Australia’s multicultural landscape is as diverse as ever following the release of 2011 Census of Population and Housing data by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).New Census data has revealed that almost a quarter (24.6 per cent) of Australia’s population was born overseas and 43.1 per cent of people have at least one overseas-born parent.
The United Kingdom is the leading country of birth for the overseas-born population (20.8 per cent). It is followed by New Zealand (9.1 per cent), China (6.0 per cent) and India (5.6 per cent).
The number of people born in India has experienced the largest growth with an increase of 148,261 people since the 2006 Census, followed by China (112,379) and New Zealand (93,934).
The largest decreases were seen in the birth countries of Italy (13,729 people) and Greece (10,050).
2011 Census Executive Director, Andrew Henderson, said these results highlight the cultural diversity of Australia’s population.
“Multicultural communities across the country worked very hard with the ABS during the Census to ensure we captured a full and accurate picture of Australia’s diversity,” Mr Henderson said.
“Multiculturalism plays a big part in who we are as a nation and we thank all community groups for their participation in the Census, and helping to create a brighter future for all Australians.”
Mr Henderson encouraged everyone to go online and look at the snapshot of Australia captured by the Census.
“Census data is available freely online and can be used for a variety of purposes across a wide range of sectors, and even by individuals,” Mr Henderson said.
“All Australians can go online and see what Census data says about their community, and the place they call home.”
Data from the 2011 Census of Population and Housing is now available from the ABS website. Visit www.abs.gov.au/census.
The United Kingdom is the leading country of birth for the overseas-born population (20.8 per cent). It is followed by New Zealand (9.1 per cent), China (6.0 per cent) and India (5.6 per cent).
The number of people born in India has experienced the largest growth with an increase of 148,261 people since the 2006 Census, followed by China (112,379) and New Zealand (93,934).
The largest decreases were seen in the birth countries of Italy (13,729 people) and Greece (10,050).
2011 Census Executive Director, Andrew Henderson, said these results highlight the cultural diversity of Australia’s population.“Multicultural communities across the country worked very hard with the ABS during the Census to ensure we captured a full and accurate picture of Australia’s diversity,” Mr Henderson said.
“Multiculturalism plays a big part in who we are as a nation and we thank all community groups for their participation in the Census, and helping to create a brighter future for all Australians.”
Mr Henderson encouraged everyone to go online and look at the snapshot of Australia captured by the Census.
“Census data is available freely online and can be used for a variety of purposes across a wide range of sectors, and even by individuals,” Mr Henderson said.
“All Australians can go online and see what Census data says about their community, and the place they call home.”
Data from the 2011 Census of Population and Housing is now available from the ABS website. Visit www.abs.gov.au/census.
Source: ABS
MORE Australians are born overseas than ever before with 6.6 million residents currently living here arriving from other nations, the highest proportion of the population in 120 years.
Australian Bureau of Statistics data released today shows Australians born outside the country now represent 28 per cent of the population.
“Australia traditionally had a high proportion of migrants, but we’ve now hit a peak not seen since the gold rushes of the late 1800s,” ABS spokeswoman Denise Carlton said.
“Overseas migration has been a large contributor to the total Australian population growth for several years — it has consistently been the main driver since 2005-06, contributing more than 50 per cent of population growth in Australia.
“While the largest migrant groups were people born in the United Kingdom and New Zealand — with a total of over 1.8 million Australian residents being born in those two countries, the next two most common birth places were from the Asian region.
“These were China and India, with around 450,000 and 400,000 people respectively.”
The figures for both countries doubled and tripled over the past decade.
Domestically, people moving to QLD, Victoria and WA continued to outweigh those leaving while there were net losses in residents in every other state and territory.
Source: The Australian
Sydney’s 39th annual festival of art and culture (and plenty of big things children can play on) kicks off Thursday morning when the Festival Village – now with two Spiegeltents – opens its doors. During the day, festivalgoers at the Hyde Park hamlet will be able to walk all over a two-storey maze designed and constructed by Irish street artist Maser and relax in the City of Sydney’s lawn library. At night they can catch sword-swallowers at Limbo and hit the bars and food stalls for a Grand Royale with Cheese (not a burger but an ice-cream).
The Village is not the only Sydney Festival venue springing to life for opening day (want to swing through a waterfall? You can do that at Darling Harbour from 9am), but it is the festival’s centre, expected to draw 10,000 visitors per day. And the festival is ready for them.
The festival will be Sydney’s first major public event since the city’s New Year’s Eve celebrations. Crowds for the fireworks were estimated to have been smaller than in 2013, leading some to ask whether Sydneysiders had been shaken by the Martin Place siege and heightened terror alert level. But police point out that high-profile viewing areas that night, such as the Sydney Opera House, were at capacity from early afternoon.
Festival organisers said punters appear undeterred: they expected to exceed the 124,000 tickets sold in 2014. Executive director Chris Tooher said that sales at the beginning of the week were at 64 per cent of the final target, ahead of the same time last year. It will be weeks before numbers on the free, unticketed events are known.
Many of the festival venues have private security and Tooher said organisers were working closely with police and other authorities to ensure safety at the Domain and Hyde Park.
Companies would be allowed to bring employees to Australia for up to a year without applying for 457 skilled worker visas under a migration-rule revamp being considered by the government.
The Department of Immigration and Border Protection is proposing a new temporary entry visa for foreign workers that would not require the candidates to pass language or skills requirements. Nor would employers have to prove they cannot find an Australian to fill the position.
The proposed “short-term mobility” subclass of visas would be available for “specialised work which may include intra-company transfers and foreign correspondents”, says a proposal paper obtained byThe Australian Financial Review.
Fly-in, fly-out commuters, global partners or specialists who need to provide short periods of work or consultation to a company would be covered. The visa would allow for multiple entries.
The paper is part of a review announced in October and billed by the Abbott government as the biggest re-examination of skilled migration in 25 years. The government wants to cut red tape and give companies more flexibility to grow and compete for talent. But the changes would upset unions, which are mostly hostile to foreign labour.
Skilled migration researcher Bob Birrell said the government would be picking a big fight with white-collar unions and professional groups by allowing global companies greater scope to bring people in for short-term appointments.
“There are already significant problems with graduate employment in professions such as dentistry, computer science, medicine and engineering,” he said.
“Liberalisation such that being mooted is going to crash head-on with that situation. The government is going to have some angry professional associations on its hands.”
A short-term mobility category would replace the existing category 400 visa, which allows skilled or specialist entrants to work for up to six weeks.
There were 4587 visas of this type granted when it was first offered in 2012-13. That jumped to 32,984 in 2013-14. Applicants are concentrated in mining, manufacturing, construction and education.
Employer groups have been pushing for a less onerous visa than the 457 to allow them to bring in specialists for shorter-term projects. They say the six weeks offered under the 400 visa is too short and the department often redirects applicants to 457 visas.
Australian Council of Trade Unions president Ged Kearney said with unemployment at a 12-year-high of 6.3 per cent, the focus should be on employing and training locals.
“The review of Australia’s skilled migration system must strengthen requirements for employers to advertise jobs locally before recruiting workers from overseas, not make it easier for companies to bypass Australian workers, university graduates and apprentices,” she said.
Mark Glazbrook, the managing director of Adelaide-based Migration Solutions, said the extended mobility visa would be eagerly welcomed. “The current policy settings and regulations are quite strict and don’t allow a lot of flexibility where there’s very specialised or unique work to be done,” he said.
“If you consider a big international- based company with Australian operations, if they have a specialised piece of equipment that’s in Australia and no one knows how to install it, they want to be able to bring someone, possibly on multiple occasions, on a genuinely temporary basis.”
The existing employer-sponsored 457 visa would be absorbed into a new “temporary-skilled” category, according to the proposal paper. It would continue to require candidates to meet English language, skills and labour market tests.
There would also be “permanent-independent” and “permanent-skilled” subclasses.
The “permanent-independent” subclass would be for “highly skilled individuals to independently apply for permanent residence to work in Australia”. It would replace existing distinguished talent visas.
Applicants in the permanent-skilled category would have to prove they are filling a genuine vacancy in the local labour market. This category would subsume the existing 186 and 187 visas.
“Competition for migrants amongst growth countries such as China and India, as well as our traditional competitors, will require that our skilled programs are no longer designed to passively receive migrants, but are designed to aggressively target ‘talented’ migrants in a highly competitive environment,” the paper says.
Australian Mines and Metals Association director Scott Barklamb said Australia would benefit from “mobile, highly skilled professionals who temporarily live and work where their specialised skills are most in need”. “Australians working in the resource sector often have opportunities to work and live temporarily all over the world and the Australian industry must similarly benefit from global engagement.”
In a submission to the government, Master Builders Australia said: “Some projects are shorter duration – for example three months – and going through the time-consuming and costly process of applying and securing 457 visa holders is not flexible enough.”
The “genuine-temporary-entrant” test that has been applied to student visas would be used for the short-term mobility subclass to prevent rorting.
The short-term mobility subclass would include a visa valid for three months or a year. Candidates for the shorter visa could be bought in at the invitation of an Australian company.
For the visa to be valid for up to 12 months, candidates would require a “statement of guarantee or undertaking from the Australian organisation detailing salary and any employment conditions reflective of the Australian standard for the duration of the stay must be provided”.
There is also a review of the integrity of the 457 visa system, the significant investor visa program and an inquiry into the Business Innovation and Investment Program.
The government said it would be premature to comment during the consultation period. A spokesman said the proposal paper was drafted by the department, not the government.
Dr Birrell said: “The main proposal is to free up temporary migration by creating a new set of visa subclasses for people coming in for less than a year,” he said.
“The implication is that this would not include the rules and regulations currently governing the 457 visa, including some labour market testing.”
SOURCE: The Australian Financial Review
By Joanna Mather
By Joanna Mather
Australia has set the structural framework to open and accelerate trade links, and established a platform to produce a new wave of China-literate and bilingual talent into the local workforce.
But inevitably the future face of business in China will not just be the Australian participants of prestigious student exchange programs.
Each year Australia effortlessly supplies an enormous cohort of potential trade envoys to the region, including China, and with no cost to the Australian taxpayer.
Now that trade liberalisation will open new markets in China for Australian goods and services, it is international students returning to China who are best placed to connect Australia with the market for live cattle, milk, and other products over the coming years.
Connecting Australian farmers and other companies to the local market in China is no easy feat. China is ranked 128 in the world by the World Bank Group for starting a business and the Chinese Government has tightened regulations for foreign companies operating in China in recent years.
A white face and broken Mandarin are a meek force to navigate the labyrinth of bureaucratic paperwork and regulatory requirements, not to mention negotiating, and coordinating logistics under a diversely different — and at times archaic — model of doing business.
Australian entrepreneurs and companies need local partners in China who they can trust. Returning international students who are bilingual and familiar with the Australian way of life will help to tick that box.
Returning Chinese students also typically possess extensive family business connections, access to capital, and they are already beginning to absorb important posts previously occupied by well-paid expatriate workers.
But little investment is made into integrating international students into Australia’s regional trade strategy and to stay connected. In fact, scores of international students return to China every year sombre about the lack of professional opportunities and experience Australia provided them.
Australian employment policies and norms discriminate against international students from gaining vital internship experience. Australian universities also provide little support for connecting international students with employment opportunities in Asia.
Unless returning international students work for an Australian company in their home country, they quickly lose connection with Australia.
Australian companies with operations in China should be opening their doors to international students for short-term internships in Australia before transferring talent to their offices in Asia. International organisations with a branch in Australia, including KPMG, could introduce a similar program for talent identification and training.
Government funding could be also be allocated for international students to participate in entrepreneurial incubator projects. These projects provide training, mentoring and foster new trade channels between Australia and the region.
Further investment is then necessary to ensure that international students in Australia are better integrated into Australian society. An isolated experience studying abroad in Melbourne or Sydney does not augur well for promoting bilateral understanding or developing future trade and people-to-people connections.
Organisations such as the Australia China Youth Association play an important role in fostering social and cultural integration in universities and there is far more potential to link Chinese students with young Australians learning Mandarin.
Abroad, we must encourage returning international students to stay engaged with networks including the Australia Chamber of Commerce, the Australia China Young Professionals Initiative, alumni associations and Embassy events.
Trade is unequivocally a two way street, and if Australia is to truly realise its economic potential under the new free trade agreement, we can’t afford to lose these connections and squander the sizeable pool of talent returning to China.
Source: Business Spectator