essential skills in short supply

In this mornings Australian, Jennifer Westacott of the Business Council of Australia argues that skills in Australia are in short supply.

I would argue that this is especially the case in the upper levels of Governance and Planning in Australia.

So unless the target of migrant intake is to get rid of politicians who sell off our assets, reduce our capacity and saddle us with ridiculous water infrastructure management (with little done about providing infrastructure itself) well I can't agree.

take for example this figure:

New job creation is running at about 30,000 a month

which is quite implausible as anyone looking for work knows. What this figure certainly included is jobs which are such as construction. This may create a job for 6 months and then it goes away.

So unless you're going to have migrants who come for 6 months and go away its blatantly false to argue this case.

she goes on to argue that

The rate of growth has fallen to 1.6 per cent, its lowest in four years.

thank God ... its been insane for years.

She momentarially pulls her head out of the sand with this:

three-pronged strategy is needed for a sustained increase in the skilled workforce: investment in education and training, commitment to a sizeable, permanent skilled migration program and greater use of temporary skilled migration visas.

which contains the single good point of investment in education and training but is likely to be subjugated to the skilled migration program and greater use of temporary skilled migration visas which will make more profit for business and leave more Australians underemployed.

She rightly points out that:

Well-managed population growth will require a commitment to effective long-term planning of our transport, energy and water infrastructure needs, fast-tracking of key infrastructure projects and policy settings that support private investment and efficient delivery of large projects.

but to date that is not what we've seen ... with the majority of spending on the infrastructure to dig it up faster and ship it out faster ... see this ABC article to support that.

A new report on infrastructure spending says investment in Queensland continues to be led by resources projects

So if you think that the multi billion dollar spending on stuff such as Allconnex has brought a single extra drop of water to your door then perhaps you'll think this is a good idea. To what I see it just appears to be good for providing more for those making money out of us and nothing better for us.