James Lehrer

The federal government has announced a major overhaul of the permanent residency skilled migration program and scrapped the current eligibility list of more than 100 occupations.
Thousands of workers across the country rallied on April 28, including more that 15,000 in Melbourne. The rallies protested the Rudd government’s maintenance of the anti-union Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC), which was established by the previous government of John Howard.
Widely held community and union concerns about the exploitation of 457 visa temporary migrant workers have been confirmed by a report released on November 14.