Coalition stretches facts in yoga workers housing row

A Coalition claim about an influx of foreign yoga teachers has been debunked by official figures that show only 69 entered the country last year despite fears they would get higher priority than construction workers.

In the latest tussle over housing policy, the migration statistics show the government brought in 11,349 skilled building workers last year compared to the tiny number of yoga and sports instructors.

Sussan Ley and Michael Sukkar have both claimed Labor are allowing yoga teachers to enter Australia while denying entry to tradies.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

The numbers challenge Liberal deputy leader Sussan Ley and opposition housing spokesman Michael Sukkar after they claimed the government preferred yoga teachers to builders in the middle of a housing crisis.

The Coalition claims began in June when the federal agency that advises on skills in demand, Jobs and Skills Australia, listed yoga teachers as one of the jobs – a legacy from Australia’s latest trade agreement with India.

When this masthead revealed the listing, Sukkar accused the government of limiting the number of construction workers.

“Now we see that under Labor there’ll be more yoga teachers and less tradies!” he wrote on social media.

The Coalition has repeated the claim over the past five months to blame the government for the high labour costs in the building industry, a key challenge in adding to housing supply.

“In recent times, we’ve had the Labor Party bringing in more yoga instructors than bricklayers, that’s not where we think the migration program should be,” Sukkar said on October 21.

In fact, 195 bricklayers arrived under the skills program last year, more than the 69 yoga teachers.

Ley, whose portfolio includes industry and skills, blamed the government on October 18 for blocking building workers.

“While current government policy allows people to come in from overseas to work as yoga teachers, though that may be, it doesn’t allow them to come in as construction tradies,” she said, according to a transcript from her office.

The official figures show that the government brought in 165 construction tradies for every yoga teacher over the year to June 30.

A spokeswoman for Sukkar said Australians were experiencing a housing crisis coupled with a shortage of skilled workers, with the Labor government making it harder for Australians to find a place to live or rent. Ley declined to comment. Skills Minister Andrew Giles said the Liberals were lying about the foreign workers and the government’s record.

While the Coalition has made repeated claims about yoga teachers in social media posts and media interviews, migration analyst Abul Rizvi, a former deputy secretary in the immigration department, said the claims were overblown.

“The yoga trainer line might run well in some parts of the media but the numbers are so small as to be irrelevant,” he said.

The figures from the Department of Home Affairs show that the 11,349 workers brought in last year was the highest level in a decade and was up by 7 per cent on the previous year.

While Australia brought in 10,399 skilled building workers in the year to June 2014, the intake fell over the subsequent years and reached 6996 in the year before the COVID-19 pandemic. It slumped to 3984 in the middle of the pandemic and then recovered quickly once the borders were re-opened.

The number of yoga teachers and sports instructors brought into Australia under the same skilled visas stood at 74 in the year to June 2014 and then increased to 111 and stayed at that level for three years. It was lower last year than a decade ago.

Even so, the government is yet to rule on the priority given for building trades after this masthead revealed in June that yoga teachers were ranked more highly on the draft plan from Jobs and Skills Australia, known as the Occupation Shortage List.

Master Builders Australia chief Denita Wawn has been calling for faster action on migration for several months after issuing an estimate in August that the industry would need 500,000 more workers over five years to meet the government’s housing target.

The industry group wants a specific migration pathway to prioritise trade workers and the inclusion of all building trades on the Occupation Shortage List, given that Jobs and Skills Australia acknowledges they are all in shortage.

Master Builders Australia also wants new rules so that migrants who are already in the country, and have construction skills, can have their skills recognised more quickly so they can join the building workforce.

“Labour shortages are currently the biggest handbrake on new home building and infrastructure projects,” said Wawn.

“If we’re to have any hope of building 1.2 million homes we need to get skilled tradies into the country quickly.

“The industry is still waiting for the federal government to release its reviews into the core skills migration list and the apprenticeship incentives system review. We can’t keep dragging our feet on this issue.”

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