Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to support the Migration Amendment (Combatting Migrant Exploitation) Bill 2025. I support this bill, as all of us on this side of the House do, for many, many reasons. When we look at the history of migration to Australia, we know it's been at the core of our labour force, from the first settlers that came here—and when you think of the history, you think of convicts being brought to Australia and forced into labour for a number of years before they became free settlers. Then there was a mass promotion to bring free settlers here to populate and work the land. When you think of the history, even people from Fiji came to work with the sugarcanes in that period, in those early days when we first planted sugarcanes in northern Australia. We then had mass migration from Europe, for our manufacturing and for our factories. Then we went a step further and considered southern Europeans as white Europeans; prior to that, they weren't considered white—people from my race, for example. They were brought out from 1949 onwards to fill the factories of Australia and do hard labour.

If you look at the history, we have continuously relied on migrant workers, whether it be to populate the nation, fill certain skills or just fill the shortfalls in labour. From time to time, that changes, and, of course, governments should always be monitoring what the needs of the nation are in terms of skills, workforce and population to be able to benefit the nation. I think this government, the Albanese Labor government, is tackling those hard issues.

One of the things that is fundamental to workers—regardless of where you're from and whether you've been here for eight or nine generations or whether you've just arrived—is to ensure that we do all that we can as legislators to ensure that those people aren't being exploited. That is very important. That's a fundamental human right. People have the right to work under the same conditions as everyone else, to receive the same pay and to be able to flourish at their jobs and have the same opportunities as anyone.

It's very important that we also ensure that bringing in migrant workers is not just an exploitation of being able to bring in cheap labour. That is really important. I've said many times in this place—and I think even I mentioned it yesterday—that, in 1949, when we were going to make agreements with southern Europe, Italy, Greece, the former Yugoslav republic and other places to bring workers over, there was a debate in this place. One side of the debate was that these migrant workers should be brought in on less pay. That was the debate in 1949 in this House. It was the unions and Labor that argued strongly against that because we could see that would be a spiralling to the bottom. Again I'll repeat what I've said many times: can you imagine, if that had gotten through back then, what sort of nation we would be today? Just think about where we would be today. We'd be a very different country. We wouldn't be as egalitarian as we are. So it gives me great pleasure to see bills that protect workers' rights, especially people who are in vulnerable positions—migrants who are brought out to do certain work.

Now, I'm not saying that's the case. The majority, 99.9 per cent, I think, would be genuine, people that have a real need in their business. They have a real need for a particular skill or a niche market and cannot fill that position, so therefore they'll bring someone from overseas. We've seen that over the years.

Back in the day—I spoke about the fifties et cetera—we looked at the numbers that were required in factories and what we needed to populate the nation and brought people over. Immediately, they were put on permanent visas and could stay here forever. Much simpler, much easier—it was a different world back then. A lot of those workers coming in were for unskilled labour.

Today we have a completely different migration policy. It's intertwined with work skills, points in regional areas and state governments having certain needs that other states don't have, and it is very, very complicated. What we want to ensure, though, is that, when we are bringing someone in from overseas to fill a particular position, that need is a real need, not just an excuse to be able to bring someone in at a cheaper salary or wage. That's why I was very pleased when we increase the base salaries for migrant skilled workers from $53,000 to $70,000. That brings it up to a level where our average wages are, because, as I said, you could quite easily see a spiralling to the bottom.

It gives me great pleasure to support this bill, as I said, for many reasons, including as the Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration. I understand the vital contribution, from what we see on the committee, that migrants make to our economy. I think all of us would agree with that. There is no doubt that migrants have made enormous contributions to our society. I understand the need to better protect and advocate for those migrant workers, who come in on migrant visas to fill positions.

The committee is currently conducting an inquiry into skilled migration—which is perfect, when you think about it. It matches with this bill. We know the economic, social and cultural value that skilled migrants bring to our nation, but we also know that the system isn't perfect. We still need to do more work to refine and modify, to ensure that everything is done to address our skills shortfalls, to ensure that those migrants are protected so they feel comfortable and safe and also to ensure that our future needs as a nation are being met. For example, in South Australia we're on the cusp of an incredible, cutting-edge manufacturing technology revolution through the AUKUS deal and through defence building in South Australia. We know that there are skills we don't have at this point that we must fill.

When we're looking at migrant workers or skilled migration to Australia, we should also be looking at the other side of it, and that is the future—the training of our students, of our young people, to give them the expertise in those areas to fill those positions. It's only my pet project, but I personally would go a step further: if you are going to bring someone in from overseas to fill a particular position, you should also be training two local people at the same time to give them the skills and expertise to fill those positions in the future. But that's my personal view.

We know that migrants bring enormous skills to this nation; they also benefit the economy. Every migrant that comes in has needs. If they have a family, they'll buy food, they'll invest, they'll buy furniture et cetera, which keeps our economy going. That's another area where there is a fine equation that has to be weighed up—the economy, the unemployment rate and the intake of migrants. As I said earlier, when you think of our history of migration, you see people from all over the world—every corner of the world—that have made Australia their home. With them they bring their skills and their abilities to contribute to our economy.

Recently I was speaking to a big construction company in South Australia that specialises in heritage buildings, and they were telling me: 'We have no stonemasons at all. It's one of the most difficult positions to fill when you're reconstructing a heritage building.' The only place they could get a stonemason, who are absolutely skilful workers, was Albania. We worked very hard to help this person get his visa. He's set up his own company now. He came over as a skilled worker and has now set up his own company, employing 20 or 30 people, doing stonemasonry in South Australia. What a great story! He came over as a skilled migrant on a temporary visa for a period of time to fill that position. We assisted him, and he ended up getting a permanent visa. He's now an Australian citizen, his kids are at university and he's employing 20 or 30 people doing stonemasonry—one of the only such companies in South Australia. There are hundreds and hundreds of stories like that. But that particular person was working in secure employment with a good employer that looked after him and paid him the correct rates—in fact, above what the minimum wage was for stonemasons. In his situation, everything went well for him.

We've also heard horror stories. There are some horror stories where people don't know where to go or what to do. For example, a few years back I was contacted by some migrant workers from India who had had their passports taken away from them in a particular restaurant. They were too scared to complain and too scared to knock on someone's door to ask for help until a third party came to our office. We put them on to the then miscellaneous workers union—UWU, as they're called today—who assisted them. In fact, that particular business was shut down. Some of those migrant workers returned to India and others stayed here and made their home in Australia. But there are horror stories around—only a few, but they happen—and we should be doing all that we can to wipe those horror stories out and assist successful skilled migration to Australia to fill the positions that we have needs in, to assist the economy but also to ensure that we build our own skills as well. That's why I commend this bill.

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