Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration and Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship (Senator Evans) to a question without notice asked by Senator Fierravanti-Wells today relating to immigration and jobs.

Senator Ronaldson was talking about spin over substance, and it is not just about spin over substance in aspects of the production of documents. Today’s announcement is just another example, another version, of rhetoric and flourish rather than acting decisively in relation to the decision. What is being advocated as this cut to immigration in the skilled migrant sector is, in reality, still an increase. One only has to look in the budget statement on 13 May 2008 by Minister Evans:

The Rudd Government has moved to ease pressure on employers struggling with the skills shortage by adding an additional 31 000 skilled migrants to the 2008-09 Migration Program

So today the minister, with great flourish, announces a 14 per cent cut of 18,500. But that actually still leaves a net increase of 12,500 skilled migration places in the 2008-09 program. Looking back, it is actually an increase of about 7,000 over the skilled places in this 2007-08 migration program.

Of course, the coalition has been asking the government to pay attention to what has been happening on the ground in relation to jobs. Jobs have been disappearing in the Australian economy, and since October last year the shadow minister for immigration, Dr Stone, has been focusing on this. She has been saying these intake targets give rise to unemployment and has been asking that consideration be given to the plummeting of confidence in the business sector. So you can imagine the frustrations of our plumbers, builders and brickies on hearing that immigration totals are still at record levels when in fact we have been calling for months and months—since before Christmas—for the government to make a realistic assessment and slow down immigration. Really, this government should have acted earlier.

Look at the way this government has been handling these sorts of issues. Look at the way it has absolutely bungled the guest worker pilot. Two-and-a-half thousand seasonal Pacific islanders were supposed to be on their way; in reality only 50 Tongans arrived in the regional area of Robinvale. It was not fair to them—facing the hostility of a community saying they need jobs for their own locals. In the end, let us not forget we still have about 150,000 as the general skilled migration target, and that is still a lot of jobs that Australians could have.

When you say that there are and there have been skills shortages, the business of filling skilled positions that cannot be filled by Australians—and there is recognition that there are those categories—is protected through the section 457 visa process. We are not saying that that should be curtailed. Certainly, there has been some revision of that program. The reality is that we are a country built on migration. I am the daughter of migrants to this country, but when my parents came to this country there was a job for them. They came here and they were welcome here because there was work. But we now have a situation in which this government has taken one of the best economies in the world and driven it into recession by the way they have talked down the economy and bungled their reactions with things like the bank guarantee. They have driven this economy into recession. This is a time when we should be looking at migration in a much more holistic, global sense— (Time expired)