Page 430 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 8 March 2006
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date of the ACT government in this regard, following the lead and initiative of the federal government, in beginning the process of trying to bring more overseas professionals into Canberra and the other states and territory.
The ACT government’s skilled and business migration strategy was launched in July last year and was declared as an attempt to enhance the current flow of skilled migrants into the region. However, there are several areas of importance on which the government needs to refocus its attention and apply sufficient resources to ensure that such a program is maximised to achieve the most efficient results for the territory. We need to look at the performance of the program to date.
According to the Treasurer, the program was expected to attract between 300 and 500 new arrivals to the ACT in its first year of operation. To the best of our knowledge, to date there have been no systems of measurement maintained or official reports produced since the program’s launch to gauge the success or failure of the program, despite assurances that quarterly reports would be issued. Instead, the government appears to have chosen to rely on anecdotal evidence to measure the program’s performance, with an assurance from the Treasurer’s office that hard statistical data will be coming soon, whatever that is meant to mean.
If we are going to be serious about these programs, and I would love to see a bipartisan approach to the challenges the territory is facing in terms of population growth, we have to be honest with ourselves and measure the performance of these initiatives because, if they do not work, we need to look at new strategies. So I think it is imperative that we actually have a high level of openness with the success of these programs and that the Assembly be constantly kept in the loop in terms of the success or otherwise of these measures.
If they do not work, it is not necessarily an area of criticism; it means that new approaches are needed. I think that the Canberra business community and the public sector alike are very much of the view that recruiting skilled people is one of the biggest issues that they are now facing in this territory. It is essential then that such a program have sufficient measurement mechanisms and milestones in place to keep it relevant and effective in a constantly changing employment and migration environment.
I do not think that any issue is raised more frequently with me at the moment by the business houses of Canberra than the fact that they simply cannot get people. I have talked to major accounting firms which are now trying to recruit people at the Sturt university in Wagga and have given up trying to get people locally. I have talked to people in federal government agencies who are offering extraordinary salaries to get people into key departments, such as Treasury, and are struggling to find people.
I know that the territory is challenged even more so in respect of recruitment to a number of agencies. Even with basic jobs in hospitality, restaurateurs and bar owners have regularly said to me that they simply cannot find people to work. So it is a widespread problem. It is one of the downsides of the strong economic growth we have seen under the 10 years of the Howard government that we do have much stronger numbers of people gainfully employed in this country. We do have a good economic environment, with a low level of interest rates. But the problem that creates is that it compounds the
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