Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I hear the minister saying, 'Spare us,' so I take that as a sign of optimism that the penetrating points from this side of the House in this debate on the Migration Amendment (Skilling Australians Fund) Bill 2017 are finally getting through to the minister. I'll go back to something the minister said, because he kind of popped up and read out a whole bunch of statistics. That was all really lovely. He obviously got Minister Dutton's notes from question time, which pop up every now and again. He didn't say CFMEU or Chiquita Mushrooms, but maybe that will come in the next contribution.

The minister said, 'Don't look at what the Labor Party says; look at what they do.' Let's apply the same say/do test to the government, to the Liberal Party, and then we might start to understand why we're still going on about this. We'll keep making the point until, I predict, one of two things will happen. The first is that the government will see sense, and they'll say: 'We've been persuaded. People don't trust us on this matter. They want to see the instrument. We'll give them the instrument. We'll table it here in the parliament and allow people to make their own assessments of whether it's adequate for the job or not.' We may be delighted—it's true, we may be delighted—when we see it. We may say: 'Goodness me, they've really thought this through. Maybe we're wrong. They've had the conversion. They've been persuaded. They've accepted the principle that Australians should have the first crack at getting jobs before we offer them to temporary migrant workers.' Maybe that will be the case. We'll think: 'Goodness, they've covered off minimum advertising periods. Well done, Government.' We'll think, 'Goodness me, they've really got it.' You actually have to have had advertised a job and tested the market within the last few months. Something that happened a few years ago is not relevant now. 'Goodness me, well done, Government.' They may have set some requirements that people have offered jobs that can be reasonably seen and applied for by all Australians, not just popped in the back of a trade journal that's circulated in one obscure town in a state, for instance.

We may be delighted, but of course we may be horrified or underwhelmed by this instrument. As we've said, if we don't want this instrument, if we don't think it will require employers in a meaningful way to offer jobs to Australians before we reach over and use the temporary migration system then there's nothing the parliament can do about it. There's a general default convention that these kinds of instruments can be disallowed by either house of parliament. That's the normal practice. For my sins, I spent quite some time over January reading about practice. I have been through 604 of the 777 substantive pages. There are a few chapters to go. I wouldn't say I've absorbed it all. There's a lot there and it's quite dense—a bit like the government on this point. But if we don't like the instrument, if it's not going to protect Australian workers, there's nothing we can do. It's too late.

Yet again, the government goes, 'Trust us!' When we look at their record on the say/do gap, they vote against proper labour market testing every time. That's not a basis to trust them, is it? When you look at their record, they've opposed it every time. When we have a look at their record of trade agreements, as we've said, at every turn they seem to provide more and more loopholes and exemptions so that companies will no longer be required to do things, so who knows what's in the rules? From the government's point of view: 'Who cares what's in the rules? We'll just keep signing up to trade agreements without any independent, proper scrutiny to get around all these rules in this instrument'—this magical, mythical instrument that no-one's seen.

The amendments could have gone further. I made the point before, and we'll start to illustrate that now. They're modest. They're sensible. There's a lot more that we could've put in there and, indeed, there's a lot more in Labor policy. It could've been a lot harder for the government to accept, but we're trying to be sensible about this and put forward amendments which the government should see its way clear and be capable of agreeing to. They may need to swallow their pride. Minister Tudge has been sent in here on some hospital-pass mission. He may have to go back to his superior, Minister Dutton, wherever he is in Home Affairs, and get some instructions. He may need to go back and say: 'There's been robust debate, and our instrument is not going to cut it. We should accept the Labor Party's amendments and do the right thing by Australian workers.'

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