"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