"Australia lifts minimum wage for skilled migrant workers,"

Australia will end a decade-old freeze on the minimum wage for skilled migrant workers as part of an overhaul of what the government described Thursday as a broken migration system that fosters exploitation and favors attracting low-paid employees over filling critical skill shortages.

“What has emerged is a system where it is increasingly easy for migrants to come to Australia in search of a low-paid job, but increasingly difficult for migrants with the skills that we desperately need,” said Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil. “One of the reasons there is so much exploitation in Australia is because we have allowed low-wage migration programs to operate in the shadows.”...

“Our migration system is suffering from a decade of genuinely breathtaking neglect,” she said. “It is broken, it is failing our businesses, it is failing migrants themselves. And, most important of all, it is failing Australians.”

O’Neil commissioned a review in November of Australia’s migration program that found 1.8 million temporary migrants were living within a national population of 26 million.

The review reported: “It is not in Australia’s national interest to maintain a large proportion of temporary entrants with no pathway to citizenship as it undermines our democratic resilience and social cohesion.”...