After a week of rhetoric from Bill Shorten about the need to protect Australian jobs, the Opposition Leader has criticised Malcolm Turnbull and Immigration Minister Peter Dutton over the number of foreigners allowed into Australia with work rights.
Mr Shorten said on Friday the visa system allocated more than a million people from overseas with work rights in Australia, but his claim was immediately criticised by experts.
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PM's strong words for Shorten
Bill Shorten has revealed his plan to put Australian workers first but Malcolm Turnbull says it's hypocritical and opportunistic. Courtesy ABC News 24.
"When we have got so many of our Australian young unemployed, when we've got blue-collar workers displaced by the mining boom not able to find work, something has to give," he said.
The US election, he said, had provided an opportunity for Labor to "repeat everything we have been saying before then about standing up for blue-collar jobs, construction jobs, engineering jobs. There is nothing inappropriate or wrong, despite what Mr Turnbull says, in me fighting for Australian jobs and Australian workers getting priority for Australian jobs."
While Mr Shorten has this week proposed the tightening of the rules on 457 visas for skilled migrants, the Labor leader did not specify exactly what "had to give".
He was congratulated this week for his stance on Australian jobs by One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, but the government highlighted the number of 457 visas granted by Mr Shorten when he was a minister in the Gillard government.
A breakdown of temporary workers in Australia, based on statistics from the Department of Immigration, has prompted economists, demographers and migration experts to criticise the Opposition Leader's rhetoric about foreign workers.
On October 31, 2016, there were 1,472,640 potential temporary foreign workers in Australia.
By far the largest group was the 660,000 New Zealanders, who have the right to live and work in Australia for an unlimited amount of time – and have had for decades.
Another 486,700 of those temporary foreign workers were students, who mostly have limited work rights (40 hours a fortnight during university semesters) and who contributed $17 billion to the economy in 2015.
The number of 457 visas holders was just 174,900, including dependents. Primary 457 visa holders numbered 94,890, down from 104,750 in 2014-15.
Working holidaymakers accounted for 145,000 of those foreign workers, while temporary graduates accounted for the remaining 40,000 people.
University of Melbourne demographer Peter McDonald – who served both sides of politics on the Ministerial Advisory Council on Skilled Migration – took issue with Mr Shorten's comments about temporary skilled migrants.
" It's irresponsible to target 457s in this way," he said. "And the number of 457 [visa holders] is actually falling. To blame migrants for unskilled workers not having a job is quite problematic; it's not true.
"The economy does need skilled migrants. Australia's labour supply, If you think back to the 1960s, each new youth cohort was bigger than the one before it. But that's no longer the case. It's much more sensible to look at specific occupations [under which people can be employed on a 457 visa]."
Migration Council chief executive Carla Wilshire said the current rules on skilled migration had been bipartisan policy for years.
"Australian farmers need working holidaymakers to fill critical labour shortages and keep their farms running," she said. "International students are one of our biggest export markets. In high-tech industries, 457s are training Australian workers and transferring knowledge.
"Our economy is very dependant on migration. As a geographically isolated nation, the movement of people has become key to our competitiveness."
Deloitte Access economist Chris Richardson said the argument that 457 workers were stealing jobs reminded him of decades-old arguments that married women entering the workforce were stealing the jobs of men.
The recent rhetoric about 457s was the "crack cocaine of populist politics – people lap it up because it is believable".
" There are times – say, when unemployment is rising fast – when you might want to use the migration program such as 457s to put on the accelerator or break, but in the grand sweep of time, this argument is wrong," he said.