Work and Holiday Visa, is it a pointless visa?

[mmm....shiney!]

p.s. I will add one comment which I forgot to mention

That is a straw man argument which you seem to make a lot of. I never said a job is a right. I never said we should have a minimum wage (I merely suggested that voluntarily paying higher wages can get you reliable local employees).

However what is a right as a nation is the right to decide who we let into our country (I bet you wouldn't like it if 20 million Indians and 20 million Chinese turned up next week because we just let everyone in) with my point being there are more productive people we should be letting into our country than the backpackers washing dishes or serving your latte.

I'm done now. Thanks for the debate guys.

In the context of my explanation the comment that a job is not a right was not a strawman. I was hardly misrepresenting you. Labour is just one factor in the means of production and just as with the other factors of production, the best outcomes for consumers are achieved when the factors of production are used with maximum efficiency and to do so, the businessman must have the freedom to employ who best suits his needs ie he must have access to a flexible labour market.

Your concerns have no basis in sound economic policy and your conclusions drawn from them have ramifications that have unintended negative outcomes for consumers eg:

point being there are more productive people we should be letting into our country than the backpackers washing dishes or serving your latte.

So who is going to wash the dishes, serve me my latte or pick pineapples? I'll tell you who - the labour force that the business owner freely chooses to employ that enables him to maximise productivity which in turn enhances the wealth of all.

 

[Bargain Hunter]

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[mmm....shiney!]

I'll try and explain it another way.

The end goal of all production is consumption. It stands therefore that in order to maximise the benefit for consumers, land, capital and labour must be used as efficiently as possible by entrepreneurs. Any barriers to the best use of those three factors in the chain of production will result in a less than optimum outcome for consumers. The use of temporary foreign workers in some industries provides a net gain for consumers that would not be achievable if that supply of labour was absent.