Interview with Sally Sara – ABC RN Breakfast
SALLY SARA, HOST: Well, last week on the program, you heard from a cafe owner in regional Victoria who's set to have three of his chefs, all on temporary visas, deported in the coming months due to what he says is an unfair immigration system here in Australia. Daniel Richards says the staff have ticked all the right boxes but have still received no clarity regarding permanent residency.
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DANIEL RICHARDS: They're taxpayers, they're contributors to society. We just need to understand their position and not treat them in the way that we're treating them. So, you know, Australia is the land of opportunity, it's not the land of bait and switch.
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SARA: That's Daniel Richards there, who owns a cafe in regional Victoria. Andrew Giles is the Minister for Skills and Training. Of course, formerly he was the Immigration Minister and joins me now. Minister, welcome to Radio National Breakfast.
MINISTER FOR SKILLS AND TRAINING ANDREW GILES: Great to be speaking with you Sally.
SARA: What do you think about these kind of situations, particularly in regional Australia, where people have had to get staff from overseas and they now fear for the future of those staff being able to stay in Australia?
GILES: Well, I think it's really important to say a couple of things at the outset. Firstly, I should be very careful in not commenting on the case that you've just referred to for reasons I'm sure you understand. When it comes to our migration system, there's a couple of points to be made and they go to the heart of the work that we've done in government and rebuilding it. We do need to focus on pathways to permanency rather than an over reliance on temporary forms of migration. But we also need to have a system that really has integrity at its core, where a person who applies for a visa does the work or undertakes the study associated with the visa and not something else. So, we do need to have integrity at the absolute core of our migration system. The other really important thing, and goes to my current role, is that we need to have our skills system and our migration system working together, not pulling in opposite directions, which was the case under the former government. And that's why I'm so excited about the work that I'm doing right now to build skills in the Australian economy. And in fact, later this morning I will be heading to regional Victoria to meet with some hospitality business owners and apprentices there.
SARA: What do you think, what are the estimates at the moment with your department about the number of people who are waiting to come into the country on these kind of skills visas?
GILES: Well, it's no longer my department, Sally, so what I do know is that visa processing for skilled visas has become faster under our government, so people have certainty. People coming into work and also those employers looking for a skilled visa, of course, in those areas where there are shortages.
SARA: Do you accept that some businesses have become frustrated with the system and while they can't get local staff, the system for getting staff in from overseas is both expensive and time consuming?
GILES: Well, my focus is of course, on ensuring that we skill up Australians to build Australia's future. And this industry is absolutely critically important. It employs nearly a million Australians, growth has been very strong, and in some areas, particularly roles like chef and pastry cook, there have been quite long-standing shortages. So, I do understand that there has been a critical role for skilled migration too. What I'd say though, is changes made by the former government, in particular the changes made when Peter Dutton was Immigration Minister, have been an absolute failure when it comes to the skills migration system. And that's something that we have been working to turn around through the migration strategy, but also through the National Skills Agreement, which again is all about ensuring that we've got pathways to skill up Australians to do these critical roles.
SARA: You're listening to Radio National Breakfast and my guest is the Minister for Skills and Training, Andrew Giles. Minister. Labor has promised to legislate permanent Fee-Free TAFE places if it wins the next federal election. But that pledge has received some criticism from some peak bodies, including Master Builders Australia, who say, "the policy has the potential to distort the market towards TAFE delivered courses over industry led providers". Is that valid criticism? Do you take that on board?
GILES: Well, I hear what they say, but let's be really clear about this. TAFE, public TAFE, was degraded under the former government which ripped $3 billion from TAFE and training, is absolutely fundamental to building the skills that Australians need and which we need to secure our future. We've seen an extraordinary response to Free TAFE around the country. Around 600,000 enrolments, more than 110,000 completions already. And this critically is in priority areas. The courses that we are offering through Free TAFE are in areas that we have skill shortages in, where we know there's enormous demand, whether it's nursing, whether it's people becoming pastry cooks, whether it's electricians, and of course, critically in construction. So, making Free TAFE permanent will give certainty to young Australians, to older Australians looking for career choices and will help us bridge the skills gaps. Recognising, of course, when we came into government, Australia had the worst skills shortage in 50 years and the second worst across every advanced economy.
SARA: Minister, when will you provide financial costings for that bill?
GILES: They're already there. I don't quite know the complaint that the opposition are making. The costings have been laid out.
SARA: Minister, we'll need to leave it there. Thank you again for your time.
GILES: Thank you very much Sally.