Skills Shortages
Relax visas for semi-skilled, says Leighton chief
Tim Dick | April 18, 2008
IMMIGRATION laws should be relaxed to allow foreign semi-skilled workers to fill shortages, says Wal King, chief executive of construction giant Leighton Holdings.
The controversial scheme, known as 457 visas, for temporarily admitting skilled workers provided skilled workers, he said, but did not tackle the national shortage of semi-skilled workers such as truck drivers.
"I believe the labour force should be completely opened up," Mr King told a company directors' lunch in Brisbane yesterday. "There are just too many artificial constraints. If you look at similar places around the world, for example Britain, they opened up the labour force completelythere.
"You go to the restaurants, truck drivers, they're people who've moved in from Eastern Europe to fill those particular positions."
Mr King said Leighton did not have trouble filling its skilled vacancies, partly because it had brought in about 1000 workers on 457 visas.
The problem was to fill semi-skilled vacancies, which did not qualify for 457 visas, and he said the tight regulation put unnecessary pressure on the labour market. He pointed to shortages of agriculture workers, who were attracted by salaries in mines.
The Federal Government says it will review the visa program.
Mr King said he remained concerned about the Government's workplace reforms, and would continue to lobby to retain those main elements of the Howard government's regime important to construction and mining. Mr King did not identify individual statutory contracts. He said the new reforms had the potential to reduce productivity.
He praised the Queensland Government for its business-like infrastructure plan for south-east Queensland, but criticised all Australian governments for "constantly playing catch-up" in deciding to build things only after they were needed.
Too much time was spent planning projects, rather than delivering them.
"The M4 East has been planned since 1992; we won the Second World War in five years," he said. "And it's still planned, we're still waiting for an announcement. Planning is required, but planning is not the end itself. Implementation is."
Mr King also criticised the amount of money companies had to spend to comply with government tender requirements for major projects — costs that were passed on to the consumer. He said governments needed to take more of a project's risk.
He dismissed claims that construction companies were increasing margins, saying rising minerals and energy costs were making projects more expensive.
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