Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes:

(a) the ongoing media reports and Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) findings into the exploitation of Working Holiday visa (subclass 417) holders, Temporary Work (Skilled) visa (subclass 457) holders and international students;

(b) nationwide monitoring by the FWO has uncovered suspected exploitation in 20 per cent of 560 migrant Temporary Work (Skilled) visa (subclass 457) worker cases examined between October 2014 and January 2015;

(c) the FWO said 'migrant workers complaints of mistreatment had soared in recent years, and sponsorship breaches were often deliberate acts of exploitation by unscrupulous employers';

(d) exploitation by employers has been identified in various industries including but not limited to construction, hospitality, cleaning, food processing, agriculture, the marketing and promotions sector, privately owned childcare centres and kindergartens, shopping trolley collectors and postal service contractors;

(e) many of these workers are low paid and low skilled, and are on Temporary Work (Skilled) visas (subclass 457), Working Holiday visas (subclass 417) or student visas; and

(f) this unconscionable conduct is widespread and is creating a sub class of workers that does not just hurt the employees; it puts at risk the pay and working conditions of all Australians;

(2) acknowledges the:

(a) recent hard work of the FWO to monitor, investigate, and expose potential breaches of the work visa program and Australian workplace laws; and

(b) proactive role the Australian union movement has played to highlight and expose unconscionable conduct by some employers and industries exploiting temporary visa workers;

(3) condemns the Government's:

(a) inaction to immediately address and implement the findings of recent FWO reports in relation to this matter; and

(b) recent moves to relax regulations for bringing in temporary visa workers, instead of toughening the rules; and

(4) calls on the Government to:

(a) immediately strengthen the work visa safeguards it has deliberately relaxed to make it easier for companies to hire overseas workers; and

(b) ensure that Australia's work visa program has robust safeguards in place to protect all workers and is not being used as a back door avenue to source cheap labour.

Weekly, if not daily, we are hearing time and time again more media reports about the exploitation of workers who are here on temporary work visas, quite often as guest workers. Over the weekend there was more commentary about the horrible case of 7-Eleven workers. We heard in a Senate inquiry on Friday that about 20,000 workers are expected to have been underpaid by 7-Eleven franchisees but yet only 2,000 have come forward. In that inquiry on Friday many of the people involved on the wage fairness panel established by 7-Eleven, including Allan Fels, said that it was because of fear of coming forward. Workers that they had met with are intimidated, threatened with having their visas cancelled and with being deported, threatened with violence—one even spoke out about being beaten—for coming forward to complain about underpayments.

This is not an isolated incident. Since this government was elected there has been incident after incident reported in our media and incident after incident investigated by the Fair Work Ombudsman, yet what we have seen from this government has been inaction. When the Fair Work Ombudsman released their report last year where they found that one in five people that they audited who are here on 457 visas was being underpaid, this government did not act to clean up the area. They did not put in proper safeguards to protect these workers. Instead, they established what they called a ministerial working group to try to tackle this issue of worker exploitation.

What we learned today in the media is that this group has apparently only met three times, but a key member of the committee does not have any record of the meetings. The Minister for Justice cannot recall and, through freedom of information, does not have any records of attending this working group. This is not the actions of a government that is taking this issue seriously. There is a need for action in this area, not just to protect the overseas workers that we have here, whether they be workers on skilled visas, whether they be workers on backpacker visas—the 417 visas—or whether they be international students with work rights, but because they are also undermining Australian wages and conditions.

In this motion I particularly want to highlight the calls on government to immediately strengthen the work visa safeguards, not to relax them as they did when this government was first elected. Yes, it was two immigration ministers ago and, yes, the minister at that time is now the Treasurer—he has had two role changes—but, when Minister Morrison relaxed the safeguards, Labor said that it would result in more workers being exploited. Sadly, that appears to be the case.

The motion also calls for a visa system with robust safeguards in place to protect all workers to ensure that they are not being used as a backdoor avenue to source cheap labour—and that is what we are seeing. In the case of 7-Eleven, workers were being paid half pay instead of full pay. Workers have been forced to get ABNs to work in the cleaning industry in sham contracting arrangements, as we have seen in the case of Myers and other cases. We have seen workers involved in pizza delivery and trucking and even workers involved in working for Australia Post being exploited. These are just the high-profile cases that have been brought to the attention of the Australian media as well as the unions involved in these industries. The government should be condemned for their inaction to immediately address and implement the findings of the recent Fair Work Ombudsman's report. It is now February 2016 and the government have had this report since last year but have failed to act to implement its recommendations. Recent moves to relax regulations have seen more workers coming into this country and being exploited instead of a toughening up of the rules.

Any worker in this country should be treated with respect and dignity. At the moment, this is not being offered to people who are here as temporary workers. All workers in Australia should be treated the same and receive the same wages and conditions. The government must act to clean up this area.

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