New Australian migrant list will hit business

New migrant list will hit business
YUKO NARUSHIMA
May 18, 2010

Restaurant and Catering Australia chief John Hart says the changes will force some restaurants out of business.

THE catering and restaurant industry has hit back at new rules published this week halving the number of skilled migrant places available for chefs and cooks.

Some restaurants would go out of business and others be forced to shorten their trading hours without migrant labour, according to Restaurant and Catering Australia chief executive John Hart.

''It's a nonsense,'' he said. ''Despite every tourism minister in every state calling for chefs to be left on, they took them off. It seems absurd.''

He said the industry was already 3000 cooks short before the federal government halved the number of places for which independent skilled migrants could apply.

Immigration Minister Chris Evans said a trimmed list would draw higher calibre migrants and would stop anyone subverting migration rules by studying ''low-value'' education courses in Australia.

Other jobs dropped were hairdressers, acupuncturists, journalists and naturopaths. Nurses, accountants, teachers and engineers were retained.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry said the list struck a balance between the immediate and long-term skills needs of the country. Private educators, however, predicted more college closures, thousands of job losses and a flight of international students to other countries.

Chief executive of the Australian Council for Private Education and Training, Andrew Smith, said international students had been given inadequate advice.

''We have to be absolutely honest about what Australia has done over a number of years now, and that was to link immigration and education,'' he said.

''Students invested tens of thousands of dollars on the basis of a clear government policy. It's unfair to them that the rules have changed during their courses.''

A high Australian dollar and widely publicised attacks on Indian students had already affected international colleges, Mr Smith said. Just a 5 per cent slump in student numbers would lead to more than 6000 job losses and $700 million in lost revenue.

A hairdressing tutor for four years at a private college, Vicki Bartlett, said the changes penalised students who were learning the trade legitimately.

''It will weed out the ferals who are rorting the system,'' she said, but added that international students she knew had already paid fees to salons for the equipment they needed to complete unpaid work-experience hours.

''Some are working so hard and it's unfair to move the goalposts on them,'' she said.

One foreign-owned college she knew of had continued to collect course fees until the moment it collapsed, she said.

''It's appalling how these kids are being treated,'' Ms Bartlett said.

Students in India, who have had visa applications cancelled, have reported difficulty in reclaiming millions of dollars in pre-paid fees.

The body that decided on the new list, Skills Australia, will update the list annually. It is scheduled to publish in coming weeks its rationale for exclusions.

Source: The Age