Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

(—) (): Clearly the China free trade agreement will create more job opportunities for all Australians, including skilled tradespeople around Australia, because we will see billions of dollars in additional investment in Australia that will generate job opportunities. We will see billions of dollars in additional exports from Australia that will create opportunities for more workers and more opportunities for people to work in those jobs as they are developing those businesses. There will be enormous job opportunities, as Senator Abetz highlighted before. When it is fully implemented there will be some 178,000 additional job opportunities for Australians under ChAFTA, including skilled Australian workers. Those opposite really should go and have a look at section 2.26B of the Migration Regulations, which stipulate the types of conditions that skilled workers in Australia have to meet. Whether they are from China, Somalia or the United States, they will all be appropriately skilled. (Time expired)