A new advertisment is illustrating the unspoken impact of looming migration cuts being proposed by all major political parties.
It paints a humorous picture of the grim “knock-on effects” that the Australian Hotels Association says “no one is talking about” as Labor, the Coalition and One Nation push for policies which would slash immigration levels by up to 750,000 people.
The advertisement begins with a man approaching a hug red button below a sign that reads, “Press button to run Australia without migrant workers.”
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A man asks, “what’s the worst that could happen?” before pressing the button and stepping into an imagined reality.
But AHA CEO Stephen Ferguson told 7NEWS.com.au it could be close to a reality that everyday Australians will face, if the nation loses the bulk of its migrant workforce without acknowledging all that they do.
Baristas and bar staff walk out of cafes and pubs in the ad, an aged care worker says a teary farewell to a lonely old man who tells her he will miss their chats, and a boy asks his dad if he can have the last $47 apple rotting in a supermarket.
“Where the hell is all the fruit?” the boy’s father asks a passing supermarket employee in the barren fresh produce section.
“Still on the trees,” the worker replies.
Ferguson told 7NEWS.com.au that the immigration conversation needs to include the palpable impact that cuts will have.
“I understand Australians are anxious about migration and we completely understand that,” he said.
“But in all the conversations going on about migration, no political party is talking about the knock-on effect of losing workers out of the economy, whether that be workers out of hospitals, aged care, abattoirs, fruit picking, you know, across the whole economy.
“Every Australian business wants to hire Australians first. But where we don’t have those workers, we’ve got to look to people from overseas.
“We need to get them from somewhere else.”
One Nation is leading the multi-partisan push to slash immigration numbers, flagging plans to cut immigration by 750,000 people over three years and send net overseas migration levels into negative.
The party’s recent polling success has prompted other major parties to tighten their own stance on immigration.
The Coalition have also proposed plans to cut a third of annual overseas migration levels in the first year, and reduce the number of temporary visa holders by 650,000 people over four years.
Australia’s humanitarian intake would also be halved under the Coalition plan, and the number of working holiday maker visas would be cut by 23,700.
Labor also wants to reduce net overseas migration to 245,000 by July 2027 and 225,000 each year thereafter.
It wants the number of working holiday makers able to stay for a second year to be limited to 45,000, down from 57,000, with third-year stays capped at 5000, down from 31,000. Those who overstay their welcome will be sent to detention facilities.
‘Screaming for workers’
Ferguson told 7NEWS.com.au the jobs which rely on a migrant workforce are often seasonal and demand the type of temporary employment — during periods of tourist influx, or crop harvest — that many citizens might not deem as adequately local or secure.
“Working holidaymakers help us is in seasonal areas. So that might be in some of the northern parts of Australia during the colder months. The working holidaymakers are fantastic because they’ll go to places like Cairns, Cooktown, Broome, Darwin,” he said.
“They’ll work up there in the hospitality industry and they’ll also work up there in the agricultural and horticultural industry.
“And then when it gets too hot in the northern part of Australia, they’ll flood down to places like Melbourne and to Northern Tasmania and they’ll fill work that’s needed down there.
“They’re just a mobile, motivated workforce.
“The government wants to chop that by 40,000, and we’re saying, well, how are we going to do without 40,000 workers?
“I was just yesterday with people from the horticulture industry from far north Queensland and they just they screaming for workers.”
—with AAP
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