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.