Teresa Gambaro (Brisbane, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship and Settlement) Share this | Hansard source

The Migration Amendment (Temporary Sponsored Visas) Bill 2013 must rank as one of the most disgraceful bills ever to come before this parliament. The bill adds to the burden of regulation obligations and compliance enforcement on employer sponsors using the 457 visa program. If one is to subscribe to the view that bills should only be presented in this place if they address a real and known mischief or for a bona fide purpose, then this bill fails on all accounts.

Ostensibly, the government claims that this bill is necessary to stop the rorts of the 457 visa scheme, but, when asked to produce evidence of these great rorts, Minister O'Connor first claimed that there were 10,000 cases of abuse. Only later, he incredulously said that the figure had been made up and he tried to back out of it. There is no evidence in the department, there are no reports, showing this alleged 10,000 cases of abuse in the program. Make no mistake, this bill has nothing to do with what is good for Australia—absolutely nothing to do with what is good for our country.

This bill is about a desperate and dysfunctional government doing anything, saying anything, and attacking anybody in a last-ditch attempt to stay in power. It is all about the Prime Minister pitching to divide immigrants, seeking to create a stir in Western Sydney and scaremongering about foreigners taking the jobs of Australians. This bill declares a false war on skilled migrants to this country, and it is doing that because it is trying to support the unions and it is trying to stir up some perverse attempt to pit the political welfare of the unions against the good of this nation.

There is no crisis in the 457 visa program. There is no evidence of systematic rorting. What there is, though, is an overwhelming evidence of systemic policy failure by this government, and, in case anyone has any doubt about that, let us consider these not-so-impressive facts. After six years of the Rudd-Gillard government, Labor has delivered runaway cost of living increases. Labor has broken its promise on the carbon tax, and there is its administration of private health insurance, along with Grocery Watch and FuelWatch. We have seen a complete loss of control of the federal budget, with five consecutive budget deficits—with even more deficits forecast for the coming years. There is record government debt now approaching $300 billion and a yearly interest bill of $8 billion, and we have had a complete failure of border protection policies with almost 45,000 arrivals on 733 illegal boats resulting in a $10 billion budget blow-out. There was the gross incompetence and mismanagement of major projects like the overpriced school halls. There were the dangerous roof batts and now there are the blow-outs and delays with the National Broadband Network. And, of course, who can forget the ongoing saga that we are subjected to day and night of disunity, chaos and dysfunction with the Julia and Kevin soap opera of 'Who wants to be Prime Minister?' What is evident is that these proposed changes are being driven by not only an increasingly irrelevant union movement to improve union coverage and control of workplaces with 457 visas but also a desperate government and a desperate Prime Minister who are prepared to trash Australia's history of a migrant success story as part of their deeply flawed political strategy of class, gender and now ethnic warfare.

Immigration has made Australia the nation we are today. Many of Australia's most significant nation-building infrastructure projects are built on the back of migrant labour. The most famous of these is the Snowy Mountains Scheme. In my own electorate of Brisbane, migrants helped to build the iconic Story Bridge. This theme of contribution and achievement throughout the nation is one that existed in the past and continues today. Another example from my electorate of Brisbane can be seen with the researchers employed under the 457 scheme at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research, where world-leading research is being undertaken at the moment into AIDS and HIV, as well as dengue fever and malaria. Doctors on 457 visas provide health care to the people of Brisbane at the Royal Brisbane Hospital and at other hospitals in my electorate, but under this bill those doctors are 457 visa holders; they are second-class citizens.

Immigration has made us a stronger Australia. Community confidence in the immigration program provides a foundation for social harmony and the continued success of our immigration program. As Judge Rauf Soulio said in his welcoming address at the inaugural Australian Multicultural Council lecture last year, 'multicultural Australia transcends the usual division of politics' and 'diversity is a defining strength of Australia'. Well, not any more. If this desperate and divisive government has its way with this bill, what we will have here is a divided country—a country made up of first- and second-class citizens; a country of those who are Australian and who were born here and those who are second class who were not born here.

As a daughter of Italian migrant parents, I find this bill deeply offensive. My parents, like so many migrants from all over the world, came to this country seeking a better life. They were not born here, but they made Australia home for themselves and their children. They worked hard. They went to where the jobs were. They cut cane in North Queensland, and later they owned and operated the local corner store. I see the member for Indi is sitting at the table. Her parents, who are of Greek origin, also operated a local corner store. They worked hard, as did my parents. My parents then went on to run supermarkets. They were successful in developing a seafood export and wholesale business, which expanded to include one of Brisbane's finest dining restaurants. Since World War II, immigrants like my parents transformed Australia from a nation of some seven million to more than 22 million people from 260 different cultural backgrounds. In that time, immigration has seen more than seven million people settle here, including 750,000 refugees. Australia is arguably and without question one of the most successful immigration nations in the world, but the bill before us in the chamber today puts all of that at risk.

In the event that there is any ambiguity, it is worth looking at exactly what the 457 visa actually does as opposed to what the government falsely claims it does. The 457 visa class was introduced in 1996 and has been highly effective in meeting skills gaps. That is why it was brought in: to meet skills gaps in a number of industries and for large resourcing and infrastructure projects. The majority of 457 visa holders are professional and managerial occupations and, as at 30 April 2012, there were 108,810 primary 457 visa holders in Australia. That is less than one per cent of Australia's workforce. So much for Labor's and the unions' scaremongering about stealing the jobs of other Australians!

The 457 skilled migration visa program plays an important role in securing the short-term and long-term skilled migrants whom Australia has always needed and will always need into the future. More than half of all permanent skilled visas sponsored by employers are granted to skilled migration visa holders who are already legally in Australia, and 457 skilled migration visas account for more than 30 per cent of all permanent migration to Australia.

The 457 visa is the dominant component of Australia's temporary skilled migration program. It is designed to provide a quick response to fluctuations in demand for skilled and semiskilled workers where such demand cannot be met by the Australian workforce. Temporary skilled migration is vital to the efficient operation of the Australian labour market. It delivers significant economic benefits; 457 visa holders pay their own way. They pay for their own health and they do not access welfare. Once again, I point out that they are totally legal. They have come to this country in a totally legal way.

But it is not just the coalition that is saying that this is a bad bill—and it is; it is a bad, bad bill. On 17 June this year, the Australian Industry Group, the Business Council of Australia and Migration Council Australia released an open letter that raised concerns at a lack of evidence and proper process associated with proposed changes to the 457 visa scheme in the bill, along with the considerable risks posed for investment, job creation and economic growth. The AIG, BCA and MCA all identify the proposed return of labour market testing as one of the most damaging initiatives in the bill. That was abandoned after a major departmental review in 2001, because it was not found to be effective. It was costly, ineffective and inferior to the system that we have in place today. The AIG, BCA and MCA specifically state:

Unwarranted regulation risks penalising all employers, their employees and skilled migrants, as well as undermining investment, skills transfer and development, and broader job creation to address a relatively small number of instances that may be dealt with through other means.

But all these groups do not just stop there in their criticism of the bill. They call on all parliamentarians to reject this bill unless:

Why can't they be managed within the scheme's existing frameworks? It has only been a few cases and they need to be examined under the existing structures. The groups continue:

As we have seen, the government has no hard evidence to back up its claims of widespread rorting of the 457 program, nor is it able to show how the few individual cases that have been identified cannot be managed within this particular program.

What we do know, though, is that this government, in conjunction with the unions, have started their scaremongering campaign and their false war—and it is a false war—on 457 visa holders. We know that employer confidence in the program has been significantly undermined. Most disturbingly, in the government's own report—theSubclass457 state/territory summary report: 2012-13 to 30 April 2013, from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship—there have been disturbing results. In my own home state of Queensland, there have been huge decreases in the number of primary applications granted in key areas that will have dramatic impacts on the economy and the community: in construction, we have them down by 10.2 per cent; in health care and social assistance, they are down by 11.8 per cent; in education and training, they are down by 6.4 per cent; in information, media and telecommunications, they are down by 14.6 per cent; in manufacturing, they are down by 12.8 per cent; in mining, they are down by a massive 32.3 per cent; and in professional, scientific and technical occupations, they are down by 12.8 per cent. What these figures show is the extent to which the government and unions have undermined the confidence of employers working in the engine room of the economy, an impact that will be felt by many constituents in my electorate and by the people of Queensland and Australia.

It is appropriate that I am speaking on this bill today, because this is an enormously significant bill for immigration in our country—and the government has lost its way. Not much has changed in the three years since the government lost its way, on this third anniversary, except for the fact that it is more lost than ever. Labor has definitely lost its way on this bill. The demonising of 457 visa holders who come to this country and contribute to our nation's wellbeing is a new low in divisive politics, even for this government and even for this Prime Minister. The role of government is to bring people together, not to set them against each other. Any government that seeks to pit Australians against other Australians for its own political gain is not fit for this office. The coalition remain consistent on our policy with 457 visas, a policy that all employers and all Australians can have faith in.

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