[LINK] ACS policy?

[Jan Whitaker]

At 06:59 PM 3/09/02 +1000, Stephen Loosley wrote:

>The attitude of industry groups such as the Australian Computer Society,
>of which Roach is a fellow, and which believe immigration should stall during
>the IT recession, smacks of old-fashioned protectionism, Roach says

It is an interesting situation.  For the longest time, we couldn't get 
skilled staff. Now there is an abundance.  Which condition is more likely 
to be longer lasting?  What is the real cycle in this particular field?

The other part of the debate must be the issue of global movement of human 
'capital' [I'm not a fan of labeling people as capital, but that's the 
current jargon - apologies].  Moving raw materials as in mined or grown 
resources is good, if you have them to sell/exchange.  But for some reason 
that is probably more emotional than rational, [why else would a MINISTER 
lie about attempted murder of children?] it's not ok for people to move 
their own skills around the world.  If skilled people want to come here, 
why not let them?  Competition is supposed to be a good thing, isn't 
it?  There sure are a lot of people who are not cutting it that should find 
another line of work.  Why should ICT be a protected group?

Jan
[speaking as an immigrant consultant who will face a whole lot more 
competition herself as people set up their own consultancies when they 
can't get a permanent spot - that's life]


JLWhitaker Associates
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit@primenet.com  --  http://www.primenet.com/~jwhit/whitentr.htm


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