Australia fast track migrant’s visa applications

Australia uses a General Skilled Migrant class to help fast track skilled migrants into Australia

Some employers are empowered with the power to offer you not just a job, but an accompanying visa if you meet criteria Australia has identified as needed to ensure the country’s future growth.

As well as doctors, engineers and scientists, Australia needs skilled tradespeople such as miners, sheet metal workers, builders and plumbers.

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Immigration Minister Chris Evans has warned employers that they will have to covers the costs of bringing in Pacific Island workers under any guest-worker scheme that they may be adopted by the federal government.

Organisations such as the National Farmers Federation and the Horticulture Australia Council are urging the government to adopt a guest-worker scheme to help ease critical labour shortages in their sectors.

The horticulturalists want the government to pay the upfront costs of bringing in workers, which would later be reimbursed by the employers.

But Senator Evans said the costs would “largely” be borne by employers.

“Employers are saying they want the labour and I just w ant to be clear to them that it’s not a cheap labour scheme. They will be employed on Australian wages and conditions. And there will be the extra costs associated with bringing them in,” he told ABC TV.

“So while we’re happy to look at the program and, as I say, cabinet will make a decision, it’s not a panacea for all the ills in the Australian labour market and it’s certainly not about exploiting those workers. So there’s a lot of support, a lot of cost.”

A submission on the creation of such a scheme is being prepared for cabinet and Senator Evans said the government would consider the proposal in the next month.

The Rudd government has been closely watching the experience of New Zealand’s seasonal worker scheme, known as the Recognised Seasonal Employer program.

Senator Evans said the New Zealand scheme was working “reasonably well” but warned potential Australian employers of the significant commitment that could be involved here.

“What’s not widely understood is that you’ve got to make sure there’s a lot of support around that system,” he said. “you’ve got to recruit, you have to transport, you have to house, you’ve got to train, there’s quite a lot of infrastructure that goes around the program and a lot of employers have got to understand it’s not a cheap labour scheme.”

Senator Evans said the government was “obviously under pressure” from struggling Pacific Island states to introduce a scheme whereby workers from those nations would spend part of their pay home in the form of remittances.

Any moves to establish a guest-worker scheme would begin in the form of a trial, Senator Evans said.

The minister recently told a Senate estimates hearing that if a scheme were to start, it would most likely begin in the second half of this year.

Unions are divided over the scheme, while the coalition has concerns about employers covering most of the cost.-Australian Financial review, 13 June 2008