The proposed immigration reforms recently announced by the government have the potential to hobble the economic growth of smaller South Australian towns in the future.
That’s the view of Shadow Minister for State Migration and Regional Population Growth, Sam Telfer, who argues the reforms are “focused on the wrong levers”.
Mr Telfer told The [Naracoorte Community] News that the reforms would impact regional South Australian businesses and won’t address their labour needs.
“The decision by Canberra to focus on clamping down on employer-sponsored visas by requiring registration as an added layer of bureaucracy on top of already existing regulations will slow down the ability of businesses to react to labour shortages and reduce, even further, the flexibility of our migration system,” he claimed.
Mr Telfer said that by concentrating on highly skilled migrants who command higher salaries, the federal government is focusing on how migrants can contribute higher tax dollars to the treasury rather than how they can address shortages in the economy.
“This will mean a disproportionately high impact on regional South Australia, where so many jobs going unfilled are in lower income brackets, with the higher income roles the federal government wants to fill based overwhelmingly in Sydney and Melbourne.
“Once again, Canberra has focused on the eastern state capitals while ignoring rural and regional areas with genuine labour shortages.”
The major immigration policy reforms announced by the Australian Minister for Home Affairs, Clare Ellen O’Neil, last week include scrapping labour market testing in favour of new skills assessments and promising fairer pay thresholds for incoming workers.
Reforms would also focus on improving student visas away from a de facto work visa towards more skilled graduates and overhauling the points system for permanent migration to benefit those able to make the greatest contribution to Australia.
Among the changes will be an immediate lift to the minimum wage threshold for skilled workers, which has been frozen for a decade, and the establishment of a pathway to permanency for about 17,000 temporary workers.
This article appeared in the Naracoorte Community News.
