Labor’s take on refugee crisis is hypocritical

SEPTEMBER 8, 2015: LABOR’S plan to bring in tens of thousands of refugees smacks of hypocrisy.

Labor opposes the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement on the totally fictional basis that it’s a threat to Australian jobs but they propose to take in more than 20,000 extra refugees who will be able to take Australian jobs without labour market testing. 

 The Labor Party voted at their national conference to double our refugee intake to 27,000 and they are now proposing we take an additional 10,000 refugees this year.They criticise the China Australia Free Trade Agreement but the rules on bringing in foreign workers on that are clear: Aussies must always get first go at filling Aussie jobs and only when there’s no Aussie to do the job can a foreigner be brought in.But there’s no rules regarding the tens of thousands of refugees that Labor wants to bring in. They either take a job an Australian can do or they go on the dole.The Department of Immigration and Border Protection’s Project Labour Agreements Guidelines for Employers spells out the rules for businesses seeking to bring in foreign workers under the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement.The guidelines state that “The department will only enter into a project labour agreement where it has been satisfied that Australians have been provided first opportunity for jobs.”The guidelines also state that, in order to get a foreign worker into Australia, an employer needed to show evidence of repeated genuine attempts to get Australian workers to fill a job and also an ongoing financial commitment to the training of Australians.Labor falsely accuses the government of trying to bring in foreigners to take jobs without labour market testing, and yet they’re out there advocating for a vastly increased refugee intake, who will all be able to take Australian jobs without labour market testing.I am sympathetic to the plight of Syrian refugees, and believe we should be accepting refugees from Syria.Christian minorities who would be beheaded in the streets by Islamic State are those most directly at threat, and they should be our top priority.We should provide refuge to these people as part of a re-allocation of our existing intake, or a very modest increase in numbers.However we can’t solve all the world’s problems.The top five richest Gulf States have not taken a single soul from Syria, and this is a problem in their part of the world.