Train our own people first !

Mining giant Rio Tinto has a shortfall of six thousand skilled jobs to expand new mining operations in Australia. This is in addition to the worker needs of several other big mining expansions that are under way by it's competitors.   There are calls to relax restrictions on the issue of temporary visas so that guest workers can be brought into this country to relieve this skills shortage.

That is absolutely the wrong thinking when Australia has 5.2% of the national workforce unemployed and desperately seeking work.

Fitting these people to the jobs offering requires one imperative - and that is training.   No temporary visa should be offered for any job that could be filled by an existing Australian if the necessary skills could be learned in a three month intensive training period.   Such visas should only apply to skills with a lead time that is measured in years.

Skills Minister Chris Evans points to the Westrac National Skills Training Centre of Excellence which has four hundred and twenty people undergoing training.   That is a good start, but 420 pales into insignificance when measured against a need of 6,000 needed people at Rio Tinto alone.

Bringing in guest workers on temporary visas is the " easy way " for both Rio Tinto and the Federal government, but it leaves the breadwinner of numerous Australian families still struggling to put food on the table within the limitations of the dole.

Putting Australians back to work by giving them the necessary training should take preference over this artificial drive to deliver a budget surplus.    Education is a Federal government responsibility when it is coupled with shortening the dole queues, and it delivers a bigger dividend eventually - to both the unemployed and the Treasury.     Skilled workers get big pay packets - and they consequently pay higher taxes as a result.   The nation gains a benefit from moving the unskilled unemployed into a skilled - and better paid - section of the workforce, and their families benefit by an elevated standard of living.

It's a win - win - win situation all around, but it will take resolve to put it into practise.   The first step should be to disallow temporary visas for any job skill that can be filled by short term training - and the implementation of training facilities to provide that skill.

It is unlikely that the slothful bureaucracy is capable of meeting such needs within a meaningful time frame.  The time has come to " think outside the nine dots " and appoint a person with the drive and ability to implement what is needed - and to deliver the authority to bring it to fruition.

Unfortunately, that is not the way of governments in this " politically correct " age !