When did we become the stupid country?

And there is a cost. The cost to the economy of providing jobs to foreigners is not about xenophobia, it is about economics. The fewer people receiving welfare payments, the less the cost to the Commonwealth. The more people unable to work and subsisting on the lowest possible income in this country, the higher will be the costs in terms of welfare, health, education and justice.

It is not racist to want your neighbour's kid to get a job ahead of someone from another country when you are footing the bill if they don't. It is also not unreasonable to ask your neighbour's kid to seriously consider taking that job on the other side of the country rather than waste their life away waiting for their dream job here, provided they have the skills. Finally it is not unreasonable to expect that a Commonwealth government understands this, and puts in place programs that will assist the community in both reducing unemployment and filling job vacancies. The current system appears to deliver neither of these, and Gina Reinhardt is the only one with thick enough skin to take advantage of the fact we are disinterested in the future of our youth, and to seek to profit from it.

I suspect she can afford to wait a little while so we can come up with better solutions, and ask business to partner with us on this issue rather than simply pulling their profit and leaving individuals without a meaningful contribution to the community, or a means of providing for their families with pride and dignity. She can't wait forever, I understand that. But maybe in the interim she could hire a new human resources department who can explain that can explain to her the concept of workforce planning, and perhaps government can explain that she should start thinking about footing the bill for unemployment benefits if she continues to ignore the needs of the community. In that time I am sure we can train some locals to at least gain entry level positions on the mines.

The ALP is floundering because they are stuck between a rock and a hard place. An antiquated dream of protecting jobs is battling with the reality of wanting to be seen to grow the economy. But an economy that is grown on the back of cheap labour, disrespect for the local community, no investment in skills or opportunities for the long term unemployed and disabled and fly in fly out work conditions in townships without sufficient housing or infrastructure is an economy of short term taxes and long term disaster management. The LNP have been silent on this issue because they have no policy at all.

Warren Mundine seems to be the only person in this country who can see the long term causes and effects of this issue. As he said today "we've got the people in Australia to do the work, it saddens me that from the 1980s onwards we have, dropped off on training apprentices, we've dropped off on skilling up our work force to fill these jobs."

If we need to resource the industry that has been touted as the saviour of our economy with foreign workers, then it is time we all accept that we are the stupid country, and we should all start telling our children that their greatest hope is to look for a job as a nanny or guard in Dubai.