Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Perhaps after that unique contribution from Senator McGauran we might actually return to the issue at hand and inject some reality into the debate about wages, skills shortages and the temporary migration of overseas workers. For Minister Vanstone to assert, as she did last week, that the only reason there is opposition to temporary skilled migration is that it undermines a union’s ability to exploit high wages amidst the skills shortage is just ludicrous. The reality is, as I have said in this place time and time again, skills shortages in this country do not just materialise overnight.

This issue has been confronting this government for 10 long years. Let us consider the build-up of this crisis in skilled labour over the last 10 years. Firstly, we have the decreases in TAFE funding and places for young Australians in training. Who presided over that? This government and Senator Vanstone in particular. Secondly, fewer people of all ages are actually completing their apprenticeships. Who is responsible for coming up with a package that encourages people to do that? This government. Thirdly, we have an ageing workforce that has seen many tradespeople retire and they are not being replaced. Finally, after years of economic growth, this government has not seized the opportunity that offers and has just sat on its hands. That is how you get a skills shortage, a skills crisis, after 10 years. They are the ingredients, not whatever it was that Senator McGauran was trying to say.

As I said, a skills shortage does not suddenly appear without warning. This current crisis is no different from any other that we have had before. To then argue that the only interest that unions have in the skills shortage is to drive up wages is absolutely absurd because, if that were the only interest they had, they could do what this government is doing and just sit on their hands and not talk about training or access for people but just let wages go up, as they inevitably will with a skills shortage. Unions have been trying to alert this government to the skills shortage for years. If it were as the minister claimed last week, the unions would have been sitting on their hands, waiting for the skills shortage to force up wages. Instead, responsible trade unions do not want the boom-bust cycle that Senator McGauran seems to rejoice in; they want long-term growth and full employment.

Wages and skills are about basic laws of supply and demand—I would have thought that those opposite would know that. When any commodity or service is in high demand and low supply, it has the effect of driving up the price. That is no secret. It is basic economic theory that is widely accepted and in common knowledge everywhere, except perhaps among those opposite. To argue that unions in this country are only interested in driving up wages to exploit a skills shortage is to turn that economic theory on its head. The reason the trade unions and those of us on this side of the parliament are involved in this current argument about temporary workers from overseas is not about driving up wages but about ensuring that nobody is being exploited.

It does not serve our national interest if we fail to meet our training challenges in the years ahead. Simply importing labour from overseas meets the short-term needs of overcoming a skills shortage, but it does not and cannot address the longer term needs of our country. There has always been an acceptance on all sides in this country that immigration was and is an important factor in building our country. That has not changed, but our concerns are that, if employers are using the skills shortage to source foreign labour as a means of driving down costs, this is not in our national interest and it is certainly not in our long-term interest.

The government and those opposite should be about ensuring that this skills shortage is overcome by a range of policy initiatives that deal with the problem now and well into the future. Do not just sit on your hands for another 10 years—or however long you are allowed to sit on that side of the chamber—actually do something to address the long-term needs of our labour market. The approach of this government has been to ignore all the warning signs. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.