According to ABC news in Australia, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is considering making changes to the nation's migration program to help offset skills shortages affecting the economy.
On 22 January 2007, Woodside, the largest independent oil and gas company in Australia, told Rudd that they would need foreign workers as part of their major expansion of the company's North West gas processing plant.
Rudd said that he would look at changes to visas for foreign workers to meet the shortfall of skilled workers. He said that his government wanted to make sure that Australia had proper skills planning as part of strong foundation for the future of the Australian economy.
“To be blunt, this hasn't been done well in recent years and we need to fix that up,” Rudd said. “That's why...we've undertaken to establish 'Skills Australia' to take a long-range roadmap of what the skills needs of Australia will be long-term.”
“And how do you respond to that? Greater investment in skills and training, and, of course, calibrating the migration program as appropriate to the skills needs of this economy and the next economy,” he added.
Australia's General Skilled Migration program has been very successful for the country. It's point based approach skilled immigration has influenced similar migration program of other countries, such as the United Kingdom.
According to new figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), net migration has contributed 56 percent of the total population growth in Australia for the year ending 30 June 2007. The total resident population of Australia at this point reached a landmark 21,017,200.
Western Australia had the largest population percentage increase over the previous year, at 2.3 percent, followed by Queensland (2.2 percent) and the Northern Territory (2.0 percent). Tasmania had the slowest population growth, at 0.7 percent.
The population growth rate of 1.5 percent was the highest since 1989.
Luring highly skilled workers to the country has been the main focus of Australia's immigration policy in recent years. Australia has been experiencing labor shortages in fields such as health care and mining.
The government maintains a Skilled Occupation List of job titles it considers in demand and awards points to potential migrants who can claim experience in these occupations.
Australia's system has been so successful that it has influenced other countries' immigration policies such as the United Kingdom.