Australia shouldn’t have kicked out temporary workers: Albanese

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says Australia should not have forced temporary visa holders out the door during the pandemic after the exodus of working migrants left the nation with a massive skills and labour shortage.

Speaking to the National Press Club on Monday, Albanese declared Australia is a “migration country” that needs to enhance its reputation in a global labour market as nations compete for workers to reboot their economies.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says Australia is a “migration country”.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“It probably wasn’t the wisest decision during the pandemic to tell everyone who was a temporary visa holder to leave, and to provide them with no income and no support, which means many of them have left with ill feeling towards Australia and that spreads around,” Albanese said.

“We’ve got a globalised labour market, and we need to enhance our reputation, Australia is a great place to live, or to visit, and we need to always bear that in mind, and I think some of the actions that occurred then weren’t wise.”

Former prime minister Scott Morrison said after a national cabinet meeting in April 2020 that people in Australia on temporary visas who couldn’t support themselves had the available alternative to return to their home countries.

“As much as it’s lovely to have visitors to Australia in good times, at times like this if you’re a visitor in this country, it is time ... to make your way home,” he said. “Australia must focus on its citizens and its residents to ensure that we can maximise the economic supports that we have.”

As opposition leader, Albanese backed that call, but suggested workers on temporary visas should be eligible for JobKeeper.

“The exclusion of temporary visa holders from the JobKeeper arrangements is also of concern. I agree with the prime minister that if a temporary visa worker can go home in the midst of this crisis, they should,” Albanese said in 2020.

Albanese on Monday said one of the hold-ups to foreign workers coming to Australia was the lack of staff processing visa applications.

“We’ve had to take people from other areas, so it’s absurd for Australia’s reputation that someone who has wanted to be here, that business wants them to be here, has waited 12 or 18 months to get into Australia,” he said.

Speaking about his 100 days in office, and about his upcoming jobs and skills summit, in which migration, and particularly lifting the cap on migration, will be discussed as a key issue the prime minister said the debate wasn’t “just about numbers”.

“It’s about how we do this beyond, yes, addressing the urgent needs which are there in particular professions ... but also about the nature of the mix as well. The truth is that unfortunately in some areas, temporary labour has been used to undercut wages and conditions, and we don’t want that either,” Albanese said, adding the nation needed to look to pathways to permanency instead.

“We need to look at migration, but we need to do it in a way that never looks beyond where that doesn’t usurp the need for us to give first opportunity as well to Australians to be trained and skilled up for jobs as well.”

The jobs summit will involve political leaders, business and union heads coming together to overhaul Australia’s industrial relations system, address the national skills shortage stunting a range of industries, and look at the issue of migration to bolster the workforce.

Gender inequality in the workforce will also be considered. Albanese said the government will legislate to close the gender pay gap this year, by making pay equity an object of the Fair Work Act.

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