Greencheeks - of course you caused no offence, everyone is permitted to have their opinion. I try to explain in detail because I did look into it a bit, and I offer information at times that the media doesn't explain (they just push anything they think the public will like the sound of, and don't understand much themselves). I do get very annoyed by the way both government and opposition try to mislead the public (for votes) and avoid the real issues, while wasting parliamentary time we are paying them for. And the fact that they find anything "foreign" a worthwhile topic to push because it is so easy to stir up resentment about little or nothing (the backpackers tax is another issue but I don't want to go into it - suffice to say that even the media has not woken up as to what was really going on - people think the government succeeded in getting their 15% tax but the truth is more complicated and has to do with Super). Good luck with your work decisions - I can't say what is best, but it might be handy to get tickets that work in more than one industry (I remember how my uncle went under with his dozing business in the 1950s recession and he never got on top again). It could get worse before it gets better, but I am seeing an improvement in my area (I am self-employed and old enough not to be desperate). It will all depend in what happens economically internationally, and economists wait with baited breath to see what Trump does when he takes office - he is a bit hard to predict (eg if China's trade is affected they won't want to buy our resouces - but India is on the rise). It is a difficult decision - it is a lot of money to outlay when not doing well, but when things go right and one gets a good job, it can seem like chicken-feed after a year.
You say "it is sad to see a lot of foreign investments coming into the country with the potential to outsource the labour for their companies when there is high unemployment rates within Australian communities". "Potential" is the word - they don't usually choose to do that unless there is a shortage here as I mentioned. But the other thing that most people don't realise is that we have no choice but to use foreign investment - Australian investment could not finance a tiny fraction of ANY of our industries, we would be poorer than Greece or worse, there has never been the cash here to invest - we could hardly afford a single large mine. And because of the way the pollies and the media represent things, people only even realise that a project has major foreign investment when it is from China, India etc (that "very foreign" issue again) - in fact we are owned by the USA, Britain, Japan etc. Australians don't seem to fully understand what an issue it is. Foreign investment in Australia is $3,000,000,000,000 - 3 million, a million times over. This is equivalent to every Australian man, women and child investing $150,000 each if we had to find the money ourselves (perhaps an average of a million per family just invested in the share market?) - but to find the money we have to earn it from the industries that we need the money to create (Catch 22). Europe and the USA is 53% of that foreign investment - United States and Britain being nearly all of that, and Belgium (with 8%) being a poor third (but still greater than Japan with about 6%). China is only 2.5% (only a tiny bit larger than Luxembourg) and India (like Adani) doesn't even rate with well under 1% - places like the Virgin Islands or the Cayman Islands are twice as much as India. And when did anyone ever complain about Belgian investment - it is just those nasty "very foreign" people that are mentioned? That is what I mean about the major parties - "the plebs are complaining, throw them another carrot" - they play us for fools (probably because it is easier than explaining in detail) and continuue with what they always intended to do anyway, which mostly, with most parties, is not too bad on the international economic front (if not on some others like unemployment, or internal budgeting, so "tell them we are reducing 457s""tell them we will tax the backpackers heavily"). I have my prejudices, but perhaps you can at least see why now....
But good luck - I hope it all goes well for you.
Swinging & Digging - as I have been explaining, 457s are meant for highly trained skilled jobs, average pay for people with them is $96,000 per year which indicates that it is skilled - there is no such thing as an unskilled 457 visa. The youngsters you are talking about mostly don't have the training, and mineral booms tend to be short (I have seen four) and people are needed immediately in a boom and the youngsters can't train up in time to fill the urgent vacancies. And without staff, we would not have even had a boom and would already have been in major recession. I also find that most city kids have not shown interest in remote jobs, although some do - it is a hard life, puts a strain on families and relationships. It also confuses me that people don't worry about twice as many immigrants per year, most of them skilled, but worry about 457s that are only issued for 4 years. I also hate that it is 16-20% unemployment (my city is) and I have helped youngsters in little country towns get into jobs during the boom - told them how to go to Kalgoorlie, get the minimum training to get onto a mine through a contract service and then get the fat pay checks that were offering. Some I helped have done well (from places smaller than Orbost). I have also employed as many as I could through my own employer - Dargo, Gulgong, Beaufort, Lakes Entrance (mineral exploration is good that way - you want someone close to where you are working, training does not take long, only moderate high school education is required, youngsters off farms are far better for the type of work - would you give chainsaw to a youngster from Toorak, and woukld they have a heavy-duty licence)? Australians are not paying much welfare for 457s - 28 days out of a job makes the visa void (although they tend to give a bit more latitude to be fair). You can't fill a position for an endicrinologist required next week with an unskilled 20 year old. There was some misuse as I mentioned where contract firms claimed people were skilled when they were not, but that was largely in the past and the problem was not the visas, it was crooks, and people can exploit all things (like the dole and everything else) without being foreigners. Again, easier for government to pretend the problem is with laws themselves, and say they are changing them, when the problem is really the government not enforcing adherence to the laws. If every 457 position could be filled by an Australian (absolutely impossible) it would still leave 4 times as many Australians still unemployed as who got jobs.
I don't explain these things to advance the position of employers (I could do with some work right now which is why I have time to blog). It is just that I understand how things work enough to know that if things like 457s and foreign investment were completely abolished during boom times as so many of the public seem to think is a good idea, that instead of youngsters having 15-30% unemplyment it would be 70-80%, and 20% in the overall population, with no money to pay for having a dole or pension and no money for training and education. Which is why no major party, Lib. Labor, Green ever actually does it, they just talk about it to keep the public feeling satisfied - and it is also why I don't think we will see such a catastrophic situattion. But it is easier if everyone can understand why.
