House debates

Monday, 14 October 2019

Bills

New Skilled Regional Visas (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2019; Second Reading

1:02 pm

Photo of Tony ZappiaTony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the amendment moved by the member for Scullin to this legislation, the New Skilled Regional Visas (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2019. The purpose of this bill is to establish two new provisional skilled regional visa classes which, after three years of living and working in a regional area, will allow these provisional visa holders to apply for permanent residency. That in itself is quite an attractive incentive to someone who wants to migrate to Australia from overseas. Additionally, the new provisional skilled regional visa holders will have access to government services, such as social security payments, similar to permanent residents. That was previously not the case, and so this is also a new additional incentive for people wanting to come and work within Australia in a regional area.

The policy intent of this bill is twofold: firstly, to overcome a skills shortage in regional Australia and, secondly, to ease the growth pressure on big cities by providing incentives for new migrants to settle in regional Australia. The government proposes to reduce Australia's annual migration intake from 190,000 to 160,000. Of those 160,000 places, 23,000 places will be allocated to the two new skilled regional visa subclasses—491 and 494.

This legislation was referred to the Senate Standing Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee, and their report was handed to parliament only a couple of days ago. In their minority report, Labor senators—whilst supporting the aim of the new skilled regional visas—noted that the new visas had not been fully thought through, that details were unclear and that there could be serious unintended consequences. In particular, the higher education community raised issues with what they see as inconsistencies in the definitions of 'regional Australia', which seem to have been made in an arbitrary way. For example, it has been pointed out that Perth, one of the most isolated cities in Australia, is excluded from the definition of a regional location, despite it being at a disadvantage in attracting international students. Previously, this government has directed additional funding to university campuses in suburban areas, under programs intended to support more students at regionally focused universities. Definitions are important and they should not be used as a cover to pork-barrel money into marginal seats.

The need for this legislation highlights two serious failings of government. Firstly, there is the failure of the government to support Australian vocational education. We know that today there are about 150,000 fewer apprenticeships than there were when this government came to office. We also know that about $3 billion has been cut from TAFE funding over the past six years by this government. We know that billions of dollars were wasted on shonky VET providers under the watch of the government. And we know this government continues to pursue a privatisation ideology of selling off state or federal government utilities and assets that, in the past, would provide tens of thousands of apprenticeship opportunities. All of those opportunities are also being lost. It is short-term, foolish policy, because the apprenticeships that those government entities were providing in the past are not being provided by the operators of those very services that have been privatised. Secondly, as the member for Scullin quite rightly pointed out in his comments, there is the failure of this government to support regions with government services, while infrastructure funding fails to keep pace with growth in big cities. On both of these matters, the government has failed.

Poor planning by all governments in our cities has resulted in cities outgrowing the pace of infrastructure investment that is being provided. That is partly a responsibility of this government—contrary to what other members have said, that it is simply a responsibility of the states. If better infrastructure had been provided, those big cities would not be bursting at the seams in the way that they are. Simultaneously, if regional Australia had better services, more people would very likely be living there today. As the member for Scullin also quite rightly pointed out, it is those services that are particularly important for new migrants as they transition to Australian life. Yet this legislation says and does nothing about additional resettlement services for the very people that it says will be located in regional Australia. The government makes no commitment about that whatsoever.

With respect to one particular profession, the medical profession, we know that many of the health services provided in regional Australia are provided by overseas trained doctors. One of the biggest shortfalls or one of the biggest areas of concern was that, for many of those doctors who relocate to regional Australia, there were no support settlement services once they went out there, and that was becoming one of the serious barriers that they faced.

It would be my expectation that skilled people in a developing country would jump at the opportunity to come to Australia with a pathway to permanent residency. The three years of working in a regional location, in my view, would not be a barrier whatsoever. Indeed, it is not much of an impost when you consider there are people trying to get to this country, asylum seekers, who have now spent years in detention centres. But more importantly, it is not much of an impost when it is something that many other professionals already do in this country. There are a number of vocations where people, once they graduate, are expected to work in a regional area for one, two or three years. It's not uncommon in several professions. It is also a pathway, within those professions, to advancing a career. So working in a country or regional part of Australia is not unusual, nor is it a great impost.

But the reality is that even graduates from within our own country who have done that don't often return to the regional location where they perhaps did part of their work once they graduated. So I have serious doubts that this program will be effective. After the new migrants have spent three years in the regional areas, I doubt very much whether all of them will remain in those locations. I suspect that, like all other Australians, they will seek work where they get the most benefit—and, indeed, not only work where they get the most benefit but work which offers the most benefits to their family members as well. So, whilst this might be legislation that initially provides some benefit to the regional areas, I'm not convinced that, in the long term, it is going to overcome the skills shortages that we see in those areas.

There are other concerns with respect to this legislation that I want to talk about, and these are concerns that were also raised in the Senate committee's report. One of my serious concerns with this scheme is the likelihood of widespread exploitation of migrant workers. Only on Saturday, in the South Australian Advertiser, there was a story written by Tory Shepherd on this very matter. I want to quote the first three paragraphs of that story:

DOZENS of Adelaide businesses have been busted exploiting workers or cheating the visa system since a public register began in 2015.

Australian Border Force figures show 82 firms have been sanctioned for breaching their obligations as visa sponsors.

And immigration agent Mark Glazbrook … said those who were caught were just the tip of the iceberg.

Those comments are consistent with my own observations and stories that have been brought to me during my time in this place—stories of sponsors exploiting workers and of workers who have little understanding of their rights, who do not know who to turn to if they are being exploited, who often come from countries where labour abuse is common and who don't want to jeopardise their opportunity of permanent residency within Australia. These are vulnerable people.

Both of the two new visa subclasses proposed by this legislation will require a sponsor, which could be a family member or an Australian business. I hope that this legislation is not used as another form of access to cheap labour by employers who would do that ahead of doing the right thing by the employees they will ultimately employ. But it's a real concern that I have, and again I wonder: what is the government going to do to ensure that worker exploitation does not continue as a result of people going out to country areas, where, again, their access to support services is even less than for those who go to the cities?

In the couple of minutes I have left, I want to highlight a matter separate to all this. We have unemployment in Australia at 5.3 per cent—roughly 716,000 Australians unemployed. We have 8.5 per cent of people underemployed, which is perhaps another million people or so who are underemployed. Simultaneously, we are told that we have a shortage of skills in this country. We also know that some of the highest unemployment occurs in regional Australia, the very parts of Australia that this bill seeks to address. Indeed, we know that, under this legislation, South Australia—and, in fact, the Northern Territory and Tasmania—will be designated regional Australia for the purpose of this legislation.

In South Australia we now have the highest unemployment rate in the country, at 7.3 per cent. We know that, if we were to train people who are unemployed or underemployed, we should be able to meet those skills shortages through our own people who are looking for more work. When I look at the 7.3 per cent unemployment rate we have in South Australia, I look at the skills shortages we have, and I look at the cuts to education and TAFE in particular. Not only has the federal government made cuts, but the Marshall Liberal government in South Australia has closed TAFEs at Tea Tree Gully, Port Adelaide and Parafield since coming to office just over a year ago. The Marshall government and the federal coalition government are not only not investing in training Australians who are looking for more work and who are in the very regions that this legislation seeks to address but also, at the same time, are simply saying, 'Let's bring those people in from overseas.'

The member for Mackellar talked about the 47,000 job vacancies that appear outside of capital cities. I'm not in a position to dispute that figure—and I am not prepared to dispute it, because it may well be correct—but why are we not training Australians who are looking for work, rather than bringing in people from overseas? Shouldn't that be our first priority? Indeed it should. But this government is not prepared to do that. It would rather simply say, 'Let's bring in skilled workers from overseas,' instead of investing in training our own people. We have seen cuts right across the board in education, but we have particularly seen them in vocational education and training. I suspect that we can train people here rather than bring people in. The other matter, of course, is the integrity of the whole system. As we have seen in the past time and time again, not only are people who are brought in being exploited; one has to question how legitimate their qualifications are.

The intent of this legislation is one that Labor supports. But there is no question that there are unintended consequences, and there are a lot of other things we could have done as a country to meet the skills shortages that this legislation seeks to overcome.

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