Australian citizens are meant to believe education skills future workers for modern employment.
Media are occasionally informing listeners and readers that Australia has a shortage of skilled trades people. Due to the shortage of skilled trades people skilled trades people will be sort from other countries.

My attention grabbing arguments are that high rise buildings modern cities, using modern computer technologies are excuses for increased years of education, equipping workers for employment that has little need for advanced education due to software programmed computer technologies, automatic selections and corrections' form filling in programs, programmed into computers by a limited number of software technicians. The idea that machines will eventually take over the world, once humans are not needed, becomes more realistic.

I suggest that education is little more than holding people in educational institutions for longer periods because society doesn't need increased labours. As teenagers are delayed from employment opportunities, skilled trades shortages excuses provides excuses for increased immigration.

By preventing teenagers from leaving schools at younger ages to find skilled trades apprenticeships, allowing low wage income apprenticeships before adult wages at aged 21 years, results in aged 18 years teenagers little incentive to endure 4 year low wage apprenticeships when adult wage incomes are soon possible.

http://www.100percentpay.com.au/about-the-campaign/

Tafe course fees are being increased, further reducing teenagers ability to gain certificated money earning, tax paying, nation building skills. Pointless years of forced hurrying pretend academic education on a majority of future workers who will mostly read news print, is fee, while useful skilled certificated education is penalised by increasing costs.

Australian born are settling for low skilled food preparation and exampling unskilled supermarket shelf storage employment for a minimal adult wage which has few opportunities for self-employment, rather than by passing over 2 to 4 years of non paying mentally stressful education in favour of a long term skilled trade, more secure, less mentally stressful, thought provoking careers.
This lack of foresight looking democratic politicians, being intentional, allows limited required English speaking skills immigrants to enter the country based on ideas that immigrant skills are equal to Australian standards.

Immigration is a touchy political subject. My belief is that the Liberal Party are more conservative towards immigration than the Labor Party.
Even though Australian citizens complain about immigration intake, immigration from both political parties rarely gets mentioned by the media as one of those rolled over topics. Yes, there maybe an Allan Jones and other commentators with an obsession to stop and or slow immigration, yet, they may all end up looking like a racists, stopping further media pretend debate on immigration policy.

I have had a number of electrical billing service providers knocking on my front door, wanting to convince me to switch my electricity provider billing company to their employer's company. All door knockers were nationalised/born in other countries: one female was from the Netherlands; one male was from Iran; two to three males were from India. Something like four different billing companies were competing for the same local electric company supplier. All to some of the door knockers I believe were foreign students attending local universities. My assumption is that the companies were invented to provide employment for potential future immigrants.

My suggestion is that education is reducing Australian population birth growth rates. Allowing immigration to fill in population guessed growth of 3 to 4 percent per year. Women needing to work in Australia, to live in cities merely to rent a house or unit, dreaming of buying a house to live in, are punished by expensive government regulated child care family' child care needs. Women must choose as a wage earner, whether long term security is in buying a home with a mortgage or rent, having children, the more children the bigger the house and or somehow manager both having children and paying out a mortgage. Each child becomes an individual child care expense.

Wage inflation; women working, blamed on market forces employment and education, has not delivered post WW2 Australian generation the utopia Australians would like to believe. Third world country large immigrant family support system, living in one house works in Australian cities employment, while the post WW2 generation small family few children divided into individual concerns falls behind immigrant large families wealth building.

The last 25 years of year on year 4% wage inflation has allowed depreciating building assets to be thought of as long term investments. Between 1970 to 1990, average wage inflation was higher. High nation building turnover during 1980 to 1989 was experienced.

I would suggest, educational student competition mental stress is destroying human thinking abilities, allowing few students that are least mentally stressed by education to advance themselves into universities, further delaying future employment, paying for the privilege of an university education that during the 1970s, most university education learning was not needed to obtain office work employment. Having paid for a university education, many Australian university graduates not ending in their chosen educated occupation.

Other countries are following the advanced education ideology modelling as Japan did, many people in third world countries believing that college and university education allows easier entry into western first world countries. If immigrating to other counties, may not be practising their chosen profession.

I have heard news stories on how there's a lack of trades people. That in the future there could be large shortage of trades people. Elderly post WW2 baby boom generation trades people in building trades: builders; plumbers; electricians; brick layers; etc. motor vehicle trades are retiring.
During the early 1970s, first 2 and 3 years in apprenticeships attending a trades technical college were paid around $16.00 per week to start with at a time when trades people earned $100.00 per week. At that time trades apprenticeships were reduced from 5 years to 4 years.
Many apprenticeship employment could be obtained without a high school leaving certificate. All teenagers after turning aged 16 years needed to do was to find employment from employers who would hire teenagers for a 3 month trial period, before committing a potential apprentice to an apprenticeship. One reason apprentices were paid low wages was that technical colleges consumed one day per week of apprentices' time. One of my class mates who left school aged 16 years, getting employment as a coffin maker, he stated he was earning $75.00 a week.

Academic School work does not resemble increasing skills for most trades. Having stated in other readings, that education delays adult wages income, delaying future family first child being born, reducing final family total children being born.
Highly stressed from schooling 18 year old teenagers who choose to pursue an apprenticeship, waiting 4 years before obtaining an adult wage are least likely to consider taking on a long term apprenticeship.

With a shortage of trades people, allowing trades people from other countries who may have spent fewer years in high school academic pursuits is unfair to existing Australian high schooled citizens.

There may exist a short term need to take on food processing employment prompted by televisions popular food programs, due to better wages than trades apprenticeships for a high school aged 18 years teenagers. I tend to believe over supplied low skilled food preparers in recessions are going to suffer.

As Adolf Hitler was using “blame it on the Jews”, Jewish hatred to gather support for National Socialist Party or Nazi Party. Australian media are using extreme religious division Syria, ISIS, cultural difference and crime as a media dummying distraction. Federal politicians are quiet about introducing restrictions on religious grounds using racists excuses. Martin Luther King Jr said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.” protesters maybe protesting against building mosks believed to be places of fuelling religious extremist characters and or places of poor character gathering. Martin Luther King Jr by his reading stating character not colour is not racism. Excluding mosks on religious character concerns is not racism.

The problem maybe that poorly educated people having watched television and followed media, few to no simple focused directional understanding is experienced. Human potential skilled thinking has been repressed to sports intelligence level. Blank emotional decision making minds told about unseen unproven religious beliefs, stirs emotions simple understanding rewarding brain endorphins stimulations. Performing daily and or weekly rituals while in restful rewarding mode, for people with limited thinking skills, emotionally rewards behaviours. Like smoking, merely at work's end, lighting up a cigarette prompted into self-programmed behaviour becomes difficult to stop. Where teenagers lack loving relationships, teenagers find loving god dependant replacements.
Blame it on pointless academic forced educational deskilling programming.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deskilling

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/deskilling.html

Steve why don't you just write that up as an article and submit it to OLO for publication?
Skills shortages are a lie, there's a shortage of workers willing to accept seven dollars and hour in wages for doing skilled work, that is all.
Modern construction projects use very few skilled workers nowadays anyway, the apartment complex down the road from me doesn't have a stick of timber in the whole construction, all the plumbing is plastic, the lighting low voltage etc and the tilt slab walls have been given one coat of paint, badly applied and left as is.