Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the Migration Amendment (Combatting Migrant Exploitation) Bill 2025. This bill will insert a new section into the Migration Act 1958 that authorises the secretary of the Department of Home Affairs to publish a public register containing the details of employee sponsorship of skilled migrants. The bill title attempts to link this register to combating migrant exploitation. I have no issue with combating migrant exploitation or the exploitation of any workers. But particularly vulnerable people who are coming from overseas to work in our industries need to be protected. That is something that is believed on that side of the House and it is something that is believed on this side of the House. I have worked in horticultural industries for a great many years and I have seen a lot of good work on both sides from good people who want to make sure that the people who come from overseas to work in our industries are protected. I'm confident in saying many farmers and businesses in my electorate of Nicholls who welcome migrant workers feel exactly the same way.

Skilled migration, whether temporary or permanent, has always been about benefiting both sides of the equation. Farms and businesses facing critical workforce shortages are able to access skills and labour, and migrants are able to access jobs, be paid a fair wage and work under fair employment conditions. We have history of this. This is basically what built the electorate I now represent. Anytime anyone turned up in Australia, even before World War II, from the Albanian community, where were they sent? They were sent to where there was requirement for what was then unskilled labour. Those people often came to the Goulburn Valley, which was a burgeoning irrigation district that had a lot of dairy farms, a lot of fruit orchards. After the war, people from the United Kingdom, southern Europe, the subcontinent, the Middle East and now from Africa and parts of Asia have been welcomed in the Goulburn Valley. We all understand that we would not have built the economic miracle that is the Goulburn Valley without them.

People have come to build our industries, which become their industries. Often what happens in the Goulburn Valley is that these people who are paid a fair wage, by and large, save up enough money to buy their own farms, and that's happened over and over again. It's wonderful to see second-generation people whose parents came here with nothing becoming very wealthy people and able to educate their children in a way that they were never able to be educated because they were able to build the capital, buy their farms, and become incredibly successful business owners.

I don't deny there have been instances of migrant worker exploitation, and I believe it is actively sought out, stopped and the offenders prosecuted. If there are better ways we can do that then we are happy to work together on that. But I will tell you this: since 1 July 2024, the Australian Border Force have had a prohibited employer register providing information about employers, sponsors and third parties who have seriously, deliberately or repeatedly broken the law and have been prohibited from employing additional migrant workers for a period of time. Let me go to the media release of 29 September 2025 from the member for Bruce, the Assistant Minister for Citizenship, Customs and Multicultural Affairs. The release is headlined: 'Australian Border Force names and shames business for exporting migrant workers', which sounds great and we support that. When you go to the first paragraph, it says: 'A Western Australian business has become the first in the nation to be publicly named and shamed by the Australian Border Force for exploiting vulnerable and migrant workers under the strong new laws introduced by the Albanese government.' That business is still the one and only business that has been shamed on the Border Force prohibited employer register. One business has been named and shamed between July 2024 and November 2025, and that is despite well publicised employer rights material attached to visa applications and despite clear lines of reporting breaches such as underpayment, sexual harassment, pressuring or coercing a temporary migrant to breach a visa condition or pressuring them to hand over their passport.

The Fair Work Ombudsman has a wealth of information for migrant workers and offers a dedicated telephone helpline that includes interpreting services. The PALM scheme provides ongoing welfare and wellbeing support to workers throughout their time in Australia, and PALM has a dedicated 1800 number support service. There's adequate information and assistance already available to migrant workers or prospective migrant workers. There's already a name-and-shame register of dodgy employers. That register is a mandatory publication requirement in the Migration Act that triggers Australian Privacy Principle 6.2(b), which permits the Australian Border Force to disclose the personal information of an individual where a law requires it to do so.

The point I'm making is that there has been a lot of good work from both sides of this chamber, when in government, to try and combat this. So what is being put in place now to help further combat exploitation of migrant workers?

Under the guise of protecting migrant workers, this bill allows the publication of personal details of individuals and corporate entities, regardless of whether they've even transgressed. It will publish the sponsor's activity and track record, apparently as a deterrent against the poor treatment of migrant workers. We've already got the risk of prosecution, hefty fines, 10-year bans, and naming and shaming. But those are not enough of a deterrent.

I want to emphasise this point. Employers of migrant workers—farmers and businesses like those in the Goulburn Valley—care about these migrant workers and know that their businesses can't operate without them, so why would they want to exploit them? Why should they be on a public register saying that they employ X number of temporary workers? Here's what I'm worried it will lead to—and I've seen this in my electorate. It can lead to unions deciding that they will go and harass those businesses, even if there's no evidence of anything being done wrong. I agree with the member for Riverina, who said before that unions have their place. They're an important part of Australian cultural history and an important part of Australian economic history. But I have seen them behave in really disappointing ways. They have come into the Goulburn Valley and tried to stir up a lot of trouble where there was no offence or exploitation happening. I think there are areas of migration that it would be better for the Albanese government to focus on. The temporary skilled migration system is failing regional businesses, and a lot of those regional businesses are agricultural businesses.

On 11 December 2023 Labor's migration strategy, outlining reform directions for Australia's skilled visa programs, was released. The promise was to 'fix' a 'broken system' and streamline visa processes so they'd better support industries that required temporary workers from overseas to plug workforce shortages. Key to the reforms was the introduction of the skills in demand visa. It replaced the temporary skill shortage visa. This skills in demand visa would have three target pathways: a core skills stream, a specialist skills stream for high earners and an essential skills stream focused on addressing lower income labour shortages. The essential skills stream is especially important for regional businesses because it replaces the labour agreement stream which so many industries rely on in my electorate of Nichols and across regional Australia. Currently, there are labour agreements covering horticulture, dairy and meat. These are all key industries for the Australian national economy—but particularly for regional Australia. Those labour agreements are still being used because, while the core and specialist streams are operating, the essential skills stream has not yet being implemented. We don't know what the conditions of the essential skills visa will be, but I do hope it creates a pathway for employers who are currently priced out of the migration system to recruit the workers they desperately need.

Why have so many employers been priced out? For most migrant workers, their visa has to meet the temporary skilled migration income threshold. When the Albanese government came to power, it was $53,900. On 1 July 2023, it soared to $70,000. But it is also indexed. In July 2024, it was $73,150 and, in July this year, it's $76,515. And dairy, horticulture and meat operate under labour agreements, which means they have to pay workers equal to or greater than 90 per cent of the Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold. So, if we follow the same path from 2023, the minimum payment under a labour agreement has gone from $48,510 to $68,863 and, accounting for indexing, by July next year it will be around $72,000.

I have businesses in my electorate that desperately need workers and they have migrants who want to come on a temporary visa, but the mandated pay rates are well above what their Australian workers earn and are unaffordable for the employer. Not having workers is a big problem, because the businesses can't grow and they can't employ other people. And this is not just for farms; this has happened in the auto industry and it's happened in all sorts of industries. We need much greater flexibility in the visa program. Instead, we get this bill, which seems, at best, to be a replication and, at worst, a serious overreach.

No-one in this place wants to see migrant worker exploitation. Where it happens, it needs to be rooted out and prosecuted. I believe, as I said earlier, that both sides have done some good work over the past 20 or 30 years to strengthen that.

I just want to finish with an anecdote about what the common experience in regional communities is. A couple of years ago, a very prominent fruit grower from a fifth- or sixth-generation family passed away. It was of great sadness to the community, and I went to his funeral. He had been using the PALM scheme, employing Pacific workers and making sure that he had a vibrant business so that money could be sent back to those communities over generations. When that man died, and I went to his memorial service, there were over 30 Pacific workers and their families who attended and sang the most beautiful songs and music in unison that I've ever heard to honour a person who had put together a business, employed them, treated them so well and provided so much money and work. It was a real combination of capital and labour that worked for both the capital and the labour, and went on. The respect that was shown by him to those workers, and then, when he passed away, by those workers to him, was truly moving.

If there's exploitation, it needs to be rooted out. But, more often, these schemes are very good for Australia and very good for the migrant workers who come here. I don't think this bill helps that. I think this bill creates division. I think there are already some great things in place to assist the continuing combating of migrant exploitation. If there are serious proposals that can be put forward to further address that problem, I think that people on this side of the House would be very interested in working together with the government on it. But I don't think this is serious. I think it's a half-baked solution that doesn't address the problem, and it will lead to further division and harassment by some unions of regional businesses. Therefore, I won't be supporting the bill.

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