Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for giving me the call. I wish I could say it was a pleasure following the member for Hughes, but he exhibits such startling incoherence that it is hard to say that it is a pleasure. Part of that startling incoherence is that he confuses skilled migration and citizenship on the one hand with a guest worker scheme on the other. And that is what the 457 scheme has degenerated into under this government: it is becoming very close to a guest worker scheme. This is completely against the Australian character and the Australian way, which is to have a fair go—not just a fair go for workers and for the unemployed in this country, but also a fair go for those who come to our country to work. I would prefer that they came here and took out citizenship and lived here, because, whenever a visa is hung over someone's head, they are vulnerable to abuse, and we are beginning to see example after example after example of this. And no matter how much the member for Hughes wants to talk about xenophobia and racism and all this other nonsense and to talk about South Parkand he has probably never watched an episode of South Park in his life; it was probably his staff. But his speeches are sort of Southpark-esque in their ridiculousness.

I encourage him to do a bit of research. He should go and have a look at the Senate Education and Employment References Committee inquiry into Australia's temporary work visa programs. On 19 June 2015 the committee heard from a Mrs Alferaz, a nurse who had to pay between $2,000 and $3,000 to a nursing agency to get her visa. This was not a fee listed in the legislation or the regulations of this parliament but a fee that that agency charged her to get a visa—that is, the right to work in Australia. She was coming here from the Philippines and she was charged to get the visa. That is a racket. When she got here her experience was that she was underpaid under the enterprise bargaining agreement. She was wrongly classified and underpaid by some $57,000. Does that sound like a fair go to anybody in this room or anybody sitting outside of it? Of course it does not. It exhibits a scheme that is open to abuse and where abuse is rampant.

There are all sorts of examples of workers from overseas, from situations where they are vulnerable to exploitation, being charged from the outset for their visa. When they get here they are underpaid or are charged exorbitant and exploitative rates for their accommodation or their travel to the workplace. The visa is held over their head in the workplace to get them to accept these conditions. That is what is happening. There is example after example of it, not just with 457 visas but with student visas and backpacker visas. This image that is conjured up of some European backpacker happily working picking apricots is a nonsense. What is actually happening is that people are being trafficked here, exploited and becoming a sort of ghost workforce in the system. They are having their visas held over their head the whole time, and if they go to the authorities, the Fair Work Ombudsman or the press they will get their visa taken from them and will be back home.

There is a growing scandal in this country around visa classifications, and it is not to this government's benefit to deny it. If the government had any sense at all it would be cracking down on this, because the very integrity of the immigration system is at stake. We cannot have a situation where workers who are coming here from the developing world, who are vulnerable to exploitation, are used by Australians and Australian businesses as some sort of ghost, black workforce. It is not acceptable. We have seen it in Baiada Poultry, we have seen it in Australia Post and we have seen it in 7-Eleven. We have seen it all over Australia. (Time expired)

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