Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

As I was saying, what we have had from the opposition, between last night and today, is complete chaos on this question. On this side of the House, apart from pursuing asylum seeker and refugee policy in line with the recommendations of the expert panel, we are rightly focusing on the question of Australian jobs. We believe that jobs are important to Australians: it is at the centre of what a Labor government does. And when there are more than 100,000 temporary overseas workers in Australia and when the rate at which these visas are growing is 20 per cent—far faster than the rate at which employment is growing—then we are concerned. We will always put the jobs of Australians first.

I know that the Leader of the Opposition has a different perspective and that his policy is to make these temporary foreign visas a mainstay of our immigration system. For us, this is about the Australian economy, jobs, opportunity and working conditions, and in those we will always put Australians first. We recognise that there are from time to time legitimate skill needs, but we will make sure that a temporary visa scheme addresses that—and only that.

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