talk and nothing has happened.

The fact remains that if people don't take on available jobs that don't fit their ideals, even if it does require relocation, and look for something better while they are at least getting an income, they will be regarded with suspicion. Most people would prefer work to the dole, but there are increasing numbers of people appearing on TV current affairs programs telling us how they are better off on the dole than working. And, they are getting away with it.

These people are helping the Howard Government to continue importing foreign, compliant and willing-to-do-anything workers. They could just as easily contribute to the cessation this sneaky practice.

I had never in my lifetime been able to obtain sustainable, long-term work at a liveable wage, within a reasonable commuting distance of my home and on fair and reasonable terms.

Oh and I don't consider my expectations to have been fastidious. Of course, when employers are fastidious, there is no question, they have an assumed entitlement to be but we're supposed to be the servant classes, to do the bidding and be as disposable and exploitable as the upper middle classes desire.

I recently posted a response to a similar quandary. As a Sole Parent who has primarily self funded (some concessions from government)a re-skilling programme over the last 11 years through TAFE's (NSW, WA, NT) it is the piss poor attitudes of many employers to the issues of "skills" that is a real problem needing urgent attention.

3 month 'probation period' and then you will get signed up as an Apprentice - just enought time to get the Bonus from the relevant authority and then tell the hapless young aspiring trainee/apprentice that the "...work is running short I can't keep you on..."

Slave Labour in any other terms. Many of these trades experiencing so called "Skills Shortages" are due to the lousy remuneration being paid. The issues associated i.e 'Conditions' have a bearing on the availability of skilled persons to do these jobs.

Darwin = $20.00/hour for Boilermakers. $22.50/hour for Sparkies & Refrigeration Mech's, $18.00/hour for Fitters. When Trades Assistants are being paid easily $3 -5 per hour more than tradespersons - who would want to go to TAFE for 3-4 years only to find this out on the job site.

This morning's Adelaide front-page story is how Halliburton have been importing 'slave labour' from Indonesia to work in the South Australian outback. The contract involves labourers working for $30 a day for weeks without a day off, an ten going to a pay rate of $80 per day.

If the multinationals are rorting the visa immediate change is necessary.

Richard Tonkins post cites yet another example of business and government importing workers to break the working conditions of Australian workers. Some examples I am aware of
1978 - Abbattiors in Rockingham or Fremantle laid off workers because cheaper to export live sheep. Very tough for the 1200 slaughtermen and their families.
1991 - Telstra imports 8000 IT workers from Ireland in february then lays off 8000 Australians in August
since 1992 - ANZ bank has had an IT division in Bangalore India and has been progressively reducing its IT staff in Australia
in 2001 Coles Myer laid off 1200 Australians but there had been a gradual increase in Indian subcontractors seen in head office
Since about 1998 the Australian Tax Office outsourced its IT function to EDS. EDS writes all its software in India, Australians need not apply.

There are far too many large organisations that are not contributing to the community within which they live i.e. Australia and our first choice should be to look after our own.

We are an employer and have employed under the sponsorship scheme and benefited greatly from it. We could not find any Australian with the many skills required to be a farm manager. He was originally an employee on a working visa and it was training that we gave him that gave him the talents required to take a higher position and be very good at it.
We have extreme difficulty finding anyone that is willing to work in this isolated rural area. Foreign visitors love the rural area and some like it so much they want to stay longer but can not without permanent sponsorship. Many Australians looking for work want to have work that does not interfere with their existing social life and accepting a job in an isolated rural area with little or no social life is not acceptable.
Another problem we have is keeping Australian workers families happy out here where some wives feel deprived of city luxuries. Divorce is common and then we are instructed to send up to a half of the fathers net wage in maintenance to keep their family who have moved to the city. These workers can't see the point of working if they don't get to keep the money they earn as it is far easier to take a less paid job in the city or go on the dole and forget about the maintenance.
You can't expect employers to provide a charity to employees, it is a two way arrangement and usually it works well. Employers employ employees because the job is too much for management to do alone but employers can not afford to make a loss on the deal as it is less hassle to do less work alone. It is getting people interested in even applying for a job in the country that we find the hardest.
With globalisation, perhaps labour is another resource that will soon be deregulated and Australian labour will need to compete with labour from other countries on an equal playing field.

Labour shortages IN AUSTRALIA have nothing to do with 'slave labour', globalisation or a lack of jobs in metropolitan or 'non rural areas'. Putting aside the issue of jobs in rural areas it is plain inaccurate to state that it is hard to find employment in cities. The Australian Small Business Association has stated its members have problems finding labour in ALL areas of Australia. The Chamber of Commerce has released reports stating 'unskilled labour' is hard to find.

From personal experience I note that when I was at uni as an under graduate it took me 1 day of going from pub to pub to find empoyment as a glassy which amounted to $450.00pw for 4 nights work as a bar labourer (emtying ash trays, stocking fridges etc). In addition I noted that walking down the main street of Paddington on the week end I counted no fewer than 4 adverts for kitchen hands, waiters, receptionists and labourers. My builder mates struggle to find apprentices (whom they are willing to train in return for reliability). And herein lies the problem.

Young Australians in particular (my generation included) can't bring themselves to admit that reliability, presentation and hard work equal a job. For an able bodied 18-40yo there are no excuses for not having a job in Australia- a bloke rocking up for an interview in a dress, with an earing through his nose who will only work for 1k a week finds no sympathy with me.

I for one am in favour of national service being reintroduced for 18yo of both sexes on the proviso that recruits were not posted out of the country to places like iraq and Afghanistan. Not only would it give young people a healthy boost to their savings, it would also teach respect, discipline, personal grooming and the value of hard work.

wre

I too like the idea of national service although I would include community service as well as military and there should be scope for training in new skills eg. apprenticeship. It should also be flexible eg. 12 months over a period of ten years - either in one large block or part-time. There could be exemptions for some occupations who are having difficulty finding workers eg. farmworkers, rural doctors or nursing.

Surely "shortage of workers" is just shorthand for saying that a business is paying more that it wants to be paying.

In a free market... how can there be a shortage. Supply and demand right? If you pay enough, the workers will become available.

For an able bodied 18-40yo there are no excuses for not having a job in Australia- a bloke rocking up for an interview in a dress

wre is this a covert attack on me? Say hello if Paddington is Sydney & your wandering along William St, and as long as the attitude above prevails, you don't need to ask why you find me where you do.

This is only part of the story. Regional areas do have skills shortages but this country also has a huge backlog of jobs that need to be done but which simply do not exist at current wage rates. A good example is environmental repair, weed control in national parks, feral animal control and numerous on-farm roles that need to be done but get postponed due to higher priorities and budget limitations.

And there are people all over the world who would jump at the chance to do these jobs for only a quarter of the Australian wage because it will still be better than what they can get back home. And provided they take the job of their own free will then any questions of exploitation are a bit misdirected. And provided there are strict measures in place to ensure that these people do not end up in the existing jobs of locals, then local wages and conditions can be protected.

Such schemes already work in Singapore, Saudi Arabia and many other countries where each nationality of expat is paid more than what they would get at home but less than a local would be paid. And it works.

So any time you want to get serious about getting rid of a million hectares of rubber vine, think about the national interest and then think about awarding the work to the lowest bidder. Because it is going nowhere at the moment.