Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the debate and am enjoying the debate. It is at times confused. We have spent as much time on coal-seam gas as we did on EMAs. But it is always entertaining. What I find interesting about the proposition is that it has been brought before the House by the member of Melbourne—in goodwill—to restrict migration into this country of skilled workers needed in areas of workforce shortage. It follows hot on the heels of attempts by the member for Melbourne and others in his party to have effectively an uncapped refugee program in this country. We have a confused migration debate surrounding this particular issue.

I want to say a couple of things about the issue. I come from the electorate of Throsby in Illawarra, New South Wales; in my electorate one in four workers comes from somewhere else. If you walk down the main street of any suburb in my electorate on any day, you could hear Macedonian, Italian, Greek, Scottish, Irish and English accents, and that is before you get to the corner. They have all come to Australia in search of work and a better life. We are not unfamiliar with people coming to Australia, bringing their skills, their hopes and their wishes to this country, looking for a better life and opportunities in our workforce. There is nothing new about us bringing new migrant workers into this country.

It is equally true that there is deep unease within the community surrounding 457 visas and enterprise migration agreements. If you drill into the heart of the concerns about these two issues, it gets down to one simple proposition, which is that if we have both unemployment and job opportunities in this country then the job opportunities should be going to the people who are unemployed ahead of us bringing people in from other places.

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