Labor leader Bill Shorten has upped the ante over the foreign worker crackdown by promising to charge employers much higher fees for using temporary foreign labour and limit even further the range of occupations that are eligible.
And no country will be offered an exemption from the rules governing the issue of foreign worker visas when free-trade deals are being negotiated.
Mr Shorten outlined the policy proposals in a business speech on Wednesday. He sought to gazump the Turnbull government which will announce in the budget next week a new training program for Australian workers that will be funded by a new "tax"' on businesses who use the new visa scheme.
Last month, the Turnbull government duped the 457 visa scheme and replaced it with a new visa regime that is much more more tightly targeted.
The new scheme will involve a two-year visa with no prospect of permanent residency at the end and available to 200 fewer occupations than the 457 visa. There will also be a new four-year visa available to just 183 high-end occupations
The cost to employers of the four-year visa will be $2400 a worker, more than twice the cost of a 457 visa application. The two-year visa will cost $1150.
The government will announce in the budget a separate impost on employers using the new visas which will fund a new national training program to better skill Australians to fill jobs.
Mr Shorten has got in first, promising to increase the fees. The cost of a four-year visa will jump to $6400.
"Labor will use this extra revenue to establish the SkillUP Training Fund. This new fund will help deliver the next Labor government's agenda in skills and training," he said.
He also announced Labor would establish the Australian Skills Authority which would be an independent, labour market testing body to ensure there was a genuine skills shortage before foreign labour could be used.
"This new body will determine genuine skills needs and restrict temporary work visas to only those areas," he said.
He said Labor would also establish a new SMART Visa for world-leaders in Science, Medicine, Academia, Research and Technology "to ensure universities, research institutes, medical, scientific and advanced technology industries and companies and public research agencies to bring the best and brightest here".
And unlike recent FTAs, there would be no more exemptions granted enabling the waiving of labour market testing.
On Tuesday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi complained to Mr Turnbull by telephone that the visas crackdown would have implications for his citizens which are the biggest users of the old 457 visas.
