> Likewise it has deterred many locals from considering IT as an area of study.

That's a bold statement. Have you got some good source? I'm having a problem imagining a statistically relevant number of people saying "I'm interested in pursuing one of the skills marked by the government as experiencing national shortage, (for years!) but I won't because immigrants will take those positions instead"

457 visa workers have driven down salary expectations for entry-level development jobs, thus students have began to shy away from computer science as a field of study (since there are plenty of other fields that pay more)

Based on my own anecdotal observations within IT, few examples:

- Relative size of CS departments (enrolments) and how standalone they are as a faculty now vs 10-15 years ago

- Observations of how many parents who work in IT recommend to their kids to pursue alternative fields of study

Statistically I am not sure how this fits in with other non-IT fields.

Personally I would love to see the points above greatly improved upon as computers are here to stay, so having self-sufficiency and cross-generational (family) expertise would be very complementary and competitive.

Struggling to understand why any country would not want more smart people, whether scientists or IT. On average I would expect anyone willing to sacrifice by leaving friends and family to move part way across he world in the diligent search for opportunity would be an asset to their new country.

Such a person would be an asset and if there were an infinite supply of jobs to employ such people in, we wouldn't need to restrict immigration nearly as much. Every new skilled person we get would contribute to and grow our economy.

However we don't have an infinite supply of jobs and every job taken by a skilled person from another country could have been taken by a skilled person from within our own country, had they developed the skill. It also reduces demand for those jobs, which reduces the motivation for people within the country to train themselves to perform it in the future and increases our dependence on immigration.

My argument isn't that immigration is bad, I'm an immigrant myself (Australia -> US) but it's definitely a trade off and needs to be controlled carefully.

This is unnecessarily hostile and does not address the parent.

Of all jobs to be automated any time soon I think PhD level researchers should feel pretty safe and secure.

My guess is it was sarcasm. What a funny notion it was.

Given their comment history, it's either not sarcasm or they need to find a new joke.