Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Hanson for the question. She is right that labour shortages and skills shortages are identified by the private sector and business leaders as being a handbrake on the economy and on the profitability of many businesses. We know that from the data. We also know that from talking to small and medium enterprises as well as business leaders. Obviously, there is no quick fix to this. Firstly, what the government can do is implement its policies, which include establishing fee-free TAFE places in areas of skills shortages, and additional university places, to try to ensure we give Australians the skills that are needed for the jobs of today and tomorrow. That is a very important part of our investment in people.

The senator raised migration. The view the Labor government takes is that you have to address labour shortages through a balanced approached, which includes efforts to train and upskill Australian workers but which also recognises that there is a place for migration, whether that's through permanent or other forms of migration. From Labor's perspective, we don't want to see a situation where, as it was under the previous government, migration is used as a stopgap, as a fill-in or a way of dealing with a skills shortage which in great part arose because there was a failure to properly fund and support Australians to get the skills that are required. Equally, we're the Labor Party and we don't want workers being exploited. You might recall that in the previous parliament there was quite a lot of focus on the exploitation of migrant workers, particularly in the agricultural and other areas. My answer is a balanced approach. Obviously, our priority is to invest in the skills— (Time expired)