We need to wean ourselves off migrant workers

August 14, 2026

Mainul Haque is right to assert: “We need stronger pathways from education into care careers. We need better retention strategies. We need to value care work as highly skilled work.” Yes, with an ageing population, we do need to direct more of our own young people into caring professions and, once there, look after them in terms of pay and conditions.

In the short term, yes, we do need to depend on migrants to supply the skills we need as we have not trained enough of our own. In many cases, however, we have to recognise that we are poaching skilled workers from countries that can ill afford to lose them. While these migrant workers often send remittances back home, nevertheless, the state would have provided much of the finance for their education. Unlike family members who get remittances, the state gains no benefit from their working overseas.

In the mid- to long-term, Australia has to wean itself off its dependency on migrant workers in the care sector. It has to direct finances into the education and training of Australians, many of whom will be children of migrants, to fill most of the care jobs here in this country.