Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today I rise proudly to speak on the Migration Amendment (Strengthening Employer Compliance) Bill 2023. I joined the Labor party because of my passion for protecting workers' rights. It's something we in Labor have done since before Federation. It's something we will always do. It is the very foundation that our party is built on, and it's everything that we do and focus on. Since we've been in government, we've been responsible for a significant suite of reforms in the industrial relations space. Let's not forget that this is an area that had been neglected for almost 10 years while those opposite were in government. It was nearly10 years when employers could run amok and focus on their profits rather than their people. It was 10 years when the most vulnerable in our society could be exploited due to the lack of empathy and care that was shown to them by the then government.

It wasn't just robodebt or the attacks on services; it was the lack of action in workplace relations that hurt Australians. People coming to our country were left unprotected and vulnerable too. As Professor Allan Fels, chair of the Migrant Workers Taskforce said: 'This exploitation has been a severe problem for 10 years. There have been huge numbers of underpaid and exploited migrant workers and nothing was done about it.' COVID hasn't been around for 10 years. Those opposite can't use that excuse any longer.

This was even after the national debate that occurred following the 7-Eleven scandal. The former government sat around and did nothing. Who's surprised? We'd all got used to that because it was the former government's response anytime it got tough. They ignored, and didn't implement, the key recommendations of the task force report. They knew of the crisis gripping our country, yet they wiped their hands clean of their responsibilities. Now that I think about it, it's how the Liberal Party always handle tough situations. Remember how the former Prime Minister, the member for Cook—the sook from Cook—handled national challenges like the Black Summer bushfires? He wiped his hands clean of the problem while sipping pina coladas on the beach at Waikiki.

The former coalition government's inaction even extended to individual cases in their own electorates. Take Freedom Foods in Shepparton, for example, who were accused of underpaying their workers by 25 per cent in 2019. That was pre COVID. These workers were made to perform tasks not covered by the skilled workers scheme as well as being severely underpaid. The company also discouraged workers from talking to the union about their working conditions, saying that, if they talked to the union, they were getting on a plane. This is the sort of rhetoric that is both degrading to the worker and also utterly illegal. But it's the sort of rhetoric that was allowed to run rampant under the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison mess. The complaint about Freedom Foods dated back years before the 2019 report, with the former Nationals federal MP apparently being told about it in 2016. What did he do? He did the same as always: nothing. This is just a further indictment of the former government's inaction on protecting all workers in this nation.

In primary school, we teach our kids to step in when someone is picking on someone else and to stand up and speak out for the person being bullied. Typically, the coalition are bystanders. They knew what was happening. They could see it happening, yet they chose to do nothing about it. Even primary school kids could tell the other lot that not stepping up and just being a bystander makes you as bad as the perpetrator. Migrant workers were left in the deep end, with the government happy to watch them drown. I'm proud to stand here today and say that this will happen no longer.

The Grattan report shows that one in six recent migrants are paid less than the minimum wage. This government sees the exploitation that migrant workers experience under the current system, and that's why we are committed to addressing it. We know that underpaying one worker isn't devastating just for them; rather, it affects the entire workforce. Also from the Grattan report we know that recent migrants are 40 per cent more likely to be underpaid than long-term residents with the same skills and experiences who are working the same job. Allowing the underpayment of migrant workers isn't just a migrant worker issue; it has ramifications across the entire workforce. It drives down the wages of Australian workers—but that's what the other side like.

The mistreatment of one group has devastating consequences on the entire workforce, and Australian workers will often suffer worse working conditions along with their migrant counterparts. By lifting up the most vulnerable, we lift up everyone. We are doing this by implementing the key recommendations from Professor Allan Fels's Migrant Workers' Taskforce report. There are new criminal offences for using a person's migration status to exploit them in the workplace. This is recommendation 19: there is a new tool to prohibit employers engaged in exploitive practices to be able to hire workers on temporary visas for a period. This is recommendation 20: to further deter those who seek to exploit the system and their employees, we are increasing penalties to make sure that those who do the wrong thing experience consequences for their actions.

We know that temporary visa holders make up four per cent of the workforce, but, in 2021-22, they made up 26 per cent of all the litigation initiated for breaching the Fair Work Act. However, we know that tackling this problem through the industrial relations portfolio won't achieve the full outcome, which is why we take a holistic approach and give the Australian Border Force new compliance tools. These new tools given to the ABF are supported by the Grattan Institute, which says:

We support the Bill's expansion of the powers of the Australian Border Force (ABF) to crack down on unscrupulous employers and prevent employers found to be taking advantage of migrant workers from hiring temporary migrants.

To make sure workers are empowered to stand up and advocate for themselves, we're repealing the parts of the Migration Act that has a criminal penalty for workers who breach their visa conditions. With these parts of the act removed, the government will encourage workers to speak out and report exploitation by putting in place appropriate protections for visa cancellation. The government will also raise awareness of employer obligations and substantively engage with businesses to ensure they understand their responsibilities and are equipped to do the right thing.

The bill does this by working in six parts. The first part of the bill focuses on new criminal employer sanctions. These increased penalties will be up to two years in prison or 360 penalty units. The second part will be focused on making sure employers or individuals who have been prohibited from hiring overseas workers due to breaches are unable to hire in the future. If an employer shows they cannot maintain the standard work practice, they should not be put in a position where they can exploit workers further. The third part of the bill aligns and increases penalties for work related breaches. This is aligning the current breaches to the ones within the Migration Act, seeing them increase from 60 penalty units to 240 penalty units. The fourth part of the bill is to make sure that there are enforceable undertakings for work related breaches. This part of the bill uses the Fair Work Ombudsman system to provide enforceable undertakings. The fifth part is the use of compliance notices to inform workplaces of workplace breaches. This will help promote compliance, like what is done under the Fair Work Act. The sixth part of the bill tackles other smaller amendments to the Migration Act, that, if a worker is having their visa cancelled, the worker can provide evidence of worker exploitation that could be a potential mitigating factor in the case.

This is something that has been very near and dear to me. I worked in a shoe factory and watched migrant exploitation happen. This is what drove me to get to this place, to make sure people are treated fairly, to make sure they are getting the proper workplace health and safety training they need and to make sure they're not exploited because of their lack of English language or knowledge of workplace laws. This is something we should be doing more and more. We should be making sure that people who are vulnerable are protected. Usually, it's those people who are considered unskilled—although, I'd challenge 98 per cent of us to do some of the work they do, and I think we'd all fail. It's also about ensuring that people on the lowest incomes get the support they need and deserve to do their jobs properly and efficiently.

Migrants are not just stats to be played with; they're actually people—mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers—but they're also people who come here for a better life and who deserve a better life. They deserve a better life by making sure that their workplaces are safe and by making sure that unscrupulous employers are taken out of the system. We need to make sure that we do the right thing for every Australian who goes to work. Everyone who goes to work deserves a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. It also means they're entitled to a safe workplace, free from harassment, exploitation and abuse. This is something that the Albanese government does. The Albanese government stands up for workers and ensures they get the support they need when they go to work.

Debate adjourned.

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