Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Hansard source

The coalition will not support the passage of the Migration Amendment (Combatting Migrant Exploitation) Bill 2025. This bill represents the government's response to the longstanding and well-documented problem of the exploitation of temporary migrant workers in Australia. It sits within the broader package of measures first announced in the government's December 2023 Migration Strategy.

The issue of migrant worker exploitation is not new. Successive reviews, audits and parliamentary inquiries have identified troubling behaviour by a minority of employers who have used their position to underpay, coerce or otherwise mistreat vulnerable temporary visa workers. These findings have attracted considerable public attention and, rightly, prompted calls for stronger oversight. The former coalition government consistently condemned these abuses, and it was the coalition government that strengthened civil penalties for sponsor noncompliance, tightened sponsor obligations and supported inquiries aimed at improving protections for migrant workers. The integrity of the skilled visa framework is something the coalition has upheld for many years.

Notwithstanding that this measure seeks to impose additional reporting requirements on employers who, especially in the regions, generate prosperity for Australian and overseas workers alike, visa holders are already able to check whether a prospective employer is properly approved, with the assistance of registered migration agents. We agree with the government's stated goal to deter noncompliance. Accountability can indeed help to expose unscrupulous employers and encourage a culture of compliance, but the coalition believes that the current framework already supports this goal adequately.

While we share the goal of deterring exploitation, serious design flaws compel us to oppose the bill outright. The bill, through its regulation-making power, would allow for publication of the number of sponsored workers at each business. We are concerned, especially given the many recent examples of union thuggery uncovered by investigations into the CFMEU, that publishing headcount information could expose good and proper individual employees and their employers to be targeted in xenophobic campaigns. Our view is that this information is not necessary for the transparency objective of the bill and carries an avoidable risk of misuse. The purpose of the register is to assist workers and authorities to verify lawful sponsorship status, not to create a list that could be used by any activist groups to single out individual employers.

As with any measure that relies upon delegated legislation, the coalition expects the government to publish draft regulations in a timely manner and to ensure that parliament has the opportunity to review what specific data will be included on the register. Clarity and consistency in these regulations will be important.

We also observe that the bill is only one part of the government's wider agenda on migrant worker protections, much of which remains delayed. Commitments regarding criminal sanctions, whistleblower visa protections and repeat offender bans have still not been delivered. The government should be held to account on the broader suite of the reforms it has promised.

There are serious flaws in this legislation, and, accordingly, the coalition will vote against the Migration Amendment (Combatting Migrant Exploitation) Bill 2025.

See this speech in context