Australian Visa Information

Skilled migrants will be encouraged to move to Victoria, particularly to regional areas, under a new strategy to increase the state’s share of Australia’s skilled migrant intake to 28.5 per cent, from the current 26.8 per cent.
The Premier, John Brumby, and the Minister for Skills and Workforce Participation, Jacinta Allan, today released the next stage of the Victorian Government’s skilled migration strategy, which targets skilled and business migrants.

Mr Brumby said the new strategy, Global Skills for Victoria, aimed to increase Victoria’s share of the nation’s intake of skilled and business migrants to 28.5 per cent by 2011.

“Victoria has exceeded its previous target of attracting 25 per cent of the nation’s total intake of skilled and business migrants,” Mr Brumby said.

“Our government is now investing an additional $8.4 million, bringing Victoria’s commitment to skilled and business migration to $15 million over the next four years.”

Initiatives under Global Skills for Victoria include:

· Establishing two new overseas postings in the United Kingdom and India to provide a local presence for the Victoria Government’s Skilled Migration Program;
· Establishing a Skilled and Business Migration Advisory Committee to help ensure an integrated and streamlined approach to attracting and retaining skilled migrants to Victoria;
· Delivering industry and career insight seminars which will provide newly arrived and new onshore skilled migrants with advice on finding work in their fields;
· Increasing the scope of the government’s Skills Shortages Surveys to provide analysis for the first time across five sub-regions in key industry sectors in metropolitan Melbourne, while continuing the Regional Skills Shortages Surveys;
· Establishing a new Global Skills for Provincial Victoria Program to provide services to attract migrants to regional areas and link them with local employers.

Minister for Skills and Workforce Participation, Jacinta Allan, said the new campaign would continue the Brumby Government’s strong focus on attracting business and skilled migrants to regional Victoria.

“Regional Victoria has enjoyed strong employment, investment and population growth over the last eight years,” Ms Allan said.

“This growth means that regional businesses and industries find it difficult to attract sufficient numbers of highly skilled workers.

“Our new campaign, and particularly our new Global Skills for Provincial Victoria Program, will ensure that sufficient numbers of highly skilled workers are attracted to regional communities to meet the skills needs of regional Victoria.

“Skilled migrants will be attracted to regions around the provincial centres of Ballarat, Geelong, Bendigo, Mildura, Swan Hill, Wodonga, Wangaratta, Shepparton, Warrnambool, La Trobe Valley and Horsham.”

Victoria has grown its share of Australia’s skilled migrant intake from 17.6 per cent in 1998-99 to 26.8 per cent in 2005-06.

Australia’s experience with multiculturalism may be an interesting reference point for Europe and the Czech Republic.

Mingling of peoples of different heritages and cultures in Europe has not always been positive. Throughout history, the conquest of various peoples and places has often resulted in oppression and exploitation of minorities.

Yet multiculturalism is of growing significance, with the development of the European Union and the Schengen Agreement, which gives EU residents more freedom to travel quickly across country borders. There’s a new wave of economic migration across Europe, and it affects all of the countries.

As the Czech Republic adopts the Schengen Agreement later this year and continued strong economic growth leads to shortages in particular areas of its work force, the issue has come to the forefront.

So what has been Australia’s experience?

Australia is a nation built on migration. Its population of 21 million has come from some 200 countries. Almost one in four of our residents was born overseas. Since World War II, we have been the third highest recipient of refugees in the world.

Most of this migration has been the result of carefully managed migration policies. Over the past 35 years, these policies have, notably, been non-discriminatory with respect to nationality, race, ethnicity, religion and sex.

Australian officials have actively encouraged and fostered multiculturalism during this time period. They have held firm to the belief that no Australian should be disadvantaged on the basis of their country of birth, cultural heritage, language, sex or religion. Migrants have been encouraged and assisted to retain and respect their heritage, including their language.

While English is our working language, almost 150 languages are taught in Australia today. Over time, our main source of migrants has shifted from Europe to Asia. People from Sudan currently make up the fastest growing birthplace group of migrants to our country.

Although Christianity is Australia’s predominant religion, other religions, including Buddhism, Islam and Hinduism, have shown the biggest proportional increase in recent years.
What has been the outcome of this experience? Has it been a positive one?

These questions were answered with an unequivocal “yes” during the recent visit to Prague by two exceptional Australians of Lebanese heritage.

The first was Professor Marie Bashir, who, as governor of Australia’s largest state, New South Wales, now occupies the first public office created in Australia. Governor Bashir also holds the honorary elected position as chancellor (rector) of Australia’s oldest university, the University of Sydney. A medical doctor, psychiatrist and administrator, her many achievements include being an Australian “mother of the year.”

The other visitor was the governor’s husband of 50 years, Sir Nicholas Shehadie. Sir Nicholas is a former captain and manager of the iconic Australian Wallabies Rugby Union team. He was the first non-Anglo-Saxon Lord Mayor of Sydney, and has been chairman of the Australian multicultural TV and radio network, SBS.

During the couple’s visit to Prague, Governor Bashir led a discussion at a dinner hosted by the Prague Society on the issue of Australia’s experience with multiculturalism.

Both the governor and Sir Nicholas exemplify the richness of Australia’s multicultural heritage. Both have achieved and contributed much to our society.

Governor Bashir spoke of the great opportunities Australia had provided for its migrants, the support it offered them to help them make difficult adjustments to a new society, including special language translation services, and the richness that our migrants have brought to our society and to our economy.

I would also argue that multiculturalism in Australia has led to the development of a cohesive, innovative, progressive and dynamic society.

Australia has been ranked as having the lowest risk of political instability in the world.
Australia ranks third in the world on the U.N. Human Development Index.
Australia is enjoying its 15th consecutive year of economic growth, growth that has been well above the

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) world average.
Over the past 25 years, Australia has become one of the most open and competitive economies in the world. Our standard of living now exceeds that of all G8 countries other than the United States. For five consecutive years, it has been ranked as having the world’s most resilient economy.

Five of our state capital cities are rated by the Economist Intelligence Unit as being among the world’s top 12 “most livable cities.”

Migrants have contributed significantly to Australia’s sporting prowess, including coming in an extraordinary fourth place in the last two Olympic Games.

Migrants also contribute immensely to our rich academic, cultural and culinary life. They have, for example, been instrumental in making Australia — traditionally a beer-drinking nation — the third largest exporter of wine in the world. Our multicultural society also helps our large tourist industry and our position as a place of learning for over 300,000 international students every year.

All this is not to say that social cohesiveness is not an issue in Australia. Every now and then disruptions occur that the media is quick to attribute to ethnic tensions —although that is often only part of the story. But these disruptions are, I believe, dwarfed by the great positives that have come from our cultural diversity.

The issue of an Australian national identity is also one that has been on the government’s agenda. Indeed, in October, it will be introducing two measures to promote social cohesiveness and Australian values.

First, from mid-October, most people who apply for permanent or selected temporary visas to Australia will be required to sign a “values statement,” which confirms their commitment to abide by Australian law and to respect the Australian way of life.

Australian values include: respect for the freedom and dignity of the individual, equality of men and women, freedom of religion, commitment to the rule of law, support for parliamentary democracy, and support for freedom of speech.

Second, from Oct. 1, most migrants to Australia will need to pass a new Australian citizenship test before they can apply for Australian citizenship. The aim of the test is to ensure that new citizens can participate fully in Australian life and take advantage of the opportunities available to them.

The test is multiple choice and includes questions about the responsibilities and privileges of Australian citizenship, Australian values, Australia’s geography, history and peoples, and the Australian system of government.

Europe has given Australia much, including through migration. I would be very happy if Europe could, as it ponders its future, take a very positive message from Australia’s experience with immigration and multiculturalism.

— The author is the ambassador of Australia to the Czech Republic. He is based in Warsaw, The Prague Post

The economy's sparkle could fade, along with the Prime Minister's re-election prospects, if interest rates go up.

ECONOMISTS are warning that the No. 1 "success disease" of the Australian economy — skills shortages and associated wages pressure — could soon fuel inflation, as both sides of politics brace for the most keenly awaited price figures in years.

As financial markets increased predictions of an election campaign interest rate rise, a survey of economists by BusinessDay found a broad consensus that wage pressures are likely to re-emerge as a threat to inflation, stoked by the lowest unemployment for decades and booming economic growth.

The Business Council of Australia is urging whichever side wins government to increase efforts to shift at least 1 million extra people into the labour force to lift productivity.

In a paper released this week, it argued that governments should be doing more to sweep away financial, tax, infrastructure, child-care and age impediments to work, rather than focusing only on lowering the jobless rate.

Consumer inflation figures this morning are expected to show the average cost of living increased by 0.8 or 0.9 per cent during the three months to September 30.

Economists are roughly divided over whether such a result will convince the Reserve Bank to lift its official interest rate to an 11-year high of 6.75 per cent following its November 6 meeting. But calculations by the futures market show that financial markets are pricing in a 57 per cent chance of an interest rate rise, up from 50 per cent on Monday.

So far, wage pressures have remained in check, pinned down by labour market reform, higher labour force participation, booming migration and possibly tax cuts.

But Macquarie Bank economist Rory Robertson warned that the tightening labour market would be high on the Reserve's list on November 6.

"The ongoing strength of domestic demand, combined with the ongoing tightness of the labour market and all the worries about wage and price pressures down the track, are such that the Reserve Bank just needs a bit more evidence that there is a genuine inflation threat and it hikes," Mr Robertson said.

Australian National University economist and labour market expert Bob Gregory said the key consideration for the Reserve would be whether future wage increases were matched by productivity gains.

He said a key issue was whether productivity growth would stall as falling unemployment forced businesses to hire less-skilled workers.

"That is, given how hard skilled labour seems to be to find, you would have thought wages would have gone up much more," Professor Gregory said. "The general interpretation of that is the weakening of the centralised wage-setting system has meant wage increases in Western Australian mining have not spread as quickly to, say, Victorian manufacturing, as it would have in a more centralised system."

Access Economics director Chris Richardson said industrial relations reforms of the past meant wage increases were closely linked to productivity improvements, lifting the overall speed limit of the economy, although he warned it was now starting to "run into resistance".

"It hasn't blown a tyre yet because the system is different now," Mr Richardson said. "But that doesn't mean it will never blow a tyre and we are clearly, day by day, worker by worker, getting to the point where wages growth is picking up."

Prime Minister John Howard has said tax cuts may have also played a role, as higher disposable incomes had made workers less likely to chase big pay rises.

BT Financial Group chief economist Chris Caton agreed that tax cuts could have played a role, but suggested it would be unlikely to last.

"Skills shortages is of course a success disease — you only get it when the economy has done well," he said. "Obviously the Reserve Bank would be concerned that labour markets are now so tight that has to add to wage pressures."


Source: THE AGE - Josh Gordon and Nassim Khadem

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/10/23/1192941064559.html