Wednesday 27 February 2013

Relax 457 visa language clause, says business

BUSINESS is urging the Gillard government to use the May budget to ease English language requirements for foreign workers on 457 visas, declaring the program is a crucial economic "shock absorber".

In a submission to be released today, the Australian Industry Group also calls for measures to lift the capability of school teachers, including by broadening ways to enter the profession.

The submission, obtained by The Australian, is the first by a major business group for the 2013-14 budget and comes as the business community becomes disillusioned with populist government policy.

As business reels from last weekend's crackdown on 457 visas, the AI Group submission warns that it would be counterproductive to make changes that restrict the program even further.

The group wants the migration planning level for 2013-14 lifted from 190,000 to 200,000 and for it to have a sharper focus on lifting the proportion of the program earmarked for skilled migration.

"Growth in 457 numbers should not be assumed to be a problem but instead an indicator of success," the submission says.

"It is our view that too much tightening of the program carries economic risks."

The comments are a further attack on the government's rhetoric around the 457 crackdown. Immigration Minister Brendan O'Connor has pointed to soaring numbers of 457 workers as part of a hard sell on the latest changes.

Mr O'Connor's move has been criticised by business leaders including Nimrod Resources chairman Keith de Lacy, former Western Mining Corporation chief Hugh Morgan, United Group chairman Trevor Rowe and Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott.

However, Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union national secretary Dave Noonan said yesterday tightening the 457 scheme was a good first step.

He said there were many skilled local people being knocked back from jobs on resource projects.

"It is a giant con to say people won't fly in and fly out for these jobs or that the skills aren't there," Mr Noonan told the Maritime Union of Australia state conference in Perth yesterday.

"(There's) endemic unemployment in regional communities, including indigenous communities. Large redundancies happening in manufacturing, in towns such as Wollongong, Geelong, Newcastle and along the eastern seaboard and you tell me that we can't generate skilled labour for these projects."

Mr Noonan said the CFMEU would campaign this election year to make temporary labour, the impact of mining on communities and the manufacturing industry frontline issues.

He strongly denied his union's concerns about temporary foreign labour were racist.

AI Group fears the reforms could include a hike in fees for 457 applications but says these are already substantial and come on top of the average costs of $3000 to $6000 that companies face to recruit each 457 worker.

The group argues that the 457 visa program is an economic shock absorber because it has proved responsive to economic need, with numbers falling during the global financial crisis and growing again as the economy recovered.

On English language requirements, the group says the present level is too high for many applicants, especially those without university qualifications.

The government lifted the language requirements in 2009 after a review by industrial relations expert Barbara Deegan.

On schools, the group says employers are increasingly concerned about the literacy and numeracy levels of typical school leavers, as well as their skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

"These skills are essential in the modern economy and this need will be heightened as we increasingly engage with both the challenges and opportunities of the Asian century and new technology," the submission says.

The approach of a singular way into the teaching profession is "no longer sustainable" and AI Group says it is concerning that the average ATAR score for Victorian undergraduate teaching courses has fallen to 67.53 from a peak of 75.26 in the past decade.

Allowing multiple entry points for being accepted into teaching would reflect "the modern workforce and the increasingly mobile labour force", the submission argues.

The group also calls for the implementation of the Gonski review measures.

The submission comes as tensions between business and government mount.

Business is frustrated that while Julia Gillard promised when she announced the election date that the process of governing would continue, instead there has been campaigning on populist issues.

On the government's move this month to cut the R&D tax incentive for the biggest companies, the submission blasts this as "discriminatory" and calls for it to be abandoned.

Industry is demanding the move be reversed, saying otherwise business will withdraw R&D spending .

On the fiscal outlook, the AI Group says that as the economy softens over the next few months and the global economic outlook is uncertain, the budget should be used to provide surplus through extra public sector investment or spending, as well as tax cuts to encourage private-sector investment or spending.

"With the benefit of hindsight, it now appears very likely that the substantial fiscal consolidation project in the 2012-13 budget is contributing to the slower than anticipated growth of the domestic economy," the submission says.

"These considerations suggest that a larger deficit should be tolerated for the 2013-14 year."

The group also wants the budget used to encourage: the recruitment services of mature-age employees; an economy-wide Productivity Commission inquiry into regulations that hinder the use of digital technologies; cuts to the company tax rate to 25 per cent; and the retention of promised financial assistance for industries hit by the carbon tax despite the government's broader push for savings measures.

Tuesday 26 February 2013

Business canes reworking of 457 visa system

The Northern Territory Chamber of Commerce and Industry says a Federal Government decision to make the 457 visa system more restrictive is bad news.

The Government says the system for importing workers was being rorted by some employers who weren't using available Australian workers.

NT Chamber manager Greg Bicknell has questioned what happened to what was supposed to be Australia's first regional migration agreement, which was to cover the Northern Territory.

The Federal Government announced a year ago it would negotiate the agreement so that Darwin businesses could hire overseas workers if there were no Australians to fill the jobs.

But there has been no agreement and the Government has now announced a raft of changes to the 457 visa system, making it more restrictive.

Mr Bicknell says Darwin's unemployment rate is less than 2 per cent, and businesses will find it even more difficult to get workers.

"The majority of employers in the Northern Territory are small to micro businesses," he said.

"Generally, skilled migration is a last option.

"They will have tried to recruit local people first and foremost because that's easiest.

"It is a costly process to bring someone in from overseas.

"It's not the preferred option, but often it's the only option."

Mr Bicknell says the changes will make the system more difficult and expensive.

"Anything that increases the complexity of this program is something business doesn't want to see," he said.

Monday 25 February 2013

Skilled migrants a success story

SKILLED migrants and foreign workers have made an important contribution to Australia's economic success in recent decades. They were welcomed by both sides of politics for the boost to productivity they delivered. Such workers continue a strong tradition in a nation that was built by waves of hard-working and skilled newcomers from all corners of the world. Against that background, the Gillard government's crackdown on temporary 457 visas, under pressure from trade union leaders, exposes the union movement's narrow, backward outlook and its disproportionate power over federal Labor.

As Michael Easson, chairman of the Ministerial Council on Skilled Migration and a former ACTU deputy president, wrote a fortnight ago, the much-maligned 457 visa program responds to the economic cycle. Its flexibility is what makes it efficient, placing workers directly in jobs they need, where local staff are not available.

While union leaders complain that the temporary 457 visa scheme has been exploited as an easy route to permanent residency, the 83,000 workers in Australia under the scheme comprise just 0.7 per cent of the workforce. Their presence has been vital to fill skill shortages, especially in the mining sector. Applications for the visas fell by 4.8 per cent in the six months to December 31. At a time when miners are racing to capitalise on demand for resources, "expunging" the enterprise migration agreements that help major resource projects fill vacancies, as union leaders want, would handicap our most productive industry. It would damage confidence, investment, growth, job creation and incomes as Nimrod resources chairman and former Queensland Labor treasurer Keith De Lacy warned yesterday. Such economic sabotage would be intolerable, and if the Gillard government is to retain a shred of credibility with business it must put the unions in their place.

Despite the unedifying, populist race to the bottom over population during the 2010 election campaign, the reality facing Australians is that as baby-boomers retire, the nation will face lower living standards without a larger, more productive population. We must think long and hard before turning away skilled, net-contributors to the Australian project, whatever the protectionists might say.

Monday 18 February 2013

Australian government invests in game industry to halt job migration

Australia's government-funded Screen Australia program plans on investing $20 million into the local video game industry. Gamasutra reports the organization will spend $4-5 million on games production and $2-3 million on supporting business sustainability over the next year.

The organization cites the American-owned Firemonkeys, studio-killing LA Noire and Halfbrick (Fruit Ninja, Jetpack Joyride) as successful signs of Australian-developed games – hey, one legit shout-out to Halfbrick out of three ain't bad.

Australia has had to spend the past several years reinventing its place in the video game industry. Unfavorable exchange rates for foreign investors caused major publishers to pull console game development out of the country, causing severe job losses over a three-year period. The region has found success focusing on the mobile market. 

Sunday 17 February 2013

Domestic violence victims seeking asylum in Washington

Clara Flores-Aguilar says the beatings began days after she gave birth to her first son.

The pain wouldn’t stop for more than two decades. Eyes swollen with tears, Flores-Aguilar said she endured death threats, injuries to her children, a hot oil scalding, a stab wound on her leg and continuous public humiliation at the hand of her alcoholic and drug-abusing husband.

She recites a litany of abuse that only stops when she flees from Honduras, first in the middle of the last decade and again two months ago. The 50-year-old is thousands of miles from Honduras, but whether she can start anew in the United States was not known on a recent January afternoon.

Flores-Aguilar was being held at the Tacoma Detention Center as she waited a decision by an immigration judge to allow her asylum case to proceed. For that to happen, the judge must believe her story of abuse.

“I just wanted to escape again,” Flores-Aguilar told The Associated Press in Spanish, adding that in August she left a successful small deli behind after her husband said he’d kill her and himself at the end of the year. “I trust in God that he takes all of this into consideration. I don’t want to go back.”

It’s an uphill legal battle. Seeking asylum because of past domestic violence abuse has not been a successful road to take as immigration judges have traditionally declined such requests, attorneys said. But recent court cases have given these women hope.

“We’ve been having a little more luck with these cases,” said Ashley Huebner, an attorney at the National Immigrant Justice Center. “Historically, there’s been significant fear and hesitation by a lot of adjudicators.”

Flores-Aguilar is not alone in Tacoma.

Around 100 women from Central America applying for asylum have been processed through the Tacoma Detention Center over the past two years, said Betsy Tao, an attorney for the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project who works at the detention center.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials couldn’t immediately say why there’s a small surge of these women in Tacoma, though it may have to do with the way the agency transfers immigrants in custody around the nation. Two years ago, after an influx of Somali asylum seekers came to the U.S. at different ports of entry, large groups of them were transferred to Tacoma.
Requests increase

Asylum requests from Central American women at the nation’s ports increased from 95 in fiscal year 2010 to nearly 200 this past year, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. U.S. Citizenship and Migration Services processes far more asylum requests, but their available data does not include requests from Central American women based on domestic violence.

Considering all the types of migration to the United States, these women represent a tiny blip and the numbers are too small to make broad conclusions. But in a place like the Tacoma Detention Center, the women stand out among the hundreds being detained.

Tao said it’s not her organization’s call to judge whether the stories the women tell are true.

Under law, filing a frivolous asylum claim can lead to a lifetime bar on entering the United States.
Recent key case

One of the last key court cases for domestic violence victims seeking asylum came from a Guatemalan woman named Lesly Yajayra Perdomo in 2010.

She argued in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that violence against women was so rampant in Guatemala she would face the risk of murder if she was sent back. At least 4,400 women were killed in Guatemala between 2000 and 2010 and fewer than 3 percent of the cases are solved, according to the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law.

At issue in the Perdomo case was defining a “particular social group” that is persecuted and qualifies for political asylum in the United States. Women who fear genital mutilation or victims of domestic abuse have been deemed “social groups” and granted asylum.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered immigration judges to seriously consider granting asylum to Guatemalan women who fear they will be killed.

Recently, advocates launched a campaign to include changes to asylum law in the immigration reform President Barack Obama and Congress are formulating. They want to ensure gender-based asylum claims constitute part of a “particular social group.”

That’s far away for Flores-Aguilar.

For her, life had one more tragic event. She says her father died of an infection after his small intestines were perforated during a routine hernia surgery. He had decided to undergo surgery because he had taken Flores-Aguilar’s oldest daughter into his house. She didn’t find out until she had been taken into custody.

“If I had never come here, he wouldn’t have gotten the surgery,” she said, crying. “He wouldn’t be dead. Why?”

On Feb. 1, an immigration judge deemed Flores-Aguilar’s story credible and she was released from the detention center.

She now awaits the final asylum decision.

Tuesday 12 February 2013

Employ foreign workers without exploitation

Despite recent Australian politics being dominated by spin and mud-slinging, big things are at stake in Election 2013.

The Liberal Party discussion paper advocating the development of northern Australia merits more scrutiny than it received last week. This is a big idea, some of which is promising, but a lot of which is highly concerning.

In a nutshell, the idea hinges on the development of northern Australia to give business, workers and their families the incentive to move to these sparsely populated areas.

To spur on business investment, northern Australia would be lightly regulated with low tax rates, fast-track approvals of permits for construction and expanded use of low-skilled foreign workers. Supporting this proposal is Gina Rinehart's powerful lobby group Australians for Northern Development and Economic Vision (ANDEV).
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The central premise of the scheme is that northern Australia would be freed from the shackles of government regulation. Herein lies the challenge for the Liberal Party: in creating this deregulatory pro-investment nirvana, how do you avoid the rampant bullying, unsafe workplaces, cramped living spaces and, on a few occasions, deaths, that occurred the last time Australia allowed in semi and low-skilled foreign workers on a lightly controlled 457 visa?

During the Howard government years, the 457 visa scheme was expanded and deregulated, allowing an influx of low and semi-skilled migrant workers. Stories abounded of serious instances of exploitation: an Indian chef unable to speak English worked 14 hours a day for 40 consecutive days without being paid. In another case, four Chinese workers who spoke little English were found to have been underpaid $93,667. In another case two workers were forced to continue working after breaking bones in their arms doing work they were unqualified to do.

In many other cases low and semi-skilled workers on 457 visas had ''rent money'' docked from their wages to pay for overcrowded and underserviced company housing.

These abuses and many more were uncovered by the Deegan Review, which led to the Labor government passing a series of legislative reforms to improve the integrity of Australia's foreign worker program.

The problem for the Liberal Party and their ANDEV pals is how to design a deregulatory oasis in northern Australia without it descending into a guest-worker ghetto. Our recent history has shown us that low and semi-skilled migrant workers aren't in a position to bargain for wages and entitlements. Their vulnerability is compounded by their need for an employer to sponsor their continued residence in Australia.

So a visa scheme that attracts low and semi-skilled workers cannot be lightly regulated. History has shown there need to be inbuilt safeguards to protect these workers from exploitative treatment. Such a scheme cannot be designed purely with business in mind, because reducing red tape will benefit business but enable exploitative workplaces to proliferate.

Faced with this quandary, some would argue against low-skilled guest-worker schemes altogether. American political philosopher Michael Walzer regards anything short of permanent migration services as morally unacceptable and as the ethical equivalent of a ''family with live-in servants''.

Nonetheless, low-skilled guest-worker schemes can work. For example, the Pacific Seasonal Worker Scheme has been effectively designed and piloted to prevent a broad spectrum of undesirable labour practices. But regulation is essential to ensure workers receive adequate rates of pay and appropriate living and working conditions.

Low and semi-skilled migrant workers need to be made aware of their workplace rights and whom they should contact in the event of safety problems at work.

Resources must also be allocated to government agencies monitoring workplaces and enforcing labour standards. Measures such as these can enable business to manage skill shortages without workers becoming victims.

So yes, let's consider developing northern Australia. Indeed, kudos to the Liberal Party and ANDEV for proposing that we do. But if we consider this idea, let's do it right and with informed debate: especially on the deregulatory thesis underpinning it.

Source  http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/employ-foreign-workers-without-exploitation-20130212-2eb03.html

Tuesday 5 February 2013

Review threatens accountancy's status

INTERNATIONAL education lobbyists are claiming special case status for accounting courses, citing a completion rate of about 130 per cent as an example of the unique role played by the degrees.

And they say a 74 per cent plunge in Indian students shows that accountancy studies are no longer being used as a back-door migration route.

The figures have emerged as the workforce advisory body considers whether accountancy should remain on a key migration services priority list.

Management, tax and general accountants are among the 192 professions on the skilled occupation list, putting them near the front of the queue of would-be migrants seeking Australian residency under the independent and family-sponsored streams of the skilled migration program.

However, the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency, which reviews the SOL each year, has flagged accountancy for possible removal, saying it may not meet the conditions of inclusion.

They include how long it takes to train, how closely the training fits with the occupation and the economic risk of running out of people with those skills.

Educationalists fear a new crash in international enrolments if accountancy is knocked off the list, saying up to half of overseas university students consider accountancy.

According to figures presented at a Canberra forum last month, the number of international students who graduate as accountants significantly exceeds the number of commencing enrolments.

For example about 14,000 overseas students began the typical three-year course in 2008, but more than 18,000 graduated in 2011. Similar patterns occurred in other years.

Domestic graduates also outnumber commencers, although not to the same degree.

International Education Association of Australia executive director Phil Honeywood said the figures demonstrated that any change to accountancy's status could affect enrolments in other areas.

"There's a real danger that if you take accounting off the list, there will be a decline in international business enrolments," he said. Mr Honeywood said Australia was training "culturally diverse accountants for the region, not just Australia".

The forum heard Australian universities had hosted fewer than 1900 accountancy students from India last year, down from more than 7000 five years ago.

Monday 4 February 2013

Fewer foreigners are applying for skilled work visas

 THE number of foreign workers applying for skilled work visas is falling - but their use is still provoking fiery exchanges with one union already launching a campaign against them.

In the latest Department of Immigration statistics, the number of 457 visas rose 10.4% in the 12 months to November 2012 compared to the year before.

But from June, the rate of applications started to fall.

At the same time, the number of visas issued rose 10%, creating a total of 103,430 workers in Australia on 457 visas.

Despite the hint of a decline in visas, the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union has launched its "Let's Spread It Around" campaign aimed at "making the mining boom deliver jobs for Australian workers" as the country prepares for the Federal election.

One of its key platforms has a focus on those struggling to find employment as workers are brought in from abroad.

"While youth unemployment remains a major issue in communities across the country, big mining companies are continuing to bring in temporary foreign workers to build and operate mines rather than training local staff which defies common sense, " National secretary Michael O'Connor said.

The average 457 visa worker earned $89,800, according to the Department of Immigration.

A national body representing the mining industry swiftly returned fire at the union, saying local workers filled 92% of mining jobs in the past year.

The Australian Metals and Mines Association said the use of skilled migration was "very small but very important" to industry.

In Queensland, the number of visas granted overall went up more than 15% for a total of 5290 with jobs in mining, health care and construction demanding the most workers.

Of those, 20.8% - or 1100 - came from the UK, following closely by 16% - or 840 - who came from India.

When compared to the year before, demand for mine workers on visas fell 15% while both health care and construction industries needed some help from international hands.

In New South Wales, mining made up a paltry amount of the 10,760 given visas across the state.

Demand was instead dominated by need for workers in IT, health care and scientific fields.

For country of origin, the positions reversed with 24.3% or 2620 workers coming from India and 21.4% or 2310 coming from the UK.

QUICK FACTS

Total number of 457 visas (temporary skilled workers) in

Australia:

    Nov 2011: 83,140
    Nov 2012: 103,430 (24.4%)

QLD

    Nov 2011: 4590 visas granted.
    Nov 2012: 5290 (+15.3%)

Top five countries:

    UK,
    India,
    Philippines,
    Ireland,
    US.

NSW

    Nov 2011: 9790 visas granted
    Nov 2012: 10,760 (10%)

Top five countries:

    India,
    UK,
    Ireland,
    US,
    China.

Australia sees fall in applications for skilled migration 457 visas

Employer demand for the temporary skilled migration subclass 457 visas, one of the most popular routes for employing overseas workers, has decreased in the last six months, new data reveals. From July to November 2012, the number of applications fell by 4%, while the number of visas approved also fell by 12% over the same period.

The latest monthly report from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship’s (DIAC) indicated that the decline has been developing since June last year and has been falling for the last three months in a row. ‘Reinforcing this trend has been a drop in actual 457 visa grants since August. This movement demonstrates the 457 visa program’s responsiveness to the changing needs of the Australian economy,’ said a DIAC spokesman.

There has been a lot of debate in Australia about the jobs market and growing calls for Australians to be offered jobs first before they go to foreign workers. ‘While the subclass 457 visa stock figure is still high, new take up of the programme is declining, particularly in the construction and mining industries that have driven much of the recent growth,’ the spokesman explained.

‘Use of the programme has fallen across a number of industries that have traditionally been among some of the other big users of the programme including health care and social assistance, information media and telecommunications,’ he added.

In the 2012/2013 programme year to November, 3,900 applications were lodged in construction, a fall of 3% from the same period last year. A similar trend is evident in mining where 2,400 applications were lodged, an 11% per cent fall. The subclass 457 visa programme is uncapped, demand driven and designed to respond to the needs of the Australian economy, the spokesman added.

The figures also show that Western Australia is now the second largest user of the programme in 2012/2013 after New South Wales. ‘This reflects Western Australia’s strong labour market and shows the 457 programme’s responsiveness to the needs of the economy,’ he said.

While trade occupations have grown, the programme remains concentrated on highly skilled managers and professionals. For example, of those 457 visa holders who were in Australia on 30 November 2012, some 64% were working in occupations that typically require a bachelor degree or higher qualification.

    Quote from AustraliaForum.com : “Been offered a job and the company are in the process of sorting out the visa etc. I have a question or two that I would like some help/advice on if possible. 1. If I enter before my visa is approved (using my current holiday visa) would I need to exit and then re enter in order to activate the visa or could the visa be activated whilst in the Country ? 2. Is there a difference in the time it can take for a visa applied for in Australia or applied in the UK ?”"

The DIAC said that remuneration levels also demonstrate how successful the programme is in targeting highly skilled workers. Average total remuneration of those 457 visa holders granted visas this programme year to the end of November was $89,800. Managers and professionals, who together accounted for 66% of the total number of visas approved this programme year, had combined average total remuneration of $109,000. But the DIAC denied that the programme undermines employment and training opportunities for Australia and said that changes introduced in 2009 addressed these concerns.

‘As a result of these changes, all employers seeking to sponsor foreign workers on subclass 457 visas are now required to make a measurable contribution to training Australians by meeting one of two training benchmarks. They must also attest, in writing, to having a strong commitment to employing local labour and non-discriminatory employment practices,’ the spokesman pointed out. ‘Potentially vulnerable applicants working in trade occupations are required to meet English language requirements, and may be required to have their skills formally assessed. DIAC has also made it easier for visa holders to change sponsors, reducing the risk of their being bonded to an employer,’ he said.

‘Sponsors are also obliged to provide their overseas workers with terms and conditions of employment no less favourable than those provided to Australians, including paying them the market salary rate. This obligation is backed up by the Worker Protection Act, which enables DIAC to effectively monitor sponsors, and to take appropriate action against those found to be exploiting foreign workers,’ he added.