Australian Politics
Migration increase should be directly tied to population growth, business says
Immigration is in principle beneficial but both the quality of the immmigrant and the readiness of the economy to receive him/her is a big question in deciding if there is in fact a net benefit from it.
Allowing immigration of parasitical Muslim "refugees" is a clear mistake and failing to build sufficient housing for the new arrivals is also limiting. The proposals below glide over such issues
Permanent migration into Australia should automatically rise each year as a percentage of the nation’s population, with the current cap boosted from 195,000 to 220,000 for the next two years, business argues.
The Business Council of Australia is also calling for employers to be allowed to bring in any skilled worker from overseas for jobs with an annual salary above the average wage, currently $92,000 a year, and to make it easier for temporary visa holders to gain permanent residency.
In its submission to the federal government’s migration review, the BCA is urging a post-pandemic “reset” to migration policy, warning that without major reform Australia risks missing out in the global fight for talent.
“Australia should aim for a reset on migration that not only attracts migrants back to our shores and tackles workforce shortages, but also helps set the country up as a high productivity, high-skill and high-wage frontier economy,” the submission says.
“The system as it stands is highly complex and has become increasingly unattractive for skilled migrants and their employers.
“Short-term two-year temporary skills shortage visas with no pathway to permanent residency do not encourage experienced workers and their families,” it says. “And eligibility for skilled migration is restricted by outdated and inflexible occupational lists.”
The BCA highlights the significant impact migration can have on the economic fortunes of the country, saying the net loss of around 450,000 temporary and permanent immigrants to Australia during the pandemic is projected to cost the economy $55bn a year in economic output and $17bn in government revenues.
It proposes a significant increase in migration, arguing more new migrants will be a social and economic boon as they help fill the current significant skills gap, offset the ageing population and bring in expertise in industries of the future.
“To give certainty for long-term planning, the government should consider setting Australia’s permanent migration intake at a percentage of the total population over the long term,” the submission says. “This government should also provide a four-year ‘look ahead’ for permanent migration numbers, in line with typical government budget cycles.”
The BCA also reiterates its call at Anthony Albanese’s jobs and skills summit last September for an uplift to permanent migration in the next two financial years to 220,000 from the current 195,000, recommending that 70 per cent of the places be allocated to the skilled migrant stream. The submission notes Canada’s migration policy aims to take just over one per cent of its population across the next three years. Australia’s current 195,000 a year is about 0.75 per cent.
“Australia faces stiff competition as a migrant destination from other advanced economies that are also experiencing severe skills and labour shortages,” it says.
The size of the permanent migration program is determined by the federal government each year. It was reduced by the previous Coalition government from around 190,000 in the years prior to 2016-17 to 160,000, citing population pressures in the big cities, and hit a record low in the first pandemic year when 140,000 permanent migrants were accepted.
The Albanese government bolstered the 2022-23 intake to 195,000 to alleviate skills shortages in areas like healthcare and technology.
“Migration is an easy scapegoat for lack of infrastructure delivery and poor planning, but it is too important for us to continue down this path,” the BCA says.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil announced the review of the migration system in November, saying it would “focus on enhancing Australia’s productivity and providing businesses with the skilled workers they need, while assisting migrants to build new and prosperous lives in Australia”.
“The review will also address some of the challenges facing Australia, including our ageing population, climate change and emerging technology,” she said.
After the release of the federal government’s population statement last week, which found Australia’s is likely to be around one million fewer than expected by 2030 as a result of the pandemic, Jim Chalmers said increased migration was just one of a number of tools available to fix the nation’s significant workforce shortages.
“Migration has been a secret to our success as a country, making us more dynamic and more lively, strengthening our society and economy,” the Treasurer said.
“(But) lifting the migration cap alone won’t fix the challenges we face in the long term. We need to invest in our people and the productive capacity of our economy.”
BCA chief executive officer Jennifer Westacott told The Australian reforming the skills and migration systems in Australia had “never been more important”.
“A properly functioning migration system will be critical to attracting the skills we need to build new industries, develop new ideas, innovate across the economy and deliver a new wave of prosperity for Australians,” he said. “The right workers with the right skills get key projects and investments off the ground. You can’t employ hundreds of Australians on a construction job if you don’t have a surveyor and you can’t deliver an infrastructure pipeline without engineers.”
The BCA submission calls for the current requirement for both temporary and permanent employer-sponsored visas to match a skilled occupation list to be removed and replaced with open eligibility for jobs with a salary above average earnings, currently $92,000 a year.
It also proposes “streamlining” the current labour market testing that is required of employers before they sponsor a skilled migrant, saying there should still be “an onus on businesses that benefits from skilled migrants to demonstrate they are giving the first opportunity to suitably qualified Australian workers”.
“Skilled migration must remain a complement, not a substitute, for training and hiring Australians,” it says.
The submission proposes smoother pathways to permanent residency for temporary migrants on work visas, such as cutting the time period for sponsored employment.
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Cardinal Pell has passed away
An intellectual and a most distinguished Austalian churchman. His passing is a real loss
After 11 years at the helm of the Aquinas college in Ballarat and five years editing Light, the Ballarat diocesan newspaper, Pell left his home city in 1984 to take up the post of rector of Corpus Christi seminary in Melbourne – the training ground for the future priests of not only Melbourne but of regional Victoria and Tasmania. It was there, for the first time, that he ran into ecclesial controversy. His efforts to instil greater discipline, including attendance at morning Mass and better study habits, drew hostility from students and staff who preferred a less structured, less formal regime. A couple of the senior students, however, later became some of his closest lifelong friends.
The ever-increasing chasm between the traditional and liberal factions in the Catholic Church was becoming evident. Pell had the toughness and determination to prevail in what he called “a few small changes’’. It was clear to him, however, that more extensive seminary reform could only come from the bishops who had ultimate responsibility for priests’ training. That opportunity was later to come his way.
After three years running the seminary, Pell was consecrated a bishop, at the young age of 45, in St Patrick’s Cathedral on May 21 1987, a promotion that took his career, literally, out into the world, in unforeseen directions. Shortly after his consecration, Pell was elected by his fellow bishops to chair Australian Catholic Relief – the church’s overseas aid agency. For nine years, that position took up at least a day a week. It also involved frequent trips to the world’s trouble spots and poorest areas. His diaries from those trips made compelling reading, covering three visits to India, including one after the 1993 earthquake 400km southeast of Mumbai in which as many as 60,000 people perished. He wrote in his diary: “Wondered how God allowed earthquakes (perhaps God not all powerful, even cosmologically) … May God help victims and my weak faith’’.
As archbishop, Pell emerged as an outspoken, controversial figure in the national conversation. A “political agnostic’’ – in his time he voted Liberal, National and Labor – he waded into debate on issues relevant to the church. He was an outspoken critic of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, which he condemned in 1998 for “racist policies’’ that “are a recipe for strife and misery’’ and for setting “groups of Australians against one another’’. He was a forceful critic of the Kennett government’s encouragement of gambling in Victoria. Recognising the sharp delineation between church and state, however, he infuriated the Left in 1998 arguing that John Howard’s proposed Goods and Services Tax was not an issue on which the Church could or should present a single viewpoint. Pell’s support for an Australian republic was a personal rather than a Catholic view.
Pell was also the main target of the contentious “Rainbow Sash’’ protests, refusing to distribute holy communion in his Cathedral to homosexual activists and their families and supporters wearing rainbow sashes. The issue attracted widespread adverse publicity, and defined Pell, in many minds, as an ultraconservative. But the issue was less divisive in Catholic ranks. Other church leaders of the time attested they would and did take the same stand.
In October 2003, Pell was promoted to cardinal by John Paul II. He celebrated the honour with 50 friends and family who travelled to Rome from Australia, the US, Canada, England and Ireland. It was, he recalled afterwards in his weekly Sunday Telegraph column, an exceptionally happy week of partying, perhaps “a slight taste of Heaven’’. Pell was a prodigious writer, of journal articles, columns and sermons; his works were collated into several books including “Be Not Afraid”, “Test Everything” and “God and Caesar”.
Despite the cardinal’s long history of heart disease, for which he received a pacemaker in Rome more than a decade ago, his death, from a cardiac arrest after a hip replacement operation in the Salvator Mundi hospital, was a shock. He had recently been working in Rome, meeting groups of students from Australia and seminarians from the US, and only days before had attended the funeral of his treasured friend Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI. In the lead up to the late Pope’s funeral he was also in demand for interviews from US, British and Australian media and was busy networking with brother cardinals who travelled to Rome for Benedict’s funeral. He was the author of the obituary for Benedict published in this newspaper.
Close friends said he was in the best fom they had seen him for years, after he emerged from 13 months imprisonment, mainly in solitary confinement, in Victorian jails, on historic sex abuse charges dating back to his first few months as Archbishop of Melbourne, in 1996.
The Cardinal was released from jail in the lead-up to Easter in 2020 after the High Court, by a 7-nil margin, quashed the five convictions, which were made, originally, on the testimony of a single complainant. The full story of what was behind the charges, and others that were subsequently dropped by the Victorian legal system, is yet to emerge. His three, candid prison diaries, written during his ordeal, are a testament to his sense of justice, his strength and his faith. Throughout the ordeal, he never lost heart but worked with his legal teams to clear his name
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Religious intolerance is alive and well
As the festive season goodwill fades, we can but hope that 2023 will be a better year for Christianity after a bad 2022… A recent court case involving Wanslea, a West Australian foster care agency, has once more brought the problem of anti-Christian discrimination to light when a married couple, members of the Free Reform Christian Church, were allegedly denied an adoption because of their religion. At least the WA Administrative Tribunal confirmed the complaint and awarded compensation to the couple.
As reported by the ABC:
A Western Australian tribunal has found a Christian couple were discriminated against when their application to foster a child was rejected over their view that homosexuality is a sin.
The experience of Andrew Thorburn at Essendon Football Club confirmed how much attitudes in general, and to religion in particular, have changed over 50 years. Having seen Prime Minister Morrison abused in the press for his Christianity and Andrew Thorburn ejected from his role, this change has gone too far to the point that it is undermining our society.
Even more disturbing is the commentary from the Victorian Premier and the state’s Human Rights Commissioner. Being sacked for having certain views, views unrelated to the job, is no longer considered unacceptable in the eyes of our leaders.
Another disturbing intrusion in Victoria came from the Liberal Party, where an election candidate was banned from the party room because of her ‘extreme’ Christian views on gender and abortion; no mention has been made of equivalent views held by Muslim candidates. This was another self-inflicted injury to the party’s election prospects, adding to the predictable resulting loss.
As a young boy, I grew up in post-war London, a place both physically and psychologically recovering from the onslaught. The war had taken its toll, with morale maintained by Winston Churchill, Christian belief, and copious cups of tea. There were bomb sites, some containing unexploded ordinance, being used as playgrounds. Despite this adversity, people were happy to still be alive, as many weren’t. The church provided succour and there was little need for counselling.
All boys in this era were required to go to Sunday School and sing in the choir; I achieved a brief moment of success as a chorister in Westminster Abbey, then adolescence struck and my voice permanently changed. My subsequent religious exposure was minimal; I had, by this stage, become a medical student and found the non-evidence-based leap of faith difficult to achieve.
There is no doubt that the Christian ethos has provided the basis of our Western society, but this source of good is steadily being undermined by modernity. The 2021 Australian census statistics showed a rapid decline in those who identify as Christian falling from 68 per cent in 2003, to 52 per cent in 2016, and 44 per cent in 2021. 30 per cent now identify as having no religion. Christian faith is seemingly replaced by alternative pseudo-religions such as Extinction Rebellion and Black Lives Matter. Taking the knee has been given a new meaning; I was taught that there were only three reasons to take the knee – to pray in church, to propose marriage, and when being knighted by the Monarch! It now seems an obligatory gesture for many sporting events, the most recent being on the cricket pitch.
Although not religious, I find the increasing intolerance of those who are difficult to fathom. We are reminded that, in past centuries, wars were regularly fought under the Christian banner – although producing nothing like the loss of life that ensued in more recent times from communism, fascism, or the numerous Islamic caliphates.
The vicious nature of social media commentary fails to recognise the good Christianity has done; it has fed the poor, supported women, abolished slavery, and provided the moral backbone of our society. To condemn it for the past sins of a few paedophiles is disproportionate; Cardinal Pell was, fortunately only temporarily, convicted for the sins of others, rather than his own.
Other religions do not stack up well in their treatment of the oppressed. In countries like China, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Pakistan, and India, having a religion, the wrong religion, or leaving a religion, can result in a death sentence either by the law or from the mob. The fact that many of these countries sit on the committee of the United Nations Human Rights Commission adds to hypocrisy at the highest levels. The egregious example of the UN, refusing to even debate its own report on China’s persecution of Uighur Muslim ethnic minorities, demonstrated a new low.
Activists in Australia country continue to persecute Christianity whilst ignoring the attitudes of Islam to women’s rights and homosexuality. Why the discrepancy of criticising one religion and not the other?
Their attempts at undermining Christmas traditions exemplify their agenda. As seen in 2022, it is increasingly problematic to allow nativity scenes and the singing of carols without individuals or local councils worrying about offence being taken. Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses, remains under a fatwa (threat of death). He tellingly stated, ‘Freedom of speech is freedom to offend.’ His attempted assassination revealed the less than benign aspect of that religion.
As a now retired doctor, I have lived and worked in many countries and have witnessed all the main religions of Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. I have even dealt with medical problems caused by Animism and Voodoo. Outside the Western-orientated countries, I found an oasis (pardon the pun) of religious tolerance in the United Arab Emirates. Having lived in several countries in Arabia, I found that Dubai and Sharjah had Christian churches tolerated, although hidden away. That accommodation between two monotheistic religions was even more apparent in the Lebanon of yesteryear, until the Sunni/Shia Islamic fundamentalism divided the country with civil war. It is not that long ago that the ‘people of the book’ recognised their common ground, that view has been undermined in recent years by the attempts of an extreme form of Islam to establish dominance.
At Christmas, when Australian activists berate those who follow their faith, it is difficult to retain the spirit of goodwill the Bible eschews; local councils, such as Mosman, ban nativity scenes, and attempt to turn the holiday, (holy day) into a multicultural event. In the UK, even the definition of the holiday has been changed by some institutions; phrases such as ‘happy winter closure’ and ‘joyful holiday break’, have been substituted. In December, a British woman was arrested by police for silently praying outside an abortion clinic in Birmingham, the charge being ‘protesting and engaging in an act that is intimidating to service users’; this in clear contravention of European freedom of speech and freedom of assembly legislation.
Goodwill is far more evident in Dubai, with the shopkeepers happy to supply presents for the Christmas festival and carols playing in the shopping malls. In one year, the fixed festivals of Hindu Diwali in October/November and Christmas in December, were neatly intersected by the moving date of Ramadan, which, in the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, was in November that year; all the gifts were pragmatically repurposed if not sold! Conversely, other countries, such as Pakistan and Nigeria actively threaten Christians.
When I lived in Germany the giving of presents, Christmas trees, decorations, and lighting all followed the customs of the past. The non-Christian influx in many European countries has produced an opportunity for the extreme Left to undermine that tradition based on its potential to offend immigrants; Germany’s Islamic population has exploded to over 5 million, with nearly 3,000 mosques. Mono-cultural Scandinavian countries have the highest level of happiness in the world because their traditions have been retained rather than cancelled. Even the mention of the word Christmas has come under increasing threat; in the interest of inclusion, (as opposed to exclusion), the European Union banned its use in its official documents (later forced to withdraw from the position after complaints).
The 2021 census confirmed the dramatic decline in religious observance, with an associated decline in church weddings, from a historical 95 per cent, to now 20 per cent. As marriage is in decline and divorce increasing, 16 per cent of families are now, to their children’s detriment, single parents. Many children have little knowledge of the significance of Christmas, looking on the event solely as a time for family gatherings and presents. To even claim to be a Christian often encourages abuse. How can it be that we have a Human Rights Commission, but no action is taken when, as with Andrew Thorburn, a job is lost because of religious belief?
During nine years of Coalition government, religious freedom legislation was one of the many ‘too difficult’ challenges it failed to promote. Initially raised by Phillip Ruddock’s expert panel in 2018, it took until February 2022 before attempts were made to address the issue, with religious protection legislation possible in 2023. Western society is abrogating its history, Christianity is being persecuted and is bizarrely seen as some sort of moral turpitude, and marriage is under siege; what will be left to keep our society together, will climate change or some other high moral activist agenda become a poor substitute? Unless changes are made, the days of traditional celebration of Christmas may be soon gone.
https://spectator.com.au/2023/01/religious-intolerance-is-alive-and-well/
**********************************************Chasing our tails on wages is a real risk under Labor’s plan
When the Secure Jobs, Better Pay bill passed parliament late last year, Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke declared that “today we get wages moving”. It’s an easy political sell, particularly as cost-of-living pressures are affecting many households. But achieving this outcome is very different from simply announcing it.
Let’s be clear on what the aim is or at least should be: sustainable real wage increases that don’t lead to inflationary pressures or loss of jobs. There’s no point in achieving high nominal wage rises if the outcome is simply higher inflation – the classic dog chasing its tail – or workers lose their jobs.
Anthony Albanese’s assertion that anyone who opposed the rushed bill is against higher real wages is complete nonsense. The real issue is whether the new laws will actually achieve sustainable real wage increases. And if they do not, what will be the costs relative to the benefits of some workers (and the trade unions) doing well out of the new deal?
During the course of the year, various official indicators of wage growth will be released. We will need to watch out for the potentially misleading conflation of these figures with the impact of the legislation, something Burke may attempt to do. It was already evident last year that wages had started to move, at least in the private sector. A tight labour market has this effect, even if it was a long time coming.
By the same token, it’s also clear that ongoing government pay caps are affecting wage growth in the public sector. Finance Minister Katy Gallagher regards wage rises of 3 per cent a year as acceptable for federal public servants even though this will likely lead to quite steep falls in real wages for the affected workers. It’s also telling that the federal government is seeking to delay the pay rises for aged-care workers awarded by the Fair Work Commission last year.
Fiscal pressures on all levels of government will mean that wage growth in the public sector is likely to remain relatively subdued notwithstanding the occasional concession made to particular groups of workers.
What are the mechanisms that Burke is relying on to ensure that wages get moving? They are mainly focused on enterprise bargaining, although the government will be assuming that the Fair Work Commission will award a relatively generous increase in the national minimum wage and aligned wages in keeping with its practice last year. This will be assisted by the strong support of the government in its formal submission.
Recall here that last year the FWC granted increases of between 4.6 per cent and 5.2 per cent to those on award rates of pay. Given that about one-quarter of workers are paid award wages, increases of this magnitude can shift the dial when it comes to measured wage growth.
Across the past decade or so, there was a noticeable decline in the uptake of enterprise bargaining as the approach of the Fair Work Commission made the certification of agreements increasingly difficult. Think here the complex and convoluted interpretation of the better-off-overall test as well as pernickety procedural requirements.
It is estimated only 15 per cent of workers are now employed under current enterprise agreements. Indeed, most workers covered by enterprise agreements are now on expired agreements. It’s clearly a system on its knees.
But also bear in mind that enterprise agreements are essentially the domain of trade unions. Nearly three-quarters of all enterprise agreements are union-related, with these agreements covering 93 per cent of all employees on a current agreement. In other words, only union agreements with relatively large employers have lasted.
One principal aim of Labor’s legislation is to kickstart enterprise bargaining across a much wider spectrum of firms and industries, both single enterprise and multi-employer. The government’s expectation is that the vast majority of these agreements will be union-related and will contain wage increases and improvements to working conditions that have not been achievable.
A central feature of the legislative amendments is the incentive it gives for employers to quickly conclude enterprise agreements lest they be dragged into multi-employer bargaining. Both the minister and ACTU secretary Sally McManus have said as much. The scope for multi-employer bargaining doesn’t come into effect until the middle of this year.
Some unions already are taking advantage of a wrinkle in the new laws to restart enterprise bargaining where agreements have lapsed. There is no need to seek the permission of workers and unions will use the backdrop of end-point arbitration to push for large wage increases. A recent example is the unions requesting that Coles enter into bargaining given that the current agreement lapsed three years ago.
In other cases, unions will wait for multi-employer bargaining to begin and use the easy device of roping in employers who meet the comparability test. This will avoid the resource-intensive slog of bargaining on an enterprise-by-enterprise basis.
Burke’s confidence that wages will get moving, at least in a sustainable sense, incorporates an implicit assumption that there are currently “economic rents” within firms that can be costlessly reallocated to workers in the form of higher wages. That is, higher wages are possible without adverse effects on employment and absent any productivity trade-offs.
Whether there really are these economic rents in competitive industries that can be redistributed to workers is a moot point. Are there really large numbers of private sector firms currently earning supernormal profits, leaving aside mining where wages are already very high? Do the profit margins in retail or hospitality indicate that the owners of these firms are so flush with funds, particularly in the context of rising energy bills, that paying higher wages without any productivity or efficiency offsets can occur without any adverse commercial effects?
It is obvious why the unions are so keen on multi-employer bargaining because it will be much easier for wage increases to be passed on to higher prices as competitor firms are roped into the same pay and conditions for their workers. Technically speaking, the demand for labour is less elastic (responsive to changes in wages) at the industry level relative to the firm level.
The danger is that some firms will be forced out of business and inflation will accelerate.
For those who understand how labour markets work and the role that business plays, claiming better wage outcomes are possible without some trade-offs is simply naive. Until there is a focus on productivity, sustainable real wage gains will continue to elude us.
While it is possible that enterprise agreements can foster productivity growth, there are many examples of the reverse – restrictions on the right of managers to manage, the use of certain types of workers and compulsory consultation with unions. The recent NSW rail dispute is a perfect example of the potentially chilling impact of bargaining on the introduction of new technology.
In the meantime, the Reserve Bank will be watching carefully what happens to wages. Any signs that nominal wages are growing at a pace inconsistent with the bank’s inflation target will likely be met with tighter monetary policy.
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Evelyn Rae, a conservative Australian political commentator
Margo Robbie -- a beautiful australian
My son Joe at ANU
One of the happiest pictures ever -- Cleo Smith, aged 4
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