George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have no doubt that there are cases, as the previous member said, where there has been exploitation. I have absolutely no doubt and have known of some of those examples myself. But to claim that Australian businesses and the majority of people who are engaged in this are conducting themselves in this illegal manner and exploiting these people is beyond the pale. It does happen in some instances, just as in some instances Australian workers are exploited as well. And there are appropriate mechanisms whereby the bosses, the employers, can be pulled up. There is the fair work agency, there is the department of immigration and there are quite a number of different not-for-profit agencies out there.

Let us have a look at some of the figures. The reality is that we have a motion before us talking about numbers—numbers of people who are in the country working under various visa systems, whether they be 457s or backpacker visas. The number of 457 visas for overseas workers actually increased by many times under Labor, from roughly 60,000 in 2010 to over 110,000 in 2013. Now let us have a look at what has actually happened and what the statistics say. There are fewer 457 visa workers in the country now than there were under Labor, so it is not some sort of crisis. These problems that the honourable member talked about were problems that existed under the previous government in a minority of cases, and unfortunately they are problems that will always exist where there are some bad eggs in the system. That is why we have policing of the system. For all the huff and puff that we hear from the CFMEU and all the other unions, in the Mackay region there has been a 20 per cent decrease in the number of 457 visa workers. So it is not in any way some sort of crisis that has been created under this government. The issue was more manifold under the last government.

I can say that the coalition has done more to stamp out the illegal use of 417 visa holders than any other government in history. That includes the last Labor government, which did nothing about the situation. We have established Taskforce Cadena, which has led to quite a number of arrests of those people who are doing the wrong thing. We have set up the Australian Border Force, an organisation which is specifically looking at illegal overstayers and all of these sorts of matters. It is fair to say that this is something the opposition leader did not even know existed or what it purpose was, even though he voted on it and had extensive briefings on it. He also criticised an operation that they had down in Melbourne, where they were going to look at taxi drivers—an area where there have been widespread reports of foreign workers illegally operating. It was portrayed in the media as people being randomly approached in the street. That was never what it was going to be, but it came under attack by the Labor Party.

You cannot have it both ways. If there is a policing mechanism to deal with these issues that you are talking about and you come out and criticise that, you then want it both ways. You criticise the policing of it, but then you come in here and say that we are not policing it enough. What do you want? I wish the Labor Party would stand up and tell us exactly what they want here. Do they want the 457 visa system ended? No answer. Do they want the 417 visa system ended? No answer. But you get up here and make statements as if that is what you want, as if these things should be crushed, destroyed and forever buried. That would be a disaster for our economy, and you know it, and that is why you get up here with these lily-livered words about how bad it is and how terrible it is.

But are we going to do anything about it? No, we are not. We are not going to do a single thing about it, because this is all for political power plays, and it is absolutely ridiculous and disgraceful that you are doing that on the back of foreign workers. The government's policy about ChAFTA is this: we will only enter into a project labour agreement where we have been satisfied that Australians have been provided first opportunity for jobs— (Time expired)

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