The Liberal Party’s plan to scrap labor market testing for electricians will flood the Australian economy with foreign sparkies and slash wages, the ETU has warned.
Electricians nationwide are horrified by Dutton’s plan to decapitate the local workforce.
“Rather than training young Australians and allowing them to build a trade and a career path, Peter Dutton wants to slash the wages of electricians in a cost of living crisis,” said Michael Wright, ETU National Secretary. “This cheap and nasty plan will dilute the living standards of electricians by making them compete with foreign sparkies on short term visas who can not enforce their labour rights.
“Mr Dutton’s plan to cut electricians’ wages is clear from his rhetoric. He has complained about the cost of trades because he wants to slash living standards. If he thinks electricians are paid too much, he should just come out and say so.
“The ETU is issuing an open invitation to Mr Dutton. We will happily host you at any union worksite in the country. Come and outline to our members why you think bosses shouldn’t even have to try and hire locally. That is the reality of what he’s saying.”
The Liberal Party created a mess in office by trashing vocational education and training. Jobs & Skills Australia has found that we need an extra 32,000 electricians by 2030 and more than an extra 80,000 on top of that by 2050. We’ve had a temporary shortage of electricians for over 30 years, including whilst Peter Dutton presided over the most broken immigration system in modern history. If skilled migration was going to fix the skills crisis, it would have already.
This gap will only be plugged by renewed effort and investment to train the next generation of electricians and engineers.
“Every nation in the world is electrifying as we shift away from fossil fuels, creating a surge in demand for electricians. Lazy stop gap measures like the one proposed by Peter Dutton will not work and will only set us further behind.
“Mr Dutton needs to grapple with reality rather than grasp for headlines. The Liberal Party needs to break its addiction to throwing tradies under the bus.”
