Australia Failing Skilled Migrants

It's April 1st.

Welcome to Adelaide News Today, powered by AI.

I'm Cory with the story.

Australia is dropping the ball big time on skilled migrants, wasting their talents on

an industrial scale.

Experts say we're failing to recognize qualifications from highly trained, permanent

residents, forcing doctors, engineers, nurses, and tradespeople to.

Take jobs way below their level.

Right now, 44% of these qualified folks are under-employed, including 47,000 engineers

and 20,000 teachers, sitting idle while shortages crippled the country.

Former Treasury Secretary Martin Parkinson laid it out at the National Press Club this

week, warning of stack-flation risks with inflation up and growth.

Flat.

He slammed the patchwork licensing system where a nurse, OK'd in Queensland, has to restart

in Western Australia or an electrician licensed in.

Victoria jumps through new hoops and new South Wales.

Teaming up with violet ramelliotis from settlement services international, they're pushing

the Activate Australia Skills campaign backed by over one, 100 businesses and unions.

The human cause hits hard.

Two out of three underutilized migrants came through our skilled visa stream, people

we hand picked for their expertise.

Yet once here, visa assessments mean squat, and they face slow, pricey, onshore processes

that ignore prior checks.

This fuels chronic shortages, like 1,300 electricians sidelined, amid the worst housing crisis

ever, and 8 in 10 public, schools short on teachers.

Parkinson's migration review called the system broken, urging national fixes like an independent

skills commissioner for end-to-end oversight, A, one-stop navigation service, financial

aid to ease costs, and better visa matching to licensing needs.

The campaign wants mutual recognition across all states and territories, no retraining

nonsense.

Bottom line, we're breaking our deal with these skilled arrivals, not just unfair, but

the tanking productivity when we need it most.

Time to activate those skills and get Australia moving.