Labor's Planned Intake of 300,000 Migrants Will Be A Disaster For Working Families

Labor's plan to increase annual migrant intake to 300,000, the biggest intake since 1947, will be a disaster for working families.

A skill shortage means skilled workers who are in jobs have stable employment, security for their families and are in a position to bargain for higher wages and better conditions, because their employers can't afford to lose them. What's wrong with that?.

Scare-mongering by big business about a wages blowout is code for wanting a large pool of unemployed who are desperate for jobs so wages can be kept down.

Of course if migrants can't speak enough English to understand the fine print of their contracts, or are too fearful of having to return to their homeland to complain about their wages and conditions, big business thinks : "so much the better".

If there is a shortage in a particular trade it should be met by training more people in Australia instead of taking the cheap way out and importing them from overseas.

In addition, there is endemic unemployment among aborigines, how about training some of them to do useful jobs.

Many retired people with invaluable skills and years of experience would also be prepared to come back to work if they could earn money without it affecting their pension.

Migrants don't create jobs, if they do they should send them to the countries with the highest unemployment.

One absurd part of the Rudd policy is a plan to bring in unskilled`workers for seasonal work from ethnic groups already heavily over-represented in crime figures.

Apart from that, 300,000 migrants will only push up rents and home prices and put more stress on roads, water supply and the health system..

Labor's plan only proves our worst skill shortage is the complete lack of intelligence on Kevin Rudd 's front bench.