Albanese

The quick wins sought include a temporary two-year increase in skilled migration to 200000 places a year and scrapping the so-called targeted occupation ...

That’s a way to boost profits and boost wages whilst boosting the economy,” he said. “We want, wherever possible, employers and unions to work together. Finance Minister Katy Gallagher will oversee work on women’s employment issues during the summit. “All actions should be tied to achieving these objectives. Ms Rishworth has already signalled action to get more younger and disabled workers into meaningful and lasting employment as part of a series of roundtables ahead of the summit. About a quarter of applications are taking at least a year to process, and the slowest 10 per cent of temporary skilled visas are taking 15 months, according to data from Home Affairs. “We want to discuss how we give workers the tools they need to bargain for the things that matter most for their job, occupation and industry.” “We have to change the system to ensure that migrant workers have the same rights and protections as any other Australian worker, and are brought in to fill genuine skill gaps, not to allow employers to evade legal minimum rates of pay or conditions,” Ms McManus said. Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Sally McManus said migration was one of the top three issues to fix at the summit, alongside the skills sector and a broken bargaining system. Steve Knott, chief executive of the Australian Resources and Energy Employer Association, targeted the “inefficient” and “time-wasting” skilled migration system, calling for abolition of labour market testing and opening up skilled visas to all jobs over an unspecified high salary. “When industry is calling out for supply of a particular skilled occupation in severe shortage, that should be evidence enough to make that occupation accessible to our skilled migration programs.” Quick wins sought by business include a temporary two-year increase in skilled migration to 200,000 places a year, and making temporary skilled migration more accessible and responsive to employer needs by scrapping the so-called targeted occupation eligibility list.