Australia must confront the very real trouble we are in because of skills shortage and willing workers shortages.
We just do not have workers to do some work, once workers toured this country doing work other did not like picking peas, good money could be earn and not too bad a lifestyle.
Not now, a person holding a stop and go bat directing traffic may well earn 70% more than a worker picking fruit and living in a shed.
We have failed to train workers over at least a ten year span, country town men and women are leaving home to work in western Australia or Queensland mines earning close to 6 figure sums, why stay in rural Australia for less.
We need an answer it may , indeed is out of our hands must be imported workers.
My only concern with that is they must be treated well, not as they have been disposable people!
It is not a moral action to use these people then send them home.
It may interest some that jobs are on offer in south Australia, unskilled low paid jobs, workers can not be found, is the answer more money?
We still have unemployed, some indeed are work shy but is it fair to ask them to migrate within the country they belong to to find work? if the job pays enough yes.
We do not have enough skilled workers for the next ten years and it will bring trouble for us all.

Belly,
You know, Vic Rail used to run special fruit pickers trains from Melbourne to fruit areas and people would work their holidays to suit fruit picking. All paid cash in hand and many a husband and wife paid off their house/land by fruit picking. One also used to be able to go to markets unloading fruit and veg for a few hours before starting normal job. All this encouraged those that were willing. Keating Gov stopped this by insisting ALL workers had to have a Tax File Number to get a job, and sent a few inspectors to fruit areas so the extra pay dried up. People decided it was not worth it for the hard work, and it IS hard work make no mistake about that.

Australia has to train our own skilled workers and give incentives for others to work to stop all the wages going out of the country.

I really think that people willing to do the hard jobs (e.g. fruit picking, shearing, etc.) and dirty jobs should be tax free. The money soon is back in the economy anyway and that is far better for us than wages leaving our shores.

The Labor government (under Whitlam) disbanded the technical schools. They have never been brought back. We were told all kids should aim for university instead. This was said to be "equal opportunity". We were also told that there was something shameful about not making the grade to enter university, that technical education was somehow second rate.
When the Coalition did endeavour to do something about the situation they were halted in their tracks by the Australian Education Union who said, "No, what we need is more money in our present schools."
It has also reached a point where we no longer teach "dangerous" subjects like woodwork and metalwork (and heaven forbid that a girl might be allowed to do them!)
The old tech schools produced great results - previous governor of South Australia was a 'tech-school boy' and many of them are the bread that holds up professional butter.
But, ask the AEU and they will tell you that all we need is more money wasted on social education programmes and curricula that do not focus on the basics that will allow the student who wishes to go on learning alone.

Belly,
Its the same for nurse training. Nothing wrong with a girl of 15 doing nurse training at the regional hospital and earning some money as an apprentice. Some elites just thought it was more prestegious to have a Uni degree to fit their professional status. Now we have a nursing shortage.

I garrantee I will still hold nurses in the highest esteem with or without a Uni degree.

I have gone to those schools Communicat, let us stop the Liberals are to blame thing here its both party's that owe us better.
China and that other giant importer of our minerals is driving our skills shortage.
Right now country workers are no longer picking fruit[ Banjo I earned my fathers fortnights pay in a few days picking fruit]
Country workers, farm owners are driving massive mining gear for wages that are extraordinary, not enough of them .
Lower skilled workers not wanting to gain new skills or move are earning much less training is being offered by international firms but not enough Australians are taking it.
Who takes the low income jobs?
We do not have enough workers to fuel this mining boom, it may last 30 years.
It drains rural towns who fills those jobs?
It continues to push wages up in those industry's that need the skills head hunting is not the answer the pool is not big enough.
Migration frightens some not me we will have no other option soon.
Standing still, not producing is not an option in a world market on fire.

Very funny, Belly. Very funny. What this is about is what it has always been about. Undercutting wages with desperate people who will be sent back if they utter a peep of complaint. So what if people take well paid jobs over badly paid crap jobs? Why not import what cant be produced economically here and support the development of other countries? I would have thought that having heaps of Australians in well paid jobs was a good thing. Evidently you would like to see more slaves about. Not me. I would rather see someone nut out a solution instead of the moronic call "More slaves! More slaves!".

What was the industrial revolution all about anyway? Couldn't the population have kept breeding like rabbits and solved all their economic woes? Gosh, now I'm starting to sound like a property developer.

Fester
Belly has made some good points and a few of your comments are certainly worthy of discussing further also.

You ask – Why not import what can’t be produced here?

That’s certainly a valid point fester unless you are implying that our Governments and authorities are so far out of wack they can’t run their own country and arrange a fair rate of wages.

I think what belly is saying is we should be able to stand on our own two feet and produce what we need to feed our families and provide employment for our future generations.

I find it really fascinating that nobody mentions the old school boys club – The National Party who have betrayed the farmers an flooded this country with cheap imports.

We can export after we value add and keep the money in our own country and still have enough left over to send aid.

Howard and the Nationals have failed miserable to provide a future especially in regional areas.
Australia will be in serious trouble in two or three years given this it will be right mate attitude while spending up big on credit cards.
Why do you think these countries are importing our raw materials fester?
It’s because they are buying jobs for their future generations.
Have you heard of sanctions?
Don’t ever think that can’t happen in Australia. It can and given today’s world I am sure it will. We will be in deep trouble if we don’t let some of the migrants come work and live in regional areas to re open the bush.
The country is our food bowl our real wealth and those who hasten to rush to the big mines are not thinking of the long term future of this nation and future generations.
I think you will find belly is.

To get his mining boom into perspective, the whole coal mining in the whole country is all of 26,000. I don't have the figures for the whole mining industry, but it shouldn't take a genius to work out that we should have easily be able to fill all those jobs and still have had sufficient skilled workers left over if the incompetent, indolent Howard Government had done its job properly and trained Australian workers.

Even now, I fail to see why need the distoritions caused by a boom in industry with such a minisucle workforce cannot be rectified soon enough without resorting to knee-jerk panic measures proposed by Belly.

Fester is right. If it is not possible to harvest agricultural produce economically without the use of slave labour, then we should consider importing it, at least unitil such a time as their is a need once again for those jobs by Australian workers.

Alternatively, we should consider re-erecting tariff barriers to prevent the import of fruit picked by slave labour overseas so that our own fruit pickers can be paid decently.

Many years ago, I read a story of an Australian pair who worked picking fruit. Their only signiificant asset they owned after many years of work was their car and the journalist noted that the male partner had lost most of his teeth as he was not able to afford dental care on his wages. I doubt if matters have improved since then. Is it any wonder that Australians spurn this kind of work?

Do we really want to continue having such classes of citizens in this country?

The argument that people from outside Australia can be made to accept such miserably-paid occupations and be made to go on doing so indefinitely without posing a threat to the wage levels of the rest of the community is not only illogical, but implicity racist.

dagett

The minning boom will run out in twenty or thirty years.

What then?

I can see it now Australia`s food for coal and uranium programe.

Good one. Perhaps we should have a back up plan in order to feed
ourselves.

Would you leave your neighboug the reasonsibilty of feeding your kids? No

Nor should the Governments leave us dependant on China who is going broke.

We are at the mercy of China keeping their prices down.

Clever race the Chinese. Take our raw materials and jobs with it to improve "their ecconomy' Make us 'totally' dependant. Then what.?
Anyway do you know they use human excrement to grow veggies.?
Enjoy your tin tomatoes.yuk

As you rightly said-but it shouldn't take a genius to work out that we should have easily be able to fill all those jobs pale
pale replies
I totally agree with you and I think belly also pointed out it is not just the Howard Government we must also be aware the States run their own shows.
So in that Bellys right isnt he? They all need to lift their game.

So I fail to see how these are knee jerk reactions given you agree the Howard Government along with Nationals have failed to address this problem in the past.
The real question then must be whats going to happen in the future?

draggett said
"Fester is right.
pale replies You kidding! So its been stuffed up in the past but why worry!
dragget said
'Alternatively, we should consider re-erecting tariff barriers'

Pale replies Absolutlty now your talking.
Even the importers themselves recigine that that distortions are the profitabilty not intrinnsic to the product itself, but rather a product of market distortion in form of tariff and non tariff barriers .

daggett said
"Do we really want to continue having such classes of citizens in this country?"
pale replies
Like what? Why dont you ask belly about this mob down his way.-
Perhaps both Governments might learn from the `real Aussies`.
The salt of this Nation
http://www.aussiebushhats.com.au/catalog/advanced_search_result.php?

Belly;
I agree that all Governments,State and Fed, Lib and Lab, have let us down. Industry forewent staff training to get maximum short term profits and our Governments have only been looking to the next election. Industry is now being rewarded for its ineptitude by being allowed to import workers.

Telstra, for example, closed all its linesman training schools in NSW, to make the privatisation look better and recently were advertising overseas for linesmen. Thats industry foresight for you.

We have lost thousands of jobs from secondary industry over the years and now have the highest population ever, so I just do not believe we are short of workers. I think the figures are fudged. Many people are in part time or casual jobs that pay little. They deserve better.

State Governments used to brag about how many apprentices they put on each year, but not anymore.

No we urgently need to train our own workers and give more incentives to those willing to work. Australians are willing to work but not for nothing.

Paleif

When you keep bowing down to the call for slaves to save the economy, what exactly are you preserving? The deep South? When you dont have slave labour you have to innovate to make things cheaper. Bow down to the economic argument for slavery and the technology wont get off the ground.

The government could do more by nurturing innovation than by doling out 457 visas.

While I am on my soap box.

It is not ethicly or morally right for us to poach trained workers from other countries,simply on the grounds that we need them. These poorer countries need their trained workers more than we do. We are just greedy and lazy.

Industry should be told straight, if they want more skilled workers they must train them. Industry can afford gigantic profits and massive payouts to their executives, not to mention gifts of millions to the major political parties. Its about time they were more constructive with their funds.

Why should our taxpayers foot the bill for staff training that puts money in industries pockets.

Fester I love it! get into me! but stay focused, I am hardly a candidate for lower income, hardly asking for that, a trade union official and proud card carrying member of the ALP
You however must keep an eye on me! I am from center unity! the right of the party, we are known to be a bit too realistic.
We dreadful people that we are understand world trade, that the chances of more than very small numbers giving up the cheap imports for Australian made at 3 times the prices is slim.
We have a view no matter who is in power the skills shortage is real, and a problem.
I would ask we get back to the thread and reality.
Country workers must not be isolated from this high earning chance and for the most part the young are not, they fly in fly out for 3 times the wages of those who stay.
I am sickened by the thought we could use workers then dispose of them like another western giant of industry.
Migration is far better than such for both sides.
This country's birth rate is down, we can not produce the workers we need.
We have failed to educate the ones we have.
Communicat read his post, blames a government thrown out of office in 1975! The following governments must have all been blind!
26.000 in coal mining? come on coal is part but not all mining Newcastle would see much more than that figure in lost jobs without coal no Newcastle.

Banjo

Banjo Said-

It is not ethicly or morally right for us to poach trained workers from other countries,simply on the grounds that we need them. These poorer countries need their trained workers more than we do. We are just greedy and lazy.

Industry should be told straight, if they want more skilled workers they must train them. Industry can afford gigantic profits and massive payouts to their executives, not to mention gifts of millions to the major political parties. Its about time they were more constructive with their funds.

Why should our taxpayers foot the bill for staff training that puts money in industries pockets.
Posted by Banjo, Wednesday, 19 September 2007 5:54:16 PM

PALE REPLIES
Banjo
Well Said - "Perfect".
You should throw your hat in for next P M

Thank You

"I am hardly a candidate for lower income, hardly asking for that, a trade union official and proud card carrying member of the ALP"

That's great Belly, so I guess you would be familiar with the attempts to undercut wages in Australia with cheap os labour from when the convicts stopped coming? Plenty have suggested the economic necessity in past times also.

"Migration is far better than such for both sides.
This country's birth rate is down, we can not produce the workers we need.
We have failed to educate the ones we have."

Not so Belly. Migration entails a huge infrastructure cost to cope with a growing population. And when Australia poaches skilled workers from os, the home country loses. Remember the brain drain? Without the growth you would have plenty of skilled workers to keep the mining boom going.

Will these cheap foreign labourers on visas ever go back home?

There were hundreds of thousands of mexicans marching in cities across America recently who had lived in the country for over twenty years or more who refused to be deported when the government decided to crack down on them. As far as they're concerned America is now their home and there are too many of them for the government to do anything about it.
Will these visas just be rubber stamped by employers to allow these workers to stay every time their expiry date comes up? Until they've been in the country for decades and have to be granted citizenship.

This lack of training of skilled workers shows clearly the lack of foresight by our elected leaders who have failed to make it compulsory for businesses and companies to train people. They themselves have been busy privatising everything in sight like the railways who used to train thousands of tradesmen across the country.

They still have not made it compulsory for industry and big companies to take on apprentices as far as I know, but are further pandering to their profiteering by allowing them to bring in cheap labour.

What about all this money they hand out like lollies at election time to win elections. Is this money they should have been using to train young people in all the industries they sold and privatised.

The banks should never have been privatised either and America is finding that out to their cost at the moment. Banks are too pivotal to the whole economic wellbeing of a country to be left to their own devices. The great depression should have demonstrated that.

Fester and others. let us not divert the thread, the shameful intent to use both Australian workers and imported slave laborers is different than worker/skills shortage.
While we are told bananas rot on the ground, NT fruit does too, the only connection to worker shortage is low wages in those industry's.
Workers are rightly so saying I want far more, shoppers are asked to pay all time high prices while pickers are asked to work for less.
The real shortage of workers sees few willing to do that.
Have we any of the human good will we had post ww2 left? we once tried to help other poorer country's under schemes like the Colombo one.
Now some think importing cheap Labour is a moral action?
We must confront the fact we can and must do much better in skills training.
And that some of the impact is worker shortage in some industry's.
And the claim poaching workers from over seas? what should every country lock its doors, unthought out claim.
Migration is better than stagnation.

Belly

The Colombo Plan was devised to educate the citizens of developing nations, thus providing them with a skilled workforce to further their development. Now Labor an Coalition governments alike see developing countries as an opportunity to pilfer what few skilled workers they have left.

You talk of fruit rotting on the ground for want of labourers to pick it. But to call for the importation of cheap labourers every time a business cant cut it merely the egalitarian values of this great country. But if you want feudalism the open the flood gates by all means.

What about a technical fix? Technology always seems to be the great Saviour for any problems of a growing population, so why cant it help with the skills shortage? Anyhow, think of all the workers freed up without mass immigration. It would solve the housing affordability crisis also.

"The argument that people from outside Australia can be made to accept such miserably-paid occupations and be made to go on doing so indefinitely without posing a threat to the wage levels of the rest of the community is not only illogical, but implicity racist."

You miss the point completely Dagget. There are jobs for around
40K$ a year, like meatworkers, which Aussies simply don't want.

Given that Aussies don't want or need those jobs, it makes
perfect sense to offer them to people from other countries, on
a contract basis. Seasonal migrant workers have been around in
Europe for decades, in a win win situation. Not everybody
wants to live here. Many prefer their own cultures, friends,
etc, they just want to make a quid. Given that they can make
here in a month, what they make in a year back home, it
makes perfect sense for us to give them that opportunity.
Everybody wins!

"Everybody wins!"

Umm.....Not these guys, Yabby.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/09/12/1189276810208.html

These schemes need close scrutiny, lest abuses spoil any potential benefits. Historical precedent suggests that the Simon Legrees of the world tend to poison the well.

Meatworkers wages are hardly a major cost anyway, Yabby. Meatworks could absorb greater wage costs, but thanks to the 457 visa they dont have to worry.

"Meatworkers wages are hardly a major cost anyway,"

The are actually THE major cost in putting a sheep down
a chain. Often more then the sheep is worth to the farmer.

As regards the exceptions on 457s, anything we humans do
will be misused, so we have to deal with those cases.

Some people abuse their partners, we haven't banned marriage
yet.

The point is, bar a few exceptions, 457s can be a win win
all round, so make perfect sense.

think, until Yabby is a little more specific about these unfilled jobs, which he says offer $40,000 PA, we need to take his claims with a grain of salt. In any case, even assuming that $40,000 is the base salary without shift penalty rates, weekend work or overtime, it doesn't sound particularly generous for work which wrecks most bodies well before retirement age and entails all sorts of biological hazards.

If anyone wants to know where uncontrolled immigration is likely lead us, read "Diet for Dead Planet" by Christopher D. Cook, written in 2004 and revised in 2006 (RRP AU$29.95). This is an account the whole food production system of the US, from the provision of seed, fertilisers and pesticides to farmers, to its sale to the consumer from supermarkets, and fast food outlets. I suggest you don't read it around meal times:

(start of excerpt from "Diet for a Dead Planet")

Behind the factories polished front, assembly lines churn 7,100 pigs into packaged product each day. It's not America's biggest meat-packing plant, but it is brutally efficient. Jose, a rib cutter, works with three others slicing rib plates into 14,200 pieces a day, that's 3,550 cuts made per person. "It's very tough," he says. "We usually take about three seconds for each rib, sometimes ten seconds if there's a lot of fat."

The workers here, mostly impoverished immigrants from Mexico and elsewhere and don't last much longer than the pigs. "Every week there are new workers and every week, others leave," says Jose, "In two weeks I have seen about two hundred people leave." They leave, he says, because the company keeps speeding up the production line. To protect its narrow margins, the company pushes the line to the human breaking point - and often beyond it.

(tobecontinued)

(continuedfromabove)

"When we first got here we were killing 5,000 pigs in ten hours," says Maria, a fifty four year old recruit from El Paso who worked at Premium Standard Foods (PSF) for more than one year, packing and lifting thirty pound boxes of pig-feet. "Now we the belt is at full blast with less people working on the line." We were doing pretty well when it was ten hours. Now they are trying to kill us by killing 7,100 in eight hours."

(daggett: The workers there are denied toilet breaks during the shift. One worker who had morning sickness said she hand been told to vomit into the garbage can next to the production line.)

Rivera, thirty four, winces as he tries to close his fist. He says he cuts thousands of chunks of fat each day without receiving any training or supervision. "Your wrists, elbows, arms - everything hurts," he says. "I'm young, and I don't want my arms to be messed up." Like Rivera, Jose feels pulses of pain when he closes his fist. But when asked if he visits the company doctor, Jose says, "No, because the company told us if we went to the company doctor, we would have to pay. None of the migrants have health insurance. It costs too much money.

(end of excerpt from "Diet for a Dead Planet")

This gives some idea of what many US workers have to compete against these days. Make no mistake. This is exactly how Australia will turn out if those calling for more 'guest' workers or immigrant workers get their way.

Fester you are carrying on a bit aren't you?
My posts highlight low wages is not the answer I seek, yours seem to not understand we can not use technology to replace workers.
And is that what you want?
Skills shortage is real we can not avoid the fact international trade is driving it and part of that trade is workers.
Review the Colombo plan, it was not just education, once we in the west thought we should help third world country's.
I work with members who are Australians working for an international firm.
It is high tec and world class, it took untrained country men and trained them, they are now world class, and will work all over the world.
Ordinary bush workers once taking home about $550 a week, now$180.000 a year, word record breaking outputs, and Asian bound.
That is one of thousands of skills story's, do you understand why such jobs are out there?
Some do not want a life on the road, skills are needed even in this wage bracket and it will get worse no matter what we do.
To tell the truth, say we must both up skill and make fairer use of the workers we import is not a sin.
Constantly I am baffled by the lefts ability to find fault but never answers.

"If anyone wants to know where uncontrolled immigration is likely lead us"

Who is talking of uncontrolled migration? Fact is I think that you
don't have the foggiest as to what is happening in WA, which
covers about a third of Australia, with only 10% of the population.

Yet that 10% generates 40-50% of Australia's exports, something
you should be thrilled about, given you Eastern Staters are unable
to pay your own bills.

Like it or not, those export $ are required, so that you can maintain
your living standards and those industries need labour. If Eastern
Staters don't want the jobs, then 457s make perfect sense and
are a win-win all round. That is quite different to "uncontrolled
migration" and the panic about population in SE Qeensland.

I still maintain that WA should secede, we'd be better off without
you lot :)

Daggett, because you have read a book about the American food
industry, does not mean that you know anything about the meat industry
in WA. Have you ever been in a modern meatworks? I doubt it.

Next you'll be complaining about the live sheep trade too. What
do you want? That we dig a big hole, shoot the livestock and
bury them?

We really live in a whole different country over here, with a whole
different set of problems. The more I read on this forum,
the more I realise that most you don't have the foggiest about
the situation in WA. 457s might not suit SE Queensland, but
they are ideal for a go ahead state like West Australia, where
overpopulation is just not an issue

Belly, the figure of 26,000 employed in the coal mining industry came from Professor Ian Lowe in an interview on "Late Night Live" Thursday 13 September. Program details are at: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/stories/2007/2032396.htm

No doubt, he would have obtained this figure from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Such a figure would be consistent with statistics that I have heard throughout the years. I remember being constantly amazed at how small the mining workforces actually were. I recall around 1992 reading an ABS publication that the entire mining workforce in Tasmania was little more that 2,000.

Possibly Lowe's figure may not have included those who transport coal or port workers, but the figure strikes me as surprisingly small given that this sector is booming at the moment.

---

Yabby, real immigration figures, as opposed to official figures are 300,000.

This was revealed in Ross Gittins' article of 12 June 2007 "Back Scratching at a National Level" at http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/backscratching-at-a-national-level/2007/06/12/1181414298095.html

It is widely acknowledged that a major factor in Howard winning Government in 1996 was the unpopularity of Labor's high immigration program. That is why immigration was cut back to 68,000 in Howard's first year. Does anyone need reminding, opposition to high immigration was a key factor in Howard's re-election in 2001? Who can forget his words, "We decide who comes to this country, and the circumstances in which they come."?

Yet in spite of Howard's obviously disingenuous undertaking, immigration has since rocketed to 300,000 with even sex workers having been admitted to the country with section 457 visas.

In "Mind the traffic" in the Spring 2007 edition of Dissent Magazine (http://www.dissent.com.au), Melody Kemp wrote, "I have met people wearing dark glasses in Bangkok, who told me that traffickers can pass readily through Australia's porous coastal boundaries, inserting workers into far-flung regional settlement where official eyes and ears less perceptive and employers eager for labour."

So, yes it seems to me that that the fears that we are losing control of immigration are very well grounded.

(tobecontinued)

(continuedfromabove)

If episodic labour shortages cause problems for part of the economy from time to time, then why can't the Government simply withhold approval for the odd mining project here and there until these are rectified without resorting to panic measures which are destroying our social fabric, and threatening our own environment as well as the world's?

In a previous generation, Australia did very well, indeed, on a much lower resource basis. By March 1942, even before their defeat at the naval Battle of the Coral Sea, the Japanese Army had vetoed the Japanese navy's Plan to invade Australia, because they realised just how technologically advanced this country was. (I wrote about this on the forum discussion "View discussion Can Australia ever be self-reliant for national defence?" at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=860)

Since then we have become a much stupider country and have lost the edge that we had back then. Our manufacturing base has been exported to slave wage economies and our prosperity now depends upon real estate and flogging off our finite non-renewable mineral bounty.

My point about the meat industry stands. Many US meatworkers, both native and immigrant, now work as slaves. This is already largely true for many Australian workers today, as described in Elisabeth Wynhausen's "Dirt Cheap" of 2005 and the same fate lies ahead for many more Australian workers unless we put a stop to it now.

I think all those neoliberal economists who, back in the 1980's and 1990's, foretold so stridently of what an immensely prosperous future that globalisation and economic 'reforms' would bring, have a lot of explaining to do.

"then why can't the Government simply withhold approval for the odd mining project here and there"

Australia is still running a huge current account deficit and you
want to hold up exports? Are you crazy? The NW of WA is the
one place going ahead in leaps and bounds, gas projects everywhere
so that there are alternatives to coal, just no workers. Highly
paid workers at that! Do you want a banana republic Daggett?
Your policies are surely the way to make one.

Yes, Australia did well earlier, as people worked hard and the
country rode on the sheeps back. Nylon had not been invented yet.
The world has changed, get used to it!

Now Australia has it so good that some people don't see a need to
get out of bed and work for a living. John Hewson made a great point
last night on ABC tv. 30 years ago we'd buy a table, then some
chairs, a bed, slowly accumulating assets. Now people want the 4by2
house, with a pool and plasma, all instantly! Expectations have
changed, thats the big difference.

Working on a meatchain for 40 grand is slave labour? Daggett, you
get on your little bike and go see the real world out there.
The few Chinese etc who have been granted 457s, think this is
heaven on a plate!

Europe thrives and has thrived on seasonal contract workers. Once
they have made their money, they go home. Once
economies achieve a certain wealth, the locals don't want to do
the so called crappy jobs, they'd rather sit in front of a computer.
They have had life far too easy and I blame the parents.

If you don't want migrants in the East so fair enough, say so,
but don't hold up WA and our exports, as all those tax dollars
being sent over to you, happen for a reason, our performance
here in West Australia. 457s in West Australia make perfect
sense for everyone in Australia. Don't crap on the goose which
lays your golden eggs, so that you can live comfortably in
ingnorant bliss.

Ruddy hell daggert you draw a long bow! this welded on ALP voter only too well knows the issue was boat people not immigration.
We want a say in who comes here and how was indeed the slogan but what rubbish to see it as migration.
Let our xenophobic friend from the west withdraw if they want but it is in fact true WE DO NOT HAVE THE WORKERS we must import them ,in my view at fair pay.
I see no reason we should say workers shortage is a reason for under paying imported ones .slavery is dead isn't it?
And I have worked in those slaughter houses, have had many jobs, unlike some who are work shy, any work any job I today would do it again rather than feed on the public purse until I had no other choice.
We do, do we not? as Australians want a say in migration?
My wish would be for only , sorry yes only ,those who both value our culture while keeping their own come.
That children from these family's would not be told to hate us from childhood.
We will develop our country and export its goods or in truth some one else will.

Truly is hard to believe any one can say only 26,000 work in the coal mining industry, do not place too much value on some peoples figures.
Those who make the mining gear, the tyers, the massive trucks, the trains, the coal loaders and those who work in each.
Those who transport and those who feed the miners are employed in that industry.
Coal is by no means the only mining we do, in fact if overnight this country closed its mining, or could not sell its products?
Third world country instantly and forever.
Yabby rightly points out our balance of payments is in a very bad way, future trouble assured.
And part of the problem is skills shortage/ labour shortage.

Australia must see that before we all suffer.

Immigration does not improve per capit gdp, so is parasitic in that any profit derived can only come at the expense of other Australians. Immigration is a major contributor to the trade deficit, and thus also interest rates. It is also a major cause of the housing affordability crisis. Cut immigration and the skilled workers freed up from the task of providing for a growing population would satisfy the skills shortage.

There is also no reason to believe that technology will deliver further labour saving devices. Why is it that for population growth fans, technology is a cure all for the problems of a growing population, yet has nothing to offer to alleviate the shortage of skilled workers?

Fester
I will reply to your comment then go back later and catch up on other peoples.
Your question asking - Will they ever go home?
Thats gives me the impression your objections to people coming here to work and train others in regional areas is not based on your concerns to these poor buggers getting ripped off.

Rather you dont want them here and certainly not to work and perhaps decide to stay on and make Australia home.

You need not worry too much Fester because most do wish to return home to be close to family just like you and I.

However the people that are very interested in coming just to work a season or two are breaking their necks because they get paid much more than in their own countries so if slaves are involved its their not here.

Perhaps then in stark contrast to hard working honest people you dont mind the steady flow of migrants arriving in our major cities.

Many of these people have health problems draining our resources because do gooders arranged for them to have medi care cards and all the lerks and perks that Australia tax payers worked hard for given to them as they get off the plane.

Its a wonderful country for these non working migrants.
We supply housing dental doctors and of course centerlink .We also pay extra for special medication and the list is endless.

I was listening to a lady on the radio the other day trying to helpan elderly Australian born couple whos daughter is very ill
She couldnt asstistance from the Government and the girls medication is four thousand dollars a month.

If these people are happy to work hard by contrast to better their lives at Australia`s advantage I cant see the problem. So long as it is regional areas where we need to labour and not bludgers that use us.
We need these people to train aboriginal people in regional Areas.

daggett
I hear where you are coming from and what you are saying. Fester alike.
I have a big interest in regional areas and meat works. I totally agree with both of you on certain issues but guys as I pointed out who wants to rely of tin food from China to feed our country.
For God sake they grow it on humam excrument. You dont rely on your neighbour to feed your kids if your a good parent or any sort of a parent so what types of Governments are stupid enough to rely on China or elsewhere to feed Australia.
Somebody was complaing about infusructure. I cant remember who but you need jobs and infustructure to keep a country going.

I am the FIRST person to put my hand up and say STOP migration into our cities. STOP giving out center care payments and FREE everything out of over taxed hard working Aussies.

The FEW Aussies that do work work darn hard and THEY are carrying millions of lazy little bludgers who dont CARE where our food comes from and LIKE our jobs going overeas in FEAR of being made to work.

If you dont want more migrants the definatly dont vote labour I will give you the drum.

Because IF they win the elections its because of the high degree of labour imagrants that DONT want to work and DO want to bring in more and moire of the relatives to suck the life out of this country.
However please dont pick on the ones who want to come work dam hard in Abattoirs in regional areas.
We need those guys because Australians are mostly TOO lazy and its a discrace somebody has`nt made them get off their bums and
GET A JOB IN THE BUSH- It would do them good to work as our father and grandfathers worked. Then they might learn pride for their country pride for themselves. Enough pride top feed themselves at very least.! But ask when wer`e rounding up all the migrants bludging in the cities? - Thats different.

In most countries of the world, guest-workers should not pose too many problems:

However, in a country that :
-Cannot deport a convicted non-citizen drug dealer, because he was fortunate (or crafty) enough to have had a child born here.
-Provides free (i.e. tax-payer funded) legal support for those wanting to avoid returning -and allows them to squat even when legal appeals have been exhausted.
-Which sanctions generous family re-union scams.
-And which eventually pays generous social welfare to all and sundry .

There are solid grounds to tread– very cautiously!

We need to think a little deeper that what – in the short-term – is the most cost effective means of production .

Sigh,

PALE, if you want to attract people to the rural and regional areas, first provide the jobs. The reason people are leaving for the cities is because there aren't any jobs to be had.

Next, whichever one of the "anti-furrener" mob said that immigration is detrimental to our trade deficit. Umm nooo, what is detrimental to our trade deficit is government policy that is quite happy to let things like a $20 billion industry deficit slide (IT Trade deficit).

Instead of whinging and whining about those damn furreners how about you put forward realistic plans and policies for growing the economy? How about you put up?

Yabby, while I recognise the need for 457 visa's it does need reform. Its still a system designed for executive or specialist positions that has been expanded beyond its regulatory capacity.

Palief

If immigration carried an economic advantage for Australians I would be all for it, and harboring any resentment toward immigrants makes no sense. If there were to be any resentment it would best be directed at the Australians controlling immigration. They carry a moral obligation to justify their actions with sound evidence. From what I observe immigration is a tool for the enrichment of a few Australians at the expense of all.

I only wish to see a sound justification of the policy.

I also think that the potential of technology to transform civilisation is substantially underrated. You speak of how dreadful it would be to get our food from China, but this view assumes that technical innovation is no match for cheap labour. The skilled worker shortage should be seen as a stimulus for technical innovation to improve productivity. Undercutting wages with cheap labour will only stifle such innovation.

Horus
Here here and well said. It is time for Australian citizens to crack down on these people who have so much assitance from `certain political areas.`
Oh and of course Horus WE pay for all their legals as well did you know that.
Take a good look at the funding into the discrimantion people.

See where it comes from. Have you noticed Terry Orgermans clients over the years not many ordinary true blue Aussies are scooped up that I have noticed.

If meat workers or fruit pickers or farm hands want to go and work and make some money for their familes back home thats a win win for Australia and those familes.

I cant see a real problem either after three or four years if they can afford to buy some land to raise their family.
In fact ALL migrants IF accepted should ONLY go to regional areas to WORK.
To run farms like grandfathers fathers and mothers did. We should give them the same chance to dig and toil. Why not give the people WANTING to WORK more consideration than the politicaly advised ones =who arrive to flood the cities and group together with non English speaking people who dont want to work but want want want from this country.
They want free housing .They want Free Doctors. Where my lawyer they will say. I know my rights. All this encouraged and spurred on by some "with a political agenda to over throw the Government".

Another poster told me that ALP years ago introduced a policy that Government did not talk about migrants coming to Australia at election time.
Thats outragous! The Australian people WANT to talk about this. As a matter of fact its a number one issue with many.

Look if people will come and work in country areas where Aussies are too lazy to.- GOOD.

"If immigration carried an economic advantage for Australians I would be all for it,"

Fester, the problem is that you see the issue as black and white,
which its not. There are various kinds of migration. Refugees,
family etc, all heading for Sydney or SE Queensland are a different
kettle of fish and cause different problems to skilled migrants
heading for the oil, gas industries, or other export industries
in West Australia. They are increasing Australian wealth, unlike
those on the dole in Sydney etc.

Innovation is happening all the time, agriculture and mining in
Australia are leaders in their fields in that regard.

However capital today is mobile and increasingly so is industry.
If its too hard in Australia, move the whole lot offshore.
Fewer and fewer companies today even own the buildings they
occupy. They are rented for good reasons.

Sadly we actually tax labour through payroll tax, no wonder more
and more industries say stuff it and go overseas.

Yabby,

You wrote, "given you Eastern Staters are unable to pay your own bills."

I can assure you that with my very modest standard of living and my hard work that I pay all my own bills. Perhaps you should not assume that all Easterners are enjoying high incomes and profligate life styles.

Anyhow, don't kid yourself. West Australians aren't creating the wealth. All that is happening is that, without any regard for future generations, or the health of the planet, our bounty of finite non-renewable mineral resources is being wastefully extracted and exported at an accelerating rate. At this rate, tens of millions of years worth of accumulated wealth will be all gone in decades if the world's life-support system does not collapse first.

---

Yabby wrote, "Australia is still running a huge current account deficit and you want to hold up exports?"

Just hang on a minute.

Are you now trying to tell me that those we had been led to believe were managing our economy so well over the previous decades have brought about a situation where, unless we import millions more workers into a country running out of water and arable land, and which is having native vegetation stripped and native fauna threatened with extinction in order to house our existing population, that our economy will collapse?

Now, wouldn't you say that the Australian public are owed an explanation?

---

You wrote, "Working on a meatchain for 40 grand is slave labour?"

I did not say that. This is what I wrote:

"In any case, even assuming that $40,000 is the base salary without shift penalty rates, weekend work or overtime, it doesn't sound particularly generous for work which wrecks most bodies well before retirement age and entails all sorts of biological hazards."

This not the first time you have misrepresented me on OLO.

I also note you have dodged the question: Is $40K the base salary or is it what workers can hope to earn with shift penalties, overtime, and weekend work?

Also, let's also not forget that the cost of (...tobecontinued)

(...continuedfromaabove) living, particularly housing, has shot through the roof in WA.

In the Eastern Australia there is plenty of casualised backbreaking manual work that pays a pittance. It will only be a matter of time before that trend spreads to West Australia, particularly if immigration is not brought back under control.

In the U.S. meatworkers once enjoyed decent conditions, but that has changed to become the situation that described above (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=1040#18568), thanks to employers' ability to exploit large numbers of desperately poor immigrants. How long do you expect us to believe that wages in the meat industry will remain at $40K if employers' demands for unlimited immigration are agreed to? How long until the supply drives all of us back to the living standards of those that now exist in the US meat industry or even lower (see below)?

---

Belly wrote: "slavery is dead isn't it?"

Then, how would you describe these working conditions that immigrant Burmese workers in Thailand have to endure:

In the industrialised Samut Sakhon "trafficked Burmese workers have been found working between 17 and 22 hours per day for as little as AU$10 per month, in the Ranya Paew export seafood factory. ...

"One woman peeled 18-20kg of shrimps per day for which the official rate set at 10 baht (approximately AU$0.37). But her female agent argued that agent's fees and the cost of bedding and food, gloves and hygiene facilities had to be deducted from her wage. She did not receive a wage for the first three months. Anyone, male or female, trying to escape, was beaten in front of others by guards patrolling the factory." (from "Mind the traffic" in the Spring 2007 edition of Dissent Magazine (http://www.dissent.com.au) by Melody Kemp.)

Workers suffered other humiliations including: for women, having their hair shaved, constant surveillance by CCTV and having guns held to their heads if they were considered slack.

Workers who complain often face deportation.

This, and worse, are the sorts of conditions that millions of workers around the world face today. If this is not slavery, Belly, then what term would you use?

"unless we import millions more workers into a country running out of water and arable land,"

Who is talking of importing millions of workers? Australia btw is
not running out of arable land, we have more then we need.

The problem is, if we don't generate enough exports to pay for
our import bills, then we'll have to sell the assets we do have,
like land and mines, to pay for those bills.

You, along with all Aussies, rely partially on imports to lead your
cushy lifestyle. How much did you contribute to exports last year?
Most likely you are relying on somebody like me, and other
West Australians to do it for you. When it comes to the global
economy, you are unable to make a living in the
Eastern States.

Meatworkers make a base salary of around 40G. I did not follow
up on your question, as I felt it was trivial. As was your
overdramatisation of the meat industry. Its far safer then many
industries using highly toxic compounds. Smart employers rotate their
staff to avoid rsi, hard jobs are automated. What biological hazards
that arn't vaccinated against? Dagget, you sound like a drama queen :)

The meat industry has clearly stated that Aussies will be trained
first and employed first. But if they don't want the jobs, why
should farmers shoot their livestock and bury them in a hole, as
some nutcase over east has their tits in a tangle over 457s?

Housing in regional WA is cheap, its Perth that is expensive.

Please do not ever think skills shortage is only in mining or remote areas.
Civil construction in the eastern states has imported English skilled engineering ,because we do not have enough.
Site supervision is in the hands of people well into their 60,s, a gap exists between them and the next generation.
I just can not now or ever agree with the views expressed here on migrants.
If you carefully look you will find some claims they are little more than infectious disease on legs!
And want only to bludge on us Aussies, the reverse has been proving true.
People from Europe have achieved a great deal in short times, and showed us layed back Aussies how to do it.
I wounder how reference to Burma got into a thread about Australian skills/ worker shortage?
Coming from convict stock my family has wed people from European country's and each is proud and happy.
Australia will grow, we can improve our climate in some ways, and we will grow.
The problems are real the solutions are there let us explore them, mining towns are currently often fly in fly out but some may be quite happy to make a home in outback Australia , we should not stand in their way.

"Fester, the problem is that you see the issue as black and white,"

You raise good points Yabby, but my interest is in seeing action taken on the basis of sound evidence. Many skilled workers in the East are occupied with the task of building housing and infrastructure to cope with immigration charged population growth. With less immigration, a good many of these workers might otherwise be employed by the mining boom, thus contributing to Australia's prosperity. They would go from being a burden, as you suggest, to being an asset.

Ultimately the question of benefit is complex. My concern is that policy is being dictated by interests wishing to sell shoddy housing rather than the prosperity of Australians. If the evidence showed my concerns to be unfounded then I would accept it.

Fester, I think you will find that there is intense pressure on
both political parties, when it comes to migration. We saw the
noise that was generated, when the Govt tried to limit unlimited
refugee intake, of whomever decided to sail here.

Next you have present migrants, all trying to bring in various
relatives, no doubt they are pushing their MPs on this topic.

As to moving Australians to the NW to work, Govt can't force
where people live and work, its their lifestyle choice. Despite
the high wages, many don't want to live up there. Its pretty
hot, family and friends are elsewhere, so wives are often unhappy.

Fly in fly out is common, but that has problems too. Lots of
family bust ups, as whilst hubby is up there working, somebody is
shagging his wife etc.

Then you have your specialist occupations. There is a shortage
of mining engineers, geologists, oil and gas specialists etc.
Doctors, nurses and a few others. Last I read, they have a shortage
of something like 60'000 specialist workers, for projects that
have been approved.

So I think its a more complex issue, then just developers pushing
for migrants to sell them homes in the East.

Daggett, if you are concerned about land blowing away, then you
would be all for 457 visas for the meat industry. Fact is that
Govt can't legislate for rain. So the best thing to do in times
of drought it to double your shifts in present meatworks and
reduce the stocking rate. That way you don't get dustbowls.

Contract workers on 457 visas would be ideal for that kind of
situation, but politics won't allow it. Ok, so have a dust bowl
instead, with starving livestock on your tv screen.

Daggett

Do you actually understand anything about meat works or exports?

I am not trying to be rude but I looked at your link you put up and I would say you might be rather easily mislead.

Which reminds me Rudd over ruled Julia today on the medi care issue. Good choice. I wouldnt turn my bank if I were him.

Getting back to meat works WA is not the only State in need of visa`s for skilled workers. We have two plants in QLD one in NSW and another undisclosed at this stage.

We have a project to train many Aboriginal people to operate their own businesss.

Why just stop skilled meat workers and let others in?

Also we need abattoirs reopended to faze out the cruel live animal export trade.

This project has been underway for quite a while and not allowing people in to train our people is criminal.

http://www.halakindmeats.com/

Another thing we need to control who is running these plants ourselves trust me on that one.

As a means of quantifying economic relationships, a study was undertaken by researches on behalf of Agriculture Western Australian in december 1997.

The report was written with the interest of being able to measure and compare the relative contribution of major agricultural industries to state and economies.

The analysis undertaken in this report focused on value adding components of Western Australia Ag industry for 1994 1995. The focus was on post farm value added measure, which meansthe contribution to state income.

In tems of total value adding it ran into billions in fact 40% of the states total value adding component.

Put in its most simly form your turning away that accross the whole of the country and yabbys correct.

People Against Live Exports & Intensive Farming,

Briefly:

I oppose cruelty to animals and so probably also oppose the export of live animals.

I am very wary of scare tactics by employers about shortages of skilled workers. We had one starting back in 1999 over a supposed IT skills shortages. The result of this was an influx of overseas workers with IT skills. This, in combination with offshoring of work has caused many IT graduates to miss out on obtaining IT work and many experienced IT workers cannot find work in the industry.

I consider this a calculated cold-blooded crime committed against Australian IT workers.

---

I notice no-one has bothered to respond to my point as to why this country's suppsedly brilliant economic managers have allowed circumstances to develop such that our economy will be ruined by a balance of payments deficit if we don't import more workers and export more of our non-renewable bounty of mineral wealth.

And no-one has responded to Fester's point about the stupidity of importing people into the Eastern states for no purpose other than to provide construction jobs for its existing workforce as was extolled by Deputy Premier (now Premier) Anna Bligh back in April.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/NATIONAL/Qld-govt-rejects-population-cap/2007/04/22/1177180460654.html

Anna Bligh said ... "The only way we could really (stop population growth) is to put a fence up at the (Queensland) border, or to cancel or freeze all new home building approvals," she said.

"That would have a very serious impact on the construction industry that a lot people rely on for jobs."

If there are any problems supplying skilled workers then we need to look very closely at the circumstances and not allow ourselves to be make rushed decisions on the basis of what often turn out to be self-serving lies.

And we definitely should not be importing any skilled workers as long as any Australian University graduate is denied employment in his/her chosen vocation.

---

Belly asked why I raised the question of Burmese guest workers in Thailand. As I said before, it's because he made the idiotic statement: "slavery is dead isn't it?"

I think the Burma remark is one of many lurches away from the thread.
457 may help you yabby ,we must confront the fact the jobs can not be filled in Australia.
It is not always the east coming here for work ,once England's building workers left to find work all over Europe.
I find a quote about shonky home building to strange to get involved in or the thought we only bring migrants to build the east coast, well it is childlike!
We white Aussies after all are migrants , no one can tell me I am not now a native but I question the balance of payments being in any way tied to migration and not trade.
Strange as it may seem my union background should say the shortage is good, if imported workers get treated fairly it is ok by me.
Skills shortage is driving higher wages, both for those who fly in fly out and SOME of those who fill the jobs they leave behind.
This process is going to grow.
I could at this point get away from the thread to give a view on negative people however we are short on skills and for some jobs short on workers.
One day we will begin to train those we have and make fairer use of imported workers, the world is after all doing both better than us.

Daggett
I can see you are a sincere. I thought you may have been an Elders guy or ALP. Elders by the way are a huge Live Animal Exporter that the Government just granted a “billion dollars” to along with Optus?

Companies involved in such barbaric cruelty are against bringing in meat workers to ensure the cruel trade continues because of their trade dollar deals.
. So now maybe you understand why just meat workers are “stopped” as “everybody else” floods the country to steal the jobs off our kids in the city.

IT Jobs
I agree “one hundred percent with you” about the IT jobs and our Australian kids having those jobs “stolen from them” and several others.
I would like to share some information with you .I have been working to try to get j staff in the bush and meat workers mostly.
. Our first priority you would understand is to stop cruelty and value adds in regional areas.
Leaving meat works and farm jobs aside - because we really are “desperate for skilled workers in those areas”- I will happily post to you about this disgusting system that promises our kids jobs to international students and IT jobs

Our family runs a international school and were one of the first to start. The State Government has just about destroyed independent operators.

It’s going to take a few posts to go through the process of explaining “why” the migrant students get our kids IT jobs. The jobs are already promised to many of them” before they come.”!
I don’t know if you knew that. It’s totally unacceptable and encouraged by State Government which is mostly Labour.
In fact Education has now been pretty much taken over by State Governments. They saw the opportunity to control the funds coming in from overseas which is not to be sneezed at.
International Schools are big business so they muscled in.. So it isn’t just the kids missing out on IT jobs its Australian independent operators of those schools being done over along with young Australian students.
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:dbp8-6FxQ64J:www.atn.edu.au/docs/ATNINProfileVol1.2.pdf+mou+government+international+students+stay+work+it&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7&gl=au
To be Continued

continued to Daggett

The reason why international kids are put before ours is simply. The vast wealth of some of the overseas students familes and the fact that most of those students do actually want to go to uni to clear makes them attractive.

Instead of the hecks and other loans which I am in two minds about they instead pay up front and pay well for a year in advance.

So I am sure you can see the attraction there if you are in the industry.

That is a good reason why Governments should not have got involved clearly putting themselves up as targetts of conflict of interest. However education world wide is a huge industry and having the upper hand being able to offer extra lerks they couldnt resist.

If you are a International IT student you are pretty much garanteed your PR within weeks of completeing your studies. With that comes a medi care card centerlink payments and assistance to find IT jobs. they are in fact very much favoured.

There are many other lerks and perks and they know more about them than the Aussie kids do and are put first. All this is information given to them BEFORE they enter Australia.

I am sure now you can understand why IT students and others wish to come. We can hardely blame them.I am down on these uni bludgers of ours that prefer to go there than work. I am also annoyed by the fact the real kids who WANT to study to do something with their lives miss out because overseas kids have taken their spot and that happens a lot.

However in this day and age when kids world wide expect everything on a spoon -I prefer to put Aussie kids and IT jobs first before overeas kids from wealthy familes that can easily afford to pay a year in advance.
Darn right they are taking our kids IT jobs. No question about it.
Most Government are Labour so theres something for UNI kids to chew over.

"my point as to why this country's suppsedly brilliant economic managers have allowed circumstances to develop"

Daggett, in answer to your question, the big picture problem has
existed all along, thats why Keating, Costello started to change
direction. If they hadn't, things would have only gotten worse.
Fact is, we cannot live in isolation from the rest of the world,
thats the reality.

Australia has always relied on mining and agriculture for its
wealth. Inefficient manufacture was propped up by these industries,
so it was dragging them down. A tariff protecting one industry
means a cost to another industry, making it harder to compete
globally. It also means higher costs to consumers, the main
beneficiaries of globalisation.

Its not up to Govt to create new industries, they usually get it
wrong. Thats up to private enterprise, people, entrepreneurs, etc.
All the Govt can do is create an economic climate for that to
happen, which means lower interest rates, reduce red tape,
wiser Govt spending etc. Billions of $ of taxpayers money used
to be used just to pay Govt interest payments. Costello changed
all that.

As to the future, there certainly are some manufacturing
industries that are adjusting to the global economy. Ferries
are a good example, we export them around the world. There are
a few other examples. Services is another area where we have
gone ahead. But converting from a backward manufacturing sector
to a globally competitive one, is not over by a long shot.

As to IT, 10 years ago you'd be battling to make a phone call to
India on a line that actually worked. Now you have Bangalore
and more and more IT done in India. Workers in India benefit
and consumers in Australia benefit

PALE: "I am sure now you can understand why IT students and others wish to come. We can hardely blame them.I am down on these uni bludgers of ours that prefer to go there than work. I am also annoyed by the fact the real kids who WANT to study to do something with their lives miss out because overseas kids have taken their spot and that happens a lot. "

Bizarre. I take it that this is the official view of "People Against Live Exports and Intensive Farming"?

Equally bizarre is the garbled language in which an internally inconsistent diatribe about education - of all things to do with live animal exports - is argued.

Another positive effort for the animals!

Yabby

You raise the excellent point that Australia needs to follow a strategy that will most likely lead to its prosperity. Now Belly has posed the question of how to cope with the skilled worker shortage. I have suggested that cutting immigration would free up a large number of skilled workers who are otherwise employed building the infrastructure and housing necessary to cope with a larger population. It would carry the bonus of transferring skilled workers to jobs that benefit Australia's trade balance from jobs which worsen Australia's trade balance.

Australia needs to follow the best strategy to ensure the prosperity of her citizens, and more likely than not it differs from what you, I, Belly et al think is best. What we dont need are zealots dismissing the evidence because they know better. Too much of that happening in the world.

Belly

The property and construction industry is a very powerful lobby group, and it does advocate higher immigration rates. And with a resultant drop in property values from reducing immigration, people might be able to pay more for quality.

Morgan
We prefer not to recieve posts from yourself and thought we went mad that clear in the past.
However our family runs an International School in Australia so I would know a bit more than you about this particular subject.

We actually considered sueing the QLD State Government and considering the Principles are also lawyers I should think they knew a bit more about the industry than it sounds like you do.

You can get a fair bit of this from the internet if you care to study it.
Start by doing a Googles under MOUs with overseas students. Its not just IT students either its Science and many others.

I have personally hosted what they term PR parties.

These are considerd by many bigger than birthdays because its a one off thing.

The medi care card is passed around and actually you cant help but get mixed feelings because at least they appreciate the free health care.

It is really importnant to them and sometimes you just cant help but feel happy for them and that maybe they deserve it more than some of our own who dont know how lucky they are to have lived in such a wonderful country their whole lives.

Many of them get jobs and fly back to India or wherever after the first years for their arranged marriages then come back. They fly back usually about a year later to be married then apply to bring the wife to Australia and start a new life and a new family in a new country.
They are just so happy to be here live here and work here. You cant help but like them with their excitment over things we take for granted.
However that doesnt change the facts.

The facts are our Government encourage these people because their familes pay in advance intead of most of ours want to borrow.

They are promised work if they study certain subjects.

That does take our kids jobs.

Please do not address a post to us again.

You have been far too rude in the past.

Yabby,

I see quite a few logical leaps there and the usual well-worn catchphrases.

"Its not up to Govt to create new industries, they usually get it wrong."

How so?

Did they get it wrong before WW2 where they turned Australia from a country based primarily on rural exports to a technologically advanced nation as I have shown in the the thread "View discussion Can Australia ever be self-reliant for national defence?" at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=860 and above at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=1040#18599.

Would you have us believe that if our country had gained an 'internationally competitive' edge back then by only building its primary industries as you have suggested that we would have been able to deter the Japanese invasion?

Did they get it wrong when Australia had a world leading telecommunications sector prior to the industry's deregulation by the Keating Labor Government (see http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6326#92911)?

It is hard work to maintain a manufacturing sector in a relatively small country in a world full of slave labor economies, and so I guess it suits the lazy selfish elite that controls this country to opt for the easier, ultimately unsustainable path which you seem to prefer.

---

Finally Yabby, you have acknowledged elsewhere (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6326#92956) that the world's environment is going down the toilet largely due (I would say) to the mining boom that you applaud and the rampant growth of China's global-warimg and polluting industries. How can we possibly have a prosperous economy with a ruined global environment?

---

PALE,

I appreciate that you at east grasp what has happened to the IT sector. Of course I understand why foreign students want to come here and would consider doing the same if I was in their shoes. However, any decent society must look after its own citizens first. Instead, this society's elite have developed a bizarre contempt for our own people, as demonstrated by Yabby above who has implicitly attributed the advances in telecommunications to the replacement of Australian IT workers with immigrant or off-shored IT workers.

---

CJ Morgan,

Why shouldn't PALE be able to discuss IT workers on a forum about skilled migration?

Daggett, Govt planned economies have failed everywhere, including
here. If an industry collapsed when it was deregulated, then
clearly there was not much substance behind it in the first place,
maybe just propped up by tariffs. Thats a cost to other industries.

Nobody is saying that Australia can't be technologically advanced.
Nothing is stopping anyone going out and starting a new industry,
being exactly that. Its how the Swiss became wealthy after all,
with no resources. Just don't base the whole thing on Govt
subsidies. Better to reduce taxes, charges and red tape to your
industries, so that they have a better chance.

All the socialist economies were run and planned by Govts, the whole lot failed.

The global environment is a global issue and needs to be tackled
globally, starting with stabilising the global population.

What Australia does, does not even matter in the bigger scheme
of things, so shutting down industries just to feel better will
help nobody, simply hurt us. Thats fairly pointless.

Fact is that if we were wiped off the world map tomorrow, including
our whole continent, the world would still face the same issues.
That needs megasolutions, not touchy feelgood ones.

Yabby,

How about dealing with evidence instead of spouting forth your unfounded ideological prejudices?

Telstra didn't collapse. It was crippled by the policies of the then Telecommunications Minister Kim Beazley with the support of the then Liberal Party Opposition. It's revenue base was slashed when it was forced to give away a huge slice of its market share to Optus and Vodaphone. Then in 2000 it was forced to shut down a perfectly good analog mobile phone system built at a cost to customers and taxpayers of the order of $AU1billion in order to make the digital networks of Optus and Vodaphone more financially viable.

'Deregulation' was in fact regulation of Telstra so that it could not take full adavantage of its natural monoply, and the cost of this has been ultimately borne by taxpayers and Telstra's customers.

---

I am a little bit tired of the argument that what Australia cannot possibly have an impact. How can you know for certain that other countries won't follow the example of a country which is prepared to put the longer term intersts of the planet ahead of its own short-term interests (which, in any case, are more the intersts of foreign corporations than of this country). At least we should try.

daggert I suspect those idealogical views may be the ones you have exposed here.
It is understood is it? that climate change and your view the world is already over populated are different issues?
In an ordered world, one that says this is my land you are not wanted, we could rest on our present population and close the doors to world trade, invasions still however take place.
Under population may very well be death for the Australia we know.
Our balance of payments is real, what will it be without mining?
I just can not for a second think the housing boom was in any way driven by big business.
I however caution the boom is not to continue without pain.
Migration, I am unsure of some bigotry seen here, bizarre stuff, on one hand refereeing to government refusal to allow 457,s then insulting migrates?
We are short of skills and people the next ten years will make that clear.
And just maybe xenophobia will still be a problem we must over come, well for some it will.
The numbers of unemployed Australian workers has not been this low for years, yet some continue to want us to think we have the workers to do the jobs?
Remarkable but quite wrong.

Daggett, you forget of course, that Telstra was a complacent, lazy
big fat monopoly, with no need for efficiency of any kind, as it could
simply screw its consumers, at huge cost to them.

Whatever one might critcise about how the telecommunications industry
was deregulated, (there is lots one could say), one thing is clear,
consumers have been winners!

In 1995, I was the first around here to go online. Telstra charged
me 6$ an hour, later 9$ an hour for that. What does it cost you
now to use the internet? At that same time, my business involved
talking to overseas customers on a regular basis. Phone bills
were in $ per minute, they were huge! Now I can do the same
for cents. Fact is, despite all the mistakes made by Govt,
consumers have been winners!

You might be sick of the argument about Australia having no impact,
but the reality is that its true. Even on OLO, you won't convince
people that we should address the fact that 6.5 billion is already
pushing over the limits, that 9-10 billion will massively increase
our global problems, or that all women on the planet should have
a right to family planning etc.

Just read the daily news. China is pushing ahead with new large
highways through Africa, to access their resources. Those
countries with tropical rainforests remaining, now want billions
of $ to not chop them down. China, India, Latin America, etc,
all surging ahead, as their populations strive to live like we
do. Megacities sprouting up everywhere, ski slopes built in
the middle of the Arabian desert, etc etc. And you think this
will all change because you think its a good idea? Think again
in terms of human understanding. Shooting yourself in the foot
will not solve your problems

Sharkfin:

Europe has a long history of "guest workers" as they used to call them.
I know what will happen as I have worked amongst them in the sixties, they will get married or put a bun in the oven of a local girl whilst having a wife and kids in their own country, guess what, they can stay here and settle, on top of that they will send money home to support their families. European countries have a lot of trouble sending these workers back because of their created ties. Lets learn from their mistakes and support local workers instead.

“And just maybe xenophobia will still be a problem we must over come, well for some it will.”

A very commendable ambition, Belly, and something for you to aspire to. You might start by considering these comments you made:

“We will develop our country and export its goods or in truth some one else will.”

“we could rest on our present population and close the doors to world trade, invasions still however take place.”

So you are saying that xenophobia should influence Australia's policies?

All options need to be evaluated. The mining boom might prove the perfect opportunity to change the economy for the better.

Fester rational thought is help full in debate if you can find xenophobia in my posts you can not claim to have it.
Some cling so desperately to ideals they believe in, not caring or understanding those ideals are minority views.
World trade in workers is a very old trade Australians once worked in England in jobs of every kind.
Some still do, we export skilled workers to all corners of the world, few who consider the facts do not understand this is true.
Boots and all some share my views, 457,s are being used by SOME in a criminal way, workers can not be found in this country to do SOME of the work.
Yes the fruit rots on the ground in some areas, and so it should! chain stores make massive profits but the growers make little and pickers far less than wages should ever but, separate issues.
It is not anti Australian to speak the truth we have a skills shortage, must start to fix it.
We must confront the fact all growth in this country post ww2 has been with the help of immigration.
Now in truth I think in fact know some anti migration posts are driven by concerns at who comes, in that only may a suggestion of xenophobia be made against me.
No defense I am concerned at SOME from within ONE, not all ethnic group, that some should not bring hatred for my culture to this country.
Would Japan or China any country in the world not share my concern?
Hardly a crime to say in print what Australians mostly think.
Can I except that you believe an earlier post that almost inferred immigrants are all disease carriers is true?
That post was xenophobic in my view.

Belly

“Can I except that you believe an earlier post that almost inferred immigrants are all disease carriers is true?”

I said no such thing. But your comments are certainly xenophobic, and whether it is what most people think make them no less so. You should try to get away from the idea that anyone who disagrees with your mass immigration philosophy is morally defective. My interest is in what action will bring the greatest prosperity to Australians.

Immigration has been on great benefit to Australia, but this is no reason to believe that it will always be so. I have hope that technical development will allow a greater population to live prosperously, but I would like to see the technical breakthroughs first.

I think it valid to investigate all options. Cutting immigration may well free up enough skilled workers to cope with the demands of the mining boom.

What we think to be true is inherently unreliable. What is needed are well researched ideas.

Fester your last post infers I hold your views against you? that I am ,well racist!
I can only judge you on your posts we share different thoughts and ideas, sorry but I do not place the same value you do in your ideas, is that proof of racism.
or fear of other races?
The post scrambled as it was inferring quite a bit about migrants was not yours it was however xenophobic

"Fester your last post infers I hold your views against you?"

No Belly, it infers that you dont understand the concept of xenophobia: You lament its presence in others, yet use it as justification for a more populated Australia, albeit on the basis that it is what most Australians think. Further, you falsely attributed a comment to me.

You may be right in claiming that Australians will become more prosperous with high immigration, but thus far you have given me little confidence that your view is based on sound reasoning.

Thanks for the discussion. I think we can agree that all on this thread are concerned for Australia's continuing prosperity.

Yabby wrote:

"In 1995, I was the first around here to go online. Telstra charged me 6$ an hour, later 9$ an hour for that. ... blah blah blah"

This is a red herring and doesn't address my previous rebuttal of your implication that Telstra collapsed as result of deregulation: "If an industry collapsed when it was deregulated, then clearly there was not much substance behind it in the first place, ..."

I rebutted this nonsense. Here is my rebuttal once again:

"Telstra didn't collapse. It was crippled by the policies of the then Telecommunications Minister Kim Beazley with the support of the then Liberal Party Opposition. It's revenue base was slashed when it was forced to give away a huge slice of its market share to Optus and Vodaphone. Then in 2000 it was forced to shut down a perfectly good analog mobile phone system built at a cost to customers and taxpayers of the order of $AU1billion in order to make the digital networks of Optus and Vodaphone more financially viable."

Of course telecommunications technology has got cheaper and better through the years, but does it necessarily follow that it would not have occurred if Telstra had remained a publicly-owned owned monopoly?

In 1976 as I wrote elsewhere (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6326#92911) Telstra had plans to provide universal comprehensive fibre optic broadband access. If Telstra hadn't been stuffed around with deregulation and privatisation we would have all had it well before the end of the twentieth century and it would have been a lot cheaper than any of the rip-off contracts now on offer.

Now Yabby, once again, how about addressing the evidence and spare us the ideological claptrap and debaters' tricks?

---

Belly wrote: "I am unsure of some bigotry seen here."

If you are referring to what have written, please show what it is that you consider bigotted.

daggett please read the thread, I have been trying VERY HARD not to address posts made by pale, however.
Yes however, posts inferring some migrants and students get more that their share including health care cards.
That furpy that most bring illness to this country?
Fester I would hope you too can understand this, if we read the full thread, then on returning read all after our last post,, we will keep in touch with it.
I will never. not ever. bury my concerns at the behavior of one minority within one religion and race.
Racist? Have you been confronted by that minority? in the streets of Sydney?
I will not give my country away but we own much of our greatness to migrants from all over the world.
The thread speaks of a world few of us ever thought we would live in a world built on international trade.
The thought that we should not take place is xenophobic.
Telstra? entrenched waste, service not a requirement we are better of with what we now have, not good enough but better.

Daggett
We are not racist. We actually work with Muslim Leaders and have done for years. As far as I know we are the only group outside their own projects to do so. We are in the process of changing those we work with but other than that nothing has changed.
We work to re open abattoirs and we are trying to get skilled meat workers in Halal slaughter into the country to train Aboriginal people and people in regional areas.

Not just working on the chain in slaughter but in the many different employment oportunitys it brings.
We said right from the start we support bringing in skilled workers but only in the areas in which they are required and not to flood the cities and our unis taking the uni positions and IT jobs from our own kids.
I would have thought that were pretty clear to everybody.

Nor did we say any of the people given PR in this country were recieving more just questioning should we not be looking after our own first.
There are many people arriving here who have debiltating health problems and we do have people born here that are unable to recieve the same level of assistance that they do.
Hense I mentioned the lady John Laws was speaking to on talk back radio last week.
These poor elderly couple are trying to pay thousands for medication for the daughter each month.
They can not get the same level of assistance that aparrently John Laws said was being given by a person who had just arrived in the country. The Government is paying in contrast for the medication for the new arrival while the elderly Aussies are forced to sell their house.
Thats wrong pure and simple.
The Government must get the balance right.
Sure bring in skilled workers there is nobody who supports it more than us but only in the areas we need them. Not to take jobs from our own IT kids or areas where Australian kids are missing out in prefernce to overseas kids.

Daggett, read up a little as to what happened around the world.
China, USSR, Eastern Europe, Cuba, North Korea, all countries
where Govts planned and ran virtually all industries. How
many of those industries did not collapse in the end?

Telstra did ok, as it had consumers over a barrel. It could screw
them for every cent with impunity. As with all large monopolies,
complacency sets in, nobody needs to be efficient.

If it was technology that made Telstra charge 6$ and 9$ an hour
for internet access, why was net access so much cheaper in the
US and Canada at the same time? I actually spent a great deal
of time back then, trying to convince some politicians and Telstra
people, of the potential benefits of the internet if charges were
reasonable, pointing out the fact that it cost Telstra no more
if a line was being used or not, unlike say electricity.

Its a sad fact of life, that big, fat, lazy monopolies tend to
screw consumers, rather then work in their best interests. So
was the case with Telstra.

Fester, I heard an interesting suggestion from a WA company who are
moving some of their ferry building to Singapore, due to lack
of staff here.

They suggested tying 457s to companies who are prepared to train
apprentices in Australia. That makes sense to me, as we still
urgently need more companies prepared to train young people

The aboriginal people and Elders want those jobs. They have asked to meet with reps. There are some working on it now. They say they do want to work. Its just totally untrue that all aboriginal people dont want to work. There is a large majority of them who do. Many would like to own their own farms and plants as well. Sure lots of them have land but no means to add to it and less contacts with overseas investors.
Austrade need to be putting on a few seminars in those places and bring invesorts into Australia instead of mark vaile running around flogging ships of live sheep to Kwaite.
Dagett
On the meat trade side Yabbys is correct. We do need the workers approved to come into regional but i stand right behind you on the IT and city places one hundred percent

Yabby,

Have you yet exhausted your repertoire of ploys to divert attention away from the serious flaw in your case?

I guess, if you think about it, if the answer to any challenge to free market policies is simply to raise the examples of China, USSR, Eastern Europe, Cuba, North Korea etc (and BTW Cuba actually has a lot going for it IMHO anyway, but that is an other argument), there is really little left to discuss is there?

You asserted that Telstra collapsed as a result of deregulation. I showed that this was nonsense and you have still failed to respond to my point.

As to comparisons between comparative charges for Internet access between Canada and the US on the one hand and Australia on the other hand all those years ago, I can't comment a great deal. However, it is also the case that with years of deregulation and privatisation, that the cost of broadband in this country is still far greater than equivalent broadband services overseas.

Also it has been said that Telstra did very well to have provided all the services services that it did to the whole of this continent with its relatively small and sparsely spread population, but I wouldn't expect a right wing ideologue with a barrow to push to acknowledge that, now would I?

Of course, Telstra was not perfect back then, but I hold that the solution was to abolish its corporate money-gouging charter which drove many of its poorer policy decisions and have made it a public service once again. Handing it over lock, stock and barrel to Trujillo and his management team, imported from the US, has made matters vastly worse.

---

People Against Live Exports and Intensive Farming.

Thanks. I appreciate the points you are making. I can see that your case has merit, even though, as a general rule, we both object to the massive increase in the importation skilled or unskilled workers into this country.

I commend you for your perseverence.

"Fester, I heard an interesting suggestion from a WA company who are
moving some of their ferry building to Singapore, due to lack
of staff here."

Good idea, Yabby, if the shortage is bad enough. But it needs to be carefully scrutinised to avoid abuses. Rightly or wrongly, the public perception has been that there has not been enough scrutiny.

Russia will be an interesting country to compare with Australia: It should be of interest to see whether a declining population coupled with the wealth from a resources boom brings greater living standard improvements than Australia.

"Daggett, Govt planned economies have failed everywhere, including
here. If an industry collapsed when it was deregulated, then
clearly there was not much substance behind it in the first place,
maybe just propped up by tariffs. Thats a cost to other industries."

Thats what I actually wrote. In that snip I never actually
mentioned Telstra collapsing, you jumped to that conclusion.

Fact is however that in the end the old economic model of
Telstra screwing customers blind, to make huge fat profits,
was not politically acceptable anymore, so it had to end.

Frank Blount, an American, ran Telstra in those days. IMHO
Telstra is still badly managed, but then I'm not on the
board. At least now I can choose to sell my shares and choose
another carrier. Main thing is conumsers benefit from much
much lower charges!

I remind you that Canada is a great big country, with far
more problems when it comes to laying cables, then Australia.
Snow and ice for a start, over virtually the whole country.

Thats the problem with big, fat , lazy monopolies. There is
no need for them to change. Sad but true. Thats why Govts
are such failures at providing efficient services

Yabby you will not win this debate, while proudly from the left of center I fear the debate has been high jacked by some from the left of the left.
It is my lifetime view that place is often left of reality.
To claim our skills shortage is non existent, or that we do not have a labour shortage is strange but untrue.
Then it becomes an anti worker plot?
Our skills shortage is very real and already hurting.
Our worker shortage will impact hard within 2 years, growth in some industry's may suffer.
Just as a side issue to the thread I think we , my side of politics/unionism must confront the fact some minority views are just that forever a minority.
I am reminded here that some from left of center are unable to find answers and reality.

Daggett

Thanks for your words of encouragement.

We are not trying to flood the country with migrants either especially given our water situation.

All we are saying is let the migrants go where they are required.
I mean they allow them to come here anyway so they should be made to go where they are neeeded instead of pushing the city kids out.

In this case Belly and Yabby both have single points they are correct about and I assure you old Yabbs and us are old war horses from a million threads back.
Belly hated our shirt joke and remains offended.
I might post it however as you might get a smile.
[ All in good fun ]
In the old days gone by the AMIEU and labour as a party worked together with local councils and many plants or abattoirs were state owned or partly state funded so far as building the infustructure. They were very productive towards training people also.
No longer under the influence of the blood money donations from the Industry of the cruel Live Animal Trade. Rudd didnt breath a word about the AWB being Live Exporters at the AWB enquiry despite being desperate to have something on the Government.
Yabby will say- Oh for goodness sake it was on public company records.
Sure but they know darn well few public have time to sit and read that.

All Rudd had to do was his job which was to inform the public that it wasnt only wheat going there but live animals.

" Silence"
Whats a few hundred skillied workers to train Aboriginal People and people in regional areas in employment. We honestly DONT need that many skilled meat workers.

Its a drop in the ocean compaired with the migrants going to citites and taking IT and others jobs off Aussie kids.

It stinks and its curropt to only stop meat workers but flood the country with millions of others.
If they wont let meat workers in to stop the cruelty of live exports then they shouldnt let ANY in.

From the SMH article... all I can say is notice the surname of the bloke doing the exploiting ?
When people don't know english.. only those who speak their language will be able to effectively blindfold them to reality here.

[Wang owns Elite Marble & Granite at Condell Park, near Bankstown Airport. He sponsored Gong and Huang on 457 visas to work here for two years.

There were immediate breaches of the visa conditions. The Herald has seen the contract they signed. It offers annual wages of just 100,000 renminbi ($16,130), which would not be paid until their two years was up, an allowance of $50 a week, and $540 a month deposited into their bank accounts in China.]

In my view..WANG should be arrested and charged for everything they can get him on.

I agree BOAZ David, I could tell you of a thousand such story's, not here however more and more we get away from threads intent.
But you allowed me to highlight that I am not for a second proposing cheap imported labour.
My trade unionist heart has orders to stop beating if ever I forget the shell of my belief.
A fair days pay for a fair days work.
Both never killed any one.
We will like it or not use workers from all over the world, we must stop our skills exporting practices while not training enough of our own .
For some trades Right now shortage is bring wage increases without union involvement, high rates must be paid just to get workers.
Form work carpenters, some who hold no trade certificate are getting walk up starts in civil construction , much needed yet few around.
It will get worse

Belly

It is you who needs a reality check. Your "skilled worker shortage can only be solved with mass immigration" hysteria makes diehard global warming fanatics look well reasoned. There are potential workers from the estimated 150,000 predicted to leave the land. There are the potential workers who would not be required if immigration were cut. There may even be potential workers if suitable relocation schemes are offered. Yet you ignore such considerations when an economic analysis may reveal more merit in these strategies.

You rightly identify that labour shortages give the skilled workers greater bargaining power. What might these people do if the labour market got flooded? Go running to a union? Sweet good that would do then.

Spot on, Fester.

Anyone who may be prepared to believe that Belly's rantings on this Forum are motivated by anything other than the naked opportunism of a self-confessed member of the Labor Party's right wing should have a look again at his post in regard to Telstra:

"Telstra? entrenched waste, service not a requirement we are better of with what we now have, not good enough but better."

So are you saying that the Labor Party and 70% of Australians who opposed privatisation all those years were wrong and John Howard and Coonan were right to hand Australia's telecommunications flagship across to Trujillo and his imported team of Americans who wasted an unbelievable AU$58 million of Telstra shareholders funds to deliver a "Strategic Report" that evidently told him to shed 10,000 jobs, remove 5,000 public phones, raise cost of monthly dial-up connections from $10 to $20 (on top of $40 line rentals and local call charges) so that no-one, even those prepared to bear slow download speeds can have cheap access to the Internet any more, etc., etc.?

Is it any wonder that so many voters were sceptical of Labor's promise not to privatise Telstra in 2004?

Had you seen the Four Corners program about how Telstra treats its workforce these days, Belly? It's at: http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2007/s1952054.htm

Are you aware that all Telstra call centre workers are required to pester customers with sales promotions or to lose their jobs if they don't reach their ever-increasing benchmarks? And still their jobs are being off-shored to low-wage economies.

In you I see a perfect illustration of why:

1. Labor has been so ineffective in its opposition to Howard for the past 11 years (with the honourable exception of Mark Latham)

2. Even if Howard is booted out (as I earnestly hope will happen), we will be very lucky if the standard of National Government is raised to that of Queensland in the Bjelke-Petersen era.

With 'union leaders' such as yourself I can see that it will only be a matter of time before the working conditions of Samut Sakhon become the norm here.

150,000 who are to leave the land? do you think even your self that is other than a lie?
With great pride I claim my ground just in the place daggert puts me, in the place that gave Australia every state government and is about to give us federal government mainstream Australian Labor Party.
With even greater pride I say clearly I am not a green supporter, ever.
The radical idea that this country must give far more than any other western country will is a request that we cripple Australia .
The constant harping about stopping coal mines now, remarkable as it seems totally overlooks to do so now destroys this country's economy.
I stand firmly by the view conservation is far too important to Australia and the world to be trusted to the radical greens.
And can some count? lowest unemployment in 30 years ,not driven by Howard's dribble, but by the resources boom.
From what hidden place will these workers come?
Self confidence is a good thing some however judge them selfs wrongly.