Member for Wentworth, Allegra Spender, has backed the Activate Australia’s Skills campaign and has called for urgent reform to fix Australia’s broken skills recognition system, warning the economy is missing out on $9 billion in value each year if action isn’t taken. Read more 

Orygen has become the 100th organisation to join a growing alliance of businesses, unions, and non-profits calling for urgent reform of the overseas skills recognition system to help address shortages, improve access to mental health care, and support workforce sustainability. Activate Australia’s Skills today announced that Orygen and its Executive Director, Professor Patrick McGorry AO, have joined the campaign, highlighting the critical need for reform to address workforce shortages, particularly in mental health and psychiatry. Read more 

Reforming Australia’s convoluted, costly and inefficient overseas skills recognition process will help build the homes needed to address the nation’s housing crisis and allow more skilled migrants already here to work in the construction industry, says the Activate Australia’s Skills campaign.  Key housing policies announced by Labor and the Coalition this week aim to boost home ownership by building new homes for first-time buyers.  But commentators and economists have pointed out that supply-side investment is undermined by the chronic shortage of skilled workers accessible to the construction industry. Read more 

Both the federal government and opposition have squandered a $9 billion economic opportunity by failing to fix Australia’s broken skills recognition system in their budget plans, says the Activate Australia’s Skills campaign. Read more 

Fourteen of Australia’s most influential leaders have united to call for urgent reforms to unlock the skills of 620,000 permanent migrants in Australia as one in three professions face critical workforce shortages.  Former Ambassador to the United States the Hon Arthur Sinodinos AO, public service mandarin Dr Martin Parkinson AC PSM, leading economist Dr Melinda Cilento, and world-renowned psychiatrist Professor Pat McGorry AO are among the prominent Australians to personally endorse the Activate Australia’s Skills campaign calling for an overhaul of Australia’s skills recognition system. Read more 

3 February 2025 A new poll demonstrates public support for measures that could activate the currently unrecognised professional qualifications and skills of over 600,000 people.  The poll, conducted by Essential Research and […] Read more 

16 December 2024 The Activate Australia’s Skills campaign has welcomed the Albanese government’s newly announced investigation into building a skilled and adaptable workforce but urged decision makers to consider more timely reforms […] Read more 

The Federal Government’s skilled migration reforms, announced yesterday, will not fully ease skills shortages without change to the wider system keeping thousands of migrants already in the country from full economic participation, […] Read more 

The Activate Australia’s Skills campaign welcomes the recommendations by the Joint Standing Committee on Migration Read more 

“We’re ready to work”: New skills shortage blueprint to tackle rising prices, housing delays, service waitlists. Read more