
British "Labour" party if you please. I don't know why the Aussies don't put a U in it, but our party does and as a proper noun should be spelt as the party itself spells it.
If you’ve contemplated a year or three working in Australia on a temporary visa, think again. A domestic political storm means the climate for temporary skilled workers is likely to worsen. Australia escaped the worst ravages of the global financial crisis, experiencing neither a technical recession nor a major bump in …
Not entirely true ... there were some administrative changes in 1973 that put the final nail in the coffin, but non-european migration had been allowed since shortly after the war.
And no, Australians don't dislike everyone - I've been here 27 years, and am pretty nearly at the stage where I am accepted. I'm also lucky that this city has some very "English" places where I can go to recharge the batteries, so homesicknes hasn't been a real problem. But, as with migrating to any country, you have to be prepared to make a go of it and accept the bad with the good.
Long version: We want your skills to benefit our nation but we don't want you to benefit from those benefits you helped to create.
Short version: We want your skills but we don't want *you*.
We're all for the free movement of goods and capital but God forbid we permit the free movement of labor which produces those goods and capital.
The truth is that this is a desperate government that will try anything in the next 6 months in a futile attempt to avoid being obliterated at the election in September. Hopefully they won't do too much more damage.
The government has been one series of mistakes after another. A school building fund that mostly benefited private schools, an insulation scheme that was fleeced by scammers (even after they were warned), a mining tax that doesn't collect revenue and a 1Gbps fibre network with 50% of connections at 12/1Mbps.
Well, the government that sets immigration policy is elected by, and elected to act in the interest of, in this case, Australian citizens only, pretty much. It's much the same elsewhere, except that other governments may be not exactly elected. In some places in the world, there are universal human rights with legal force, but I seem to recall talk recently that the President of the United States, for one, is allowed to kill any foreigners that he likes. Or, probably, dislikes.
Long version: It would be great to work in Oz for a few years and enjoy the sunny outbacks and beaches etc etc and get away from cramped and damp Blighty, but we really don't want to have to deal with bloody Aussie government heat.
Short version: Australia would be a great place if there weren't so many damn Australians.
Face it people, there are pros and cons to every choice you make. and whether or not you want to go anywhere really depends on how you weight the various criteria.
If you go, then make the most of it and ignore the bullshit.
If the bullshit is too much for you then stay home. Australia already has enough bloody whingers.
Take a look at the job advertisements before posting such twaddle. The IT industry has been singled out, correctly, as being an industry where the 457 visa is being abused to lower wages for skills that are not in short supply.
I'm talking about basic help desk and network admin skills. Nothing fancy. No shortage of those skills in AUS. Just a shortage of people willing to work 12 hour shifts, 2 weeks on/2 weeks off, 40 hour week equivalent, for 25000GBP. I don't know if 25K seems a lot of money for help desk in GB, but in AUS 35K AUD is not enough to get married and buy a house on, and 12 hour shifts 14 days in row is a horrible way to work unless justified by money or status.
And when I say "just a shortage of", I'm being kind: there are believable allegations that the contract companies won't hire local even at these rates: they prefer desperate 457 visa workers that they can fire and deport. (Unlike the job advertisments, these allegations are not verifiable)
On the basis of the postings here, I can say that most of you would be unwelcome office pariahs, but that is only because you appear to be such ****heads. On the other hand, if you come over to work 12 hour shifts doing unskilled IT on a FIFO contract, you probably won't need to worry about that much.
To the author: you've set up a false premise, then attacked it. Next time you don't understand something, consider the possibility that the problem might be because you have totally missed the point.
Ahhhhh! Classic! Here we have our first whining Aussie Labor voter who wants his financial security handed to him on a plate by the government. What he does NOT want to do, is work for it.
Typical Aussie attitude. I am over here on a 457. I am the only 'non Australian' in my team of 5. And I am the only person in the team who actually knows what I am doing. The country would fall apart without 457 visas as most Aussies are just lazy and incompetent.
The current government has only months left before it is wiped out at the polls - after that the situation will change to a more business oriented approach. That will no doubt mean an increase in skilled workers from the UK and elsewhere.
@LarsG: As to whether or not people from overseas enjoy their stay here, I guess that's important to the individuals concerned. Not to me though, or to too many other Australians. We have our own lives to worry about.
@AC 07:17: 27% of the current Australian population was born outside Australia. Only a tiny percentage can trace their ancestry back to the early convict years, so the "I guess that's in their genes" remark, while amusing, is about as accurate as claiming that the English all wear monocles.
It depends entirely what you're after out of your move. I've known dozens of brits who made the move down under, loved it and never looked back. Ive also known dozens who came for a while, found that they missed their family too much (or some other reason, but family tended to be the main one) and were gone after a couple of years.
It depends what people are really looking for when they move. Australia may have better weather and all that, but you still have to work hard to get what you want. If you thinking moving to Australia will instantly entitle you to all the things you ever wanted, then you're in for a nasty shock, and you probably wont enjoy it and you will leave again soon. But if you are moving with the realisation that life is not that different and you will have to work just as hard as you did in England then you will find a country where you will probably be happy and want to stick around...
Anyway, spoken as an immigrant myself (I moved from Aus to Germany 2 years ago and I havent looked back! =)
"Australia escaped the worst ravages of the global financial crisis, experiencing neither a technical recession nor a major bump in unemployment"
A lot of people were moved from full time to part time so, whilst not unemployed, making ends meet will be tough. This has been widely documented in retail and manufacturing.
Point two is that 457s are widely abused, especially in IT. The typical ploy is the job advert for all the skills under the sun and 5-10 years experience but paying an unrealistic, typically grad+, salary. When you obviously get no suitable replies you play the old skills shortage card and bring in the Indian or other low paid worker of your choosing. It's disgusting and needs stamping out. Other industries such as engineering have more valid claims as there seem to be well paid opportunities going begging.
I agree, the 457 visa is heavily abused in IT.
When I was at IBM they wouldn't even bother to look locally for skilled people, they would just bring in whole teams of people from India on 457 visas..
It seems to be a deliberate attempt to drop the bottom out of the IT market in Australia because despite the shortages of skilled IT people here, the rates offered have been dropping steadily. At the moment it seems to be a race to the bottom.
Or maybe the locals would like to earn a fair day's pay for a fair day's work? Australia is a very expensive country to live in and a salary that would be quite comfortable in the US or even the UK often means just barely scraping by above the poverty line here. It is not about entitlement, it is about being able to survive day-to-day in a country where a house costs you half a million, and you're lucky to be able to buy a pint of beer for much under ten bucks any more. Would you be able to buy a pint for nearly seven quid on your current wages?
Nice to see the UK isn't the only place where "blame it on the immigrants" is a go-to scapegoat for all the country's ills.
Well, I say nice. I actually mean "fucking disgusting."
And people do not steal jobs. They are given them. When Maddox is making better political points on immigration than you, you really need to stop and re-think your approach.
The bloody annoying thing is that there are aspects of Greens, Labo(u)r and the Liberal/National party policies that are actually good for the nation, just as there are aspects of those same party policies that are absolutely diabolical. Unfortunately, none of the candidate parties have an "edge" as far as I can see, so I fully expect that unless something drastic occurs, we will be in for another dose of double-dealing, back-handing minority government, regardless of which party actually "wins".
As an Australian, I am embarrassed at both Ms Gillard and Mr Abbot, and want neither as Prime Minister, yet I cannot see a viable alternative in the Greens (and in fact I couldn't even say who the Greens' Leader is, which suggests that they're even blander than former leader Bob Brown).
Senator Conroy as Communications Minister is an oxygen thief who couldn't "tech speak" his way out of a wet, paper bag, and I wouldn't trust Treasurer Wayne Swan with the keys to the coffers anymore either.
So come on Malcolm Turnbull, take back the conservative leadership from the "Mad Monk", and put some style and statesmanship back into Australian conservative politics.
Same for Kevin Rudd on the left-hand side. Either take back the Labor leadership and replace Gillard//Swanny, or see the Labor party doomed to 10-15 years in the political wilderness. Gillard and co are too on the nose for Labor to otherwise have any chance of winning.
For the Greens, please stop being a second-hand Labor-lefty party prop and stand on your own feet with sensible policies that are properly costed and will take Australia into the future as a viable nation.
I love the idea of high-speed rail (for passengers) and reliable freight-rail to get semi-trailers and B-double/B-triple trucks off the major highways between cities, but don't decry everything modern just because it doesn't wear a hair-shirt and live in trees or caves.