Master Builders Association doing Australia no favours on immigration policy

Skilled migration is the key to solving labour shortages but the Master Builders Association's egregious claims show how astonishingly lost they are on immigration policy, writes Dr Abul Rizvi.

AFTER THE ALBANESE GOVERNMENT'S breathless announcement of what the new Core Skills Occupation List (CSOL) will achieve, Nine media used extravagant headlines to describe the changes for the construction industry.

The Master Builders Association (MBA) released a media release full of silly claims that highlight how astonishingly lost it is on immigration policy.

Let’s be clear, ever since 2017-18, when then-Home Affairs Minister and current Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton made a total mess of the former Temporary Work (Skilled) visa (Subclass 457) successive ministers – both Coalition and Labor – have been steadily trying to fix that mess.

Dutton made five crucial mistakes in abolishing Subclass 457 and replacing it with Temporary Skill Shortage visa Subclass 482:

Dutton made the visa significantly more bureaucratic thus increasing costs for both Australian employers and their overseas recruits;

Dutton implemented dramatic increases in visa application and associated fees thus making the most valuable skilled visa in our visa system from an economic and budget perspective, also the most expensive.

Dutton froze the minimum salary level that must be paid to these employees thus increasing risk of fraud and putting downward pressure on wages more generally.

Dutton restricted pathways for temporary employer-sponsored visa holders to employer-sponsored permanent residence thus making Australia’s employer-sponsored visa less attractive. That also increased the risk of people being caught in immigration limbo.

Dutton significantly slowed visa processing times for this visa thus creating a massive backlog and frustration for Australian employers.

It has taken over seven years to implement the slow process of fixing Dutton’s mess.

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The CSOL is the latest small step in that ongoing process — but is being presented by the Government as some sort of panacea to our construction worker shortage.

Home Affairs Minister, Tony Burke said:

“Government is determined to tackle the skills shortage, especially in the construction sector. This (ie the CSOL) is an important step to attract qualified workers to help build more homes.”

Actually, it’s not a big step.

But let’s look at the claims the MBA is making as their media release is the most egregious.

The MBA claims:

'Thankfully, some roles that were previously left off the list, like plumbers, bricklayers and carpenter joiners, are now included and the Government is to be commended for that.'

That is utter nonsense.

Plumbers, bricklayers and carpenter joiners are on the existing Skilled Occupation List (SOL) and have been since it was created. They have been able to enter Australia using skilled employer-sponsored temporary entry for at least since 1996 when Subclass 457 was created — probably much longer.

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Even Dutton didn’t dare leave these occupations off the SOL.

Here is a comparison of construction industry occupations on the CSOL and the SOL:

Note the extraordinarily minor differences.

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MBA may be confusing the role of CSOL in the Core Skills Pathway stream with the Specialist Skills Pathway — which requires sponsoring employers to pay a salary above $135,000 per annum.

The Albanese Government may or may not include some trades and occupations in that stream. That’s largely irrelevant. If it did, all that would be achieved is that a tiny number of applicants with trade skills would be processed marginally faster. Hardly a priority issue!

The CSOL adds a very small number of niche construction occupations compared to the SOL. It is a tiny step forward, not the revolution Nine is reporting or the Government is claiming.

The MBA also claims the CSOL:

'...provides the only viable pathway for skilled construction workers to enter Australia...'

More nonsense.

There is a range of other skilled visas that construction workers currently use to migrate to Australia — including the Skilled Independent Category, the State/Territory Nominated category and the various regional visa arrangements.

The key problem is that we just don’t generate enough applications from construction tradespeople. It is here the MBA could help by working with the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) to develop an approach that enables people with construction trade skills just short of the Australian standard to enter Australia on appropriately designed employer-sponsored training visas and then to be trained to the Australian standard.

The MBA criticises the Government for not including a number of low-skill/semi-skill construction occupations on the CSOL such as crane, hoist and lift operators, drillers, bulldozer or excavator operators and other heavy machinery operators.

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Out of the nine-level classifications of occupations in Australia, these machine operator occupations are in either the second lowest or third lowest level. They were never going to be included in any skilled occupation lis — for the obvious reason that they are not classified as skilled.

Out of the proposed three streams of the new Skills in Demand visa, these occupations may be included in the lowest stream — called the Essential Skills Pathway.

However, given the much higher exploitation and fraud risks associated with low/semi-skilled migration, there will have to be significantly greater levels of protection for these occupations.

That means more processing steps, greater levels of employer obligations and closer monitoring to ensure these workers aren’t exploited.

Australia’s skilled migration system has generally avoided including low/semi-skill occupations for very good reasons.

Most of these require no prior qualifications to participate in training which can often be undertaken in 12 months and often much less compared to most skilled occupations where prior qualifications are usually required as well as many years of study.

The preferred approach to low/semi-skill occupations is to encourage unemployed or underemployed Australians with no qualifications to undertake such training or to encourage recent Humanitarian or Family Stream entrants with some background in these areas to undertake relevant training.

It is here the MBA could work with DHA to identify and assist recently arrived Humanitarian/Family entrants with a relevant background in the construction industry to undertake such training.

While these types of measures would deliver much greater benefits to MBA members than issuing silly press releases — these also involve more work on the part of the MBA.

And, that is the rub. Is the MBA prepared to do such work?

Dr Abul Rizvi is an Independent Australia columnist and a former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Immigration. You can follow Abul on Twitter @RizviAbul.