Treasurer Wayne Swan is set to allow thousands more migrants to settle in Australia to alleviate the skills shortage in the mining sector and boost the Budget bottom line.

Under pressure from the resources sector and his Treasury bureaucrats, the Treasurer is expected to lift the annual intake of permanent migrants by at least 5000.

Almost all of them would be skilled migrants.

Forecast cuts in official interest rates - which are expected to boost the construction sector - and signs the unemployment rate has stabilised around 5.2 per cent have combined to provide Mr Swan with the economic conditions necessary to justify the move.

It will also assist Mr Swan's efforts to deliver a Budget surplus next financial year.

Since taking office, the Labor Government has adjusted the annual migrant intake in response to the state of the economy.

Before the global financial crisis, Mr Swan planned to lift the total migrant intake to 190,000.

This would have boosted Government coffers by an estimated $3 billion, of which $1 billion would have gone to the States in GST revenue.

But that intake allocation was slashed in 2009-10 by more than 21,000 in a move the Government conceded would cost it more than $400 million.

Migrant numbers were pushed up last year to 185,000 despite Prime Minister Julia Gillard's concerns about a "big Australia" and Opposition pressure for immigration cuts.

There is support within Treasury to eventually take the total migrant intake to a record 230,000 because of labour shortages in the mining and construction sectors.
The increase would provide labour to businesses crying out for workers in WA and Queensland and keep a lid on wages growth.

Any increase would be driven by the skilled migrant intake, which now stands at a record 125,850.

By increasing economic activity such as retail sales and housing construction, the lift in migrant numbers would help safeguard Mr Swan's planned Budget surplus.

The Treasurer is also being aided by a collapse in interest payable on government debt, with borrowing rates falling below 3.7 per cent.

A drop in bond yields late last year saved the Government $1 billion in interest repayments over the forward estimates. Mr Swan said yesterday that low interest rates on Australian government debt was another validation of his plan to steer the Budget into surplus.

"Australia's world-beating Budget strength has underpinned our status as a safe haven destination for global investors, with Australia's borrowing rate now at 60-year lows," he said.

The low interest rates will also help offset commodity price falls which threaten to cut the amount of revenue from the minerals resource rent tax expected to be collected next financial year.

There's nothing wrong with a high migrant intake in my opinion.

It's about quality and not quantity.

If Australia brings in the right type of migrant, then I have no issue with it.

Andrei.Hicks wrote on Apr 26^th, 2012 at 1:11pm:


230,000 is 1% of the entire countrys popualtion added each and every year.  Compound that over a decade or 2, and you're really overloading our already stretched infrastructure and resources.

And of course , every migrant that comes into fill a vacancy, is one less aussie getting their foot in the door. 

... wrote on Apr 26^th, 2012 at 1:19pm:



If the Aussie is smart enough he'll take the role.
I believe in open borders for skilled migration.

I have never spent longer than 3 years in one country since I started working.
It's good for business.

We don't need to bring in deadsh*ts or manual labour people, they add no value.
But skilled migrants from culturally cohesive and educated backgrounds are welcome for me.

A powerful West Australian union has called on the State Government to force resource companies to pay a skills training levy on construction work, a charge which is already paid by all other builders.

The latest campaign from the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union comes as union activity continues to intensify in the booming state, with two other unions calling on the WA Government to rectify underfunding in the public sector.

CFMEU state secretary Mick Buchan said all builders paid a levy of 0.2 per cent on the value of projects to the WA Government Construction Training Fund, which was meant to be used to up-skill the next generation of trades workers, but miners were exempt.

"Mining and resource companies pay absolutely nothing, not a red cent, to contribute to this training levy," Mr Buchan said.

"Mining and resource projects are the biggest users of trades and skilled workers... they just take the skills and create shortages elsewhere within the commercial construction area.

"Resource companies supported by Government are more interested in importing labour from overseas for the decades to come."

Last month a Perth Court heard an executive from major Gorgon Project contractor Allseas explain the company did not want its foreign offshore workers to be considered under Australian employment laws, because they would be forced to pay them more.

WA Premier Colin Barnett said there was an issue with miners sucking up skilled workers from other industries.

"The other side of that is that the mining industry gives opportunities for people with skills to work in exciting, internationally renowned projects and do the type of work they would not normally get," he said.

"The unions have a role, I've always dealt quite fairly and honestly with the unions but if they want to run labour's campaign that's where it will be."

Mr Buchan said the unions believed if resource companies had started contributing to the training fund a decade ago, when the looming boom was in sight, the skills shortage would not be so intense today.

"There has to be a line drawn in the sand if resource companies don't start paying a training levy to help regenerate skills, we'll lose them and job opportunities for the future," he said.

Mr Buchan said the stream of union campaign launches this morning was a "coincidence" but conceded the unions had been working together and he anticipated the blue collar unions collaborating further down the track.

"We'll work and coordinate our campaigns together, the all fit in together along the line," he said.

Uncle Meat wrote on Apr 26^th, 2012 at 1:24pm:



Nothing wrong with that? 

I suppose so long as your talking from the point of view of the business, that'd be true.

But society is more than just business. 

... wrote on Apr 26^th, 2012 at 1:29pm:



Why do you not want to have the best people in the skilled positions?
I competed (as a British citizen) with people from Canada for a role in Montreal and with Americans for my current role in Cali.

It's about having the right person in for the role.
The country is better - it has a better person in the role, the education level has real competition to improve and we get the tax revenue for higher earners into the country.

If you want to just give Aussies jobs, where is the competition to improve?

No, not for skilled migration.

Skilled workers from cohesive countries, with a strong education are net assets to the country.
I am a big fan and I practice what I preach.

... wrote on Apr 26^th, 2012 at 1:29pm:



Employers - the smart ones - employ the best person for the job.

That's how business works.

... wrote on Apr 26^th, 2012 at 1:29pm:


Actually, I'm not all that interested in the business side of it.

If I go into a store, for example, I want the most suitable/skilled person serving me.  I don't care if they're Australian, Canadian, Turkish, Muslim, Buddhist, Scientologist, German, blonde, red head, etc. ... I just want the best service possible.  That comes from hiring the most suitable candidate.