Friday, July 4, 2008

Rudd Govt's immigration policy an invitation to chaos

http://eye-on-immigration.blogspot.com/2008/07/rudd-govts-immigration-policy.html
An invitation to chaos

By Piers Akerman
May 21, 2008 12:00am

AUSTRALIA is about to see the greatest increase in its migrant population

since the post-World War II immigration scheme began.

Last week, the Rudd Labor Government announced a lift in permanent and
temporary migration for 2008-09 to nearly 300,000, and Immigration Minister Chris
Evans has indicated that some of the rules will be eased to ensure those numbers
are met.

Among the most important changes will be the easing of the need to have a
knowledge of the English language, a shift in emphasis from skilled to unskilled
workers and the decision to trial a pilot program based on the successful New
Zealand model for guest workers from Pacific nations.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd sees this as meeting both foreign policy and
economic needs.

So far, only senator-elect Doug Cameron, the former national secretary of the
Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, has publicly raised any questions about
the Rudd Government's plan, suggesting that an increase in the intake of low-
skilled workers to solve labour shortages may strain social cohesion and create a
fertile ground for recruitment to racist political groups such as Britain's
National Front, which recently made its first real gains in the UK local
government elections.

In truth, both Evans and Cameron have caught the Labor Government by surprise
because Cabinet is not yet prepared to defend its radically changed policy
settings.

While most Australians would accept the need to have an increased migration
program, they might baulk at Evans' plan to water down the English language
requirements and they might query the Government's ability to manage a guest
worker program given the glaring failure of such policies in other Western
nations.

Germany has huge problems with its Turkish guest worker population for the
simple reason that the Islamic Gastarbeiters will not leave when their visas
expire.

The French now have vast no-go areas around major cities, including Paris,
where even police and military personnel will not go, leaving the largely African
immigrants to exist beyond the reach of French law, and the British are not far
behind, with areas of cities such as Bradford housing non-English speaking Muslim
populations which honour Islamic tradition, not British common law.

The Italians are finding it difficult to police the growing number of Gypsy
communities, and even South Africa has problems with Zimbabweans who have come to
find a better life.

While there is no doubt that the skilled migrant program and the 457 visa
program (which Labor and its trade union allies used to traduce) have increases
Australia's economic prosperity, it is unlikely that any guest worker program
would enjoy the same support should the economy go sour.

Unskilled workers, particularly, would be hit when the unskilled jobs they
came to fill dried up, and their problems would no doubt be exacerbated because
typically, unskilled workers lack English language skills, have a low education
and less of an ability to adjust to the cultural differences.

Australians should also consider whether they want their nation to be known as
a nation that no longer welcomes migrants' contributions and looks upon migrants,
even temporary migrants, as potential long-term residents but just as so much work
fodder, to be turfed out when the job is done?

Do we want to turn our back on the tradition that saw 70,000 out of the Snowy
Mountains Scheme's 100,000-strong workforce welcomed as skilled migrant workers
and long-term settlers?

Do we want to encourage the sort of person who is willing to leave his or her
family for 50 weeks of the year to work here, and enjoy just one or two weeks of
family life in a village in the Philippines or Thailand or Bangladesh?

There is also the reality that the guest worker with poor skills and little
education is more likely to be exploited by unscrupulous labor contractors or
employers, often of their own nationality.

The government has not been able to prevent the exploitation of skilled
workers, how much harder would it be to police such practices among an unskilled
guest worker population?

Then there is the issue of where such unskilled labor will come from. New
Zealand has opted for Pacific Islanders but it seems that its scheme is operated
at a very basic village level, where infringements by workers of their work or
visa conditions are dealt with by giving their home villages collective
responsibility, and reducing the available places allocated to miscreants'
particular villages when transgressions occur.

Politically, it might be good policy for Australia to take guest workers from
Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Tonga, but not Fiji, but great care
would be needed to avoid offending any of our neighbours.

How the government intends to fast-track these changes through an immigration

system which Evans says is ``creaking at the moment because it is unresponsive to
new demands and new realities'' is not clear.

Rudd looks more uneasy than usual when he is questioned on the matter and
ducked the issue when challenged on it last Monday, rambling on about skills
training.

Australia needs leadership on this issue and it needs it fast.

In Opposition, the ALP and its supporters relentlessly claimed that the Howard
Government was heartless and lacking in all compassion, but it never treated
humans as commodities, as the Rudd Labor Government now proposes.

Labor's proposal will change the make-up of the national character by stealth.

It needs to be fully explored before the culture is manipulated by Labor to

suit its political ends in the guise of building the economy.
Source