‘One of the fears you hear in the debate over asylum seekers is that Australia is being flooded by refugees. Well, fear not. Australia is being flooded by new arrivals - but they're not refugees. The people flooding into Australia are primarily foreign workers, being recruited here to fill skills shortages. Why? Because it's cheaper to bring in foreign workers who already have skills than to train our own. Last year 508,000 people arrived to live in Australia as permanent residents, temporary workers or students. Just over 13,000 of them were refugees, or about one in 40. Even if all the asylum seekers arriving by boat were counted, the 2726 of them would make up about one in 200 of the arrivals.’

So wrote Tim Colebatch in the Age newspaper, today Tuesday 13 July 2010. Colebatch goes on to explain that Australia has one of the highest unemployment levels for people in the prime working age in OECD countries. Such figures make a mockery of the need to import labour. And it begs a serious question.  ‘Why isn’t he federal government better able to track the jobs market and create employment so that those young people who complete a pre-app don't find themselves struggling to find work?  An election question, I think,’ says ETU apprentices officer, Omar Merhi.