Fed: Unions and opposition accused of inciting xenophobia

AAP General News (Australia)
04-11-2006
Fed: Unions and opposition accused of inciting xenophobia

MELBOURNE, April 11 AAP - Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone has accused unions and
the federal opposition of inciting xenophobia by referring to skilled migrants as foreign
workers.

Speaking at a National Workforce Symposium in Melbourne today, Senator Vanstone blasted
criticisms levelled at the government's skilled migration program, saying the system was
crucial for addressing skills shortages.

Senator Vanstone said the campaign against the program was most likely linked to controversial
industrial relations changes and that claims of unskilled "foreign workers" being brought
to Australia and exploited were false.

"I don't like that (term foreign worker), this is a migrant country, unless you're
a full-blood indigenous Australian you've got migrant blood in your veins," Senator Vanstone
said in her opening address to the symposium, hosted by the Recruitment and Consulting
Services Association.

"We are a nation of migrants and I am not confident that talking about foreign workers
for people who come here as skilled migrants to help our businesses grow is at all a healthy
development.

"It is a very unwise person who follows that path of abuse or raising doubt and sneering
and questioning people coming from overseas."

Senator Vanstone said comments by Opposition Leader Kim Beazley referring to skilled
migrants coming from "Beirut, Bombay and Beijing" were inaccurate when 26 per cent of
Australia's intake under the program was from the UK.

"They're skilled migrants, we ask them to come here, they help Australian business
grow ... why on earth would we refer to them consistently as Mr Beazley does as foreign
workers other than to raise some form of xenophobia," Ms Vanstone told reporters after
her address.

"Why does he use in his criticism of this program Beruit, Bombay and Beijing, why didn't
he use Belfast or Birmingham or Bristol?"

AAP cmb/dk/sp

KEYWORD: IMMIGRATION VANSTONE

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