Consultant engaged as Great Southern DAMA application pushes forward

Businesses struggling to find employees are being encouraged to ensure they have their voices heard so a regional migration agreement can include all the industries it could benefit. The push for a Great Southern designated area migration agreement is moving forward after a WALGA Great Southern Country Zone decision to endorse the engagement of a national immigration firm to put together the necessary business plan. An agreement would open the door for more industries to attract migrant workers beyond those already covered by the Federal skilled occupation list. Strong support for an agreement has already been established through a survey sent out by the zone’s DAMA working group, which was formed at the previous zone meeting in August. In a report prepared for last month’s meeting, zone president Chris Pavlovich said as more than 80 responses had been received, the group now had the evidence to commit funding towards an application and the business plan. He said there had been a wide range of respondents from across the region and industry. “It was from hospitality to transport, to agriculture, to aged care providers and just about everything in between,” he said. “Really there has been unanimous support for it and we want to fast-track this as fast as we can.” He said the consultant appointed had experience putting together successful DAMA applications. “They are immigration consultants as well so they are all over this,” he said. “We’ve engaged them to put together a business case which will hopefully be finished and lodged late in the second quarter of next year.” At the October meeting, zone representatives voted in favour of 10 recommendations laid out by the working group which included requesting the region’s 11 local governments commit 62.5 per cent of their originally requested funding as initial project funding. The City of Albany also had its chief executive Andrew Sharpe endorsed to join the working group. Mr Pavlovich said the working group, local governments and Regional Development Australia Great Southern would continue to gather information to ensure an accurate cross-section of the region was represented in the data. He said it would not be a case of engaging a consultant then sitting back. “It is imperative that anyone who hasn’t responded back go to the RDA website and click through the survey,” he said. “If they are having trouble with that they can catch up with their local government to ask for a hard copy, because if people don’t register their interest now we can’t add any careers on for five years unless we do a full review. “We need to get it right this time otherwise it could be a very costly process.” The online survey can be accessed here.