Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This country has been built on three aspects: first, the immense contribution of First Nations people, who've been here for tens of thousands of years; second, the British colonial settlement that was established in the aftermath of Captain Phillip's arrival; and, third, the waves of migration that came to this country post World War II. We are blessed for having had those waves of migration. Those migrants have made an immense contribution to our culture, economy, sport, arts, education, law, finance and commerce and to our nursing and allied health professional workforces. Where would we be in terms of our doctors, nurses and regional and rural hospitals without migrant workers?

But this government is once again fixing up the coalition's mess. The coalition made a number of decisions—consciously, while averting their eyes—in the way they carried out their policy on migration. Some of it was to do with wages and some of it was to do with migration. Migration is critical to our economy. Every business in every city of this country knows that. The business community knows that. BCA knows it. ACCI knows it. The National Farmers' Federation knows it. But those opposite seem to subconsciously or consciously not recognise it.

Workplace exploitation of migrant communities can take a number of forms: underpaying workers, pressuring a person to hand over their passport or threatening to cancel a person's visa—employers really can't do that, but they threaten anyway. There can be pressure to work more hours than the visa conditions allow and pressure to engage in unwanted sexual acts, and there wouldn't be a federal MP that hasn't had stories like that given to them at a mobile office, on the phone or in their office. There can be pressure to accept poor living conditions, and I've seen up to 15 or 20 people living in appalling conditions at the hands of unscrupulous employers in suburbs in Ipswich. And there's poor housing, with a lack of access to running water or electricity.

We've had to do a number of things since we came in, in terms of strengthening the laws, and the Migration Amendment (Combatting Migrant Exploitation) Bill 2025 is yet another one of them.

It's not like the coalition government didn't know what was going on. Back in 2016, they commissioned the Migrant Workers' Taskforce supremo, or chief, Allan Fels, who has a long history of business involvement in the community, to undertake an inquiry looking at employer-employee relationships in terms of the migrant community. He found that employers engaged in deliberate and systemic underpayment of migrant workers. He made 22 recommendations to the previous coalition government in March 2019. That inquiry started in 2016. They came to power in 2013. The federal government—Kelly O'Dwyer was the responsible minister at the time—accepted all 22 recommendations. And then what did they do? Absolutely nothing—no legislation, no regulations. There was a commitment to do something, knowing there was widespread and entrenched systemic abuse and exploitation of workers, and they did absolutely nothing.

Who could forget the underpayment scandals? Who could forget the 7-Eleven scandals, where as little as 47 cents an hour was paid to workers who were migrants? There was the systemic underpayment of wages, poor living conditions, poor housing in which they had to live and a lack of payment of superannuation. There should be no tolerance of undercutting workers' wages and conditions, but that's what happened. So we had to undertake some work when we came to power. We undertook a migration strategy, which we released on 11 December 2023. We outlined some reforms that were undertaken.

That built on the work that was done when the former minister for home affairs, back on 2 September 2022, announced that three eminent persons would undertake an independent review of our migration system to make sure it was meeting the existing challenges that we faced. It came out with strong recommendations, and the report was presented to the government on 21 March 2023. As part of that review process, there was a discussion paper and we considered 483 submissions. The reviewers undertook eight roundtables with peak organisations, unions and senior state and territory officials. Business was involved in the review. And what did the coalition do in opposition? They were quiescent. They did nothing in government and were quiescent in opposition. So we had to undertake important changes.

I have heard people opposite speak in relation to this particular bill. It is almost like they forgot every review that has been undertaken. Let's go through a couple of them. The Grattan Institute released a report on 23 May 2023, which found that exploitation of migrant workers was rife. Recent migrants were twice as likely to be underpaid, up to 16 per cent less than the national minimum wage. The Immigration Advice and Rights Centre did a report that they released in November 2024 which found that migrant workers were 40 per cent more likely to face worker exploitation than Australian workers.

Let's get this straight. If people can undercut wages and they can exploit cheap labour, what happens? It weakens the bargaining of Australian workers to get decent wages and conditions. It harms those businesses, and there are many, who do the right thing. It damages our international reputation for being a place where you can come and work, and it undermines really deeply the community's confidence in our migration system. They are the consequences of allowing migration exploitation to continue in workplaces around the country, whether it be on farms, in hospitality, in hospitals, in schools—wherever it may be.

Sometimes I cannot understand the coalition parties. They are supposed to be parties who believe in free enterprise and in supporting the business community. If you are harming businesses that do the right thing, why would you allow that to continue? They did nothing. They were in power from 2013 to 2022 and did nothing. They had the report from Graeme Samuel on the EPBC Act for five years and did nothing. They had the report from Alan Fels over three years and did nothing. Talk about a government of inertia and idleness and ignorance—ignorance and looking the other way on worker exploitation in migrant communities.

We had to strengthen the rules. We increased the penalties. We did it through our strengthening employer compliance bill and we made sure we established new criminal offences and associated civil penalties to deter employers from using migrant visa conditions or statuses to coerce undue influence or undue pressure on people in the workplace. We established a new mechanism to prohibit employers from hiring additional people on temporary visas, and we increased the maximum criminal and civil penalties. We did a whole bunch of stuff to strengthen the situation.

Those opposite were again quiet, quiescent and did nothing about it. One of the things that they did, and they did it as a deliberate design feature when they were in government, was to keep the Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold, the TSMIT—the amount of money you had to pay a worker—at the same rate, $53,900, from 2013 for over nine years, effectively with inflation undercutting wages and thereby conditions in this country. That is what they did, therefore undercutting Australian wages and conditions as a 'deliberate design feature'—to use the words of Mathias Cormann, the former finance minister. That is what they did for nine years. And I have heard speakers in this chamber reference it to the glory days almost—the glory days of keeping wages low.

We increased the TSMIT when we came to power, and rightly made sure that we protected wages and conditions, not just for migrant workers but for Australian workers generally. Today, yesterday, I heard those opposite lauding the fact that they kept the TSMIT low at $53,900. It is now $76,500. That is what it should be, and employers should pay those sorts of wages. We want the system to have integrity. We do not want people being paid less than they deserve. That is exactly what the coalition members are supporting.

With the legislation before the chamber, those opposite would have the public believe that we will be putting some massive impost on business. As the member for Makin said, this is just a reporting mechanism and making sure we have a website that does the right thing and allows people to get information to work out, if you get a sponsored visa, who's a good employer and who's a bad employer and making sure the market does its work. It's almost like they do not believe in individual freedom for migrant workers. Where are the John Stuart Mill devotees in the small-l liberals opposite? They don't believe it. Where are the devotees to Adam Smith in those opposite? Well, Adam Smith—he's just a statue you see in Edinburgh. You don't worry about him. I don't think they ever read any of the liberal and conservative devotees of free enterprise, because what they're doing is opposing individual choice for migrant workers. That's what they're doing. They're not just undercutting wages and they're not just harming the Australian business; they're undercutting wages and conditions.

Those opposite will come in here and have a vote later today, they will not support Australian workers or migrant workers, and they will not support businesses. Once again, the Liberal and National parties show that they're party of the far right, not the party that supports free enterprise, individual autonomy and the right to choose. Do they really believe in some sort of feudalism in terms of the workplace? Is that their view? I'm telling you they should all go and have a look at John Stuart Mill's works and Adam Smith's works. The Wealth of NationsI commend that to you, by the way. It'd be a good thing for you to have a look at from time to time. Put it in the caucus room of the opposition and have a flick through it from time to time. You might end up voting for legislation like this from time to time and doing the right thing.

What this bill does is establish a legislative framework for a public register of approved work sponsors to be published and maintained on the Department of Home Affairs's website. Why is this necessary? To make sure we have better targeted temporary skilled work visa programs. It's important for transparency and oversight, for people to make a choice and for the public to understand who's a good employer and who's a bad employer. It might change people's behaviour. It might make a bad employer think about becoming a good employer from time to time, whether it's on a farm or in a pub, whether it's in a hospital or, can I say, in retail. So how about the Liberal and National parties for once support the business community in the way they voted in this chamber?

Later on this morning, they'll have a chance. Do you support workers? Do you support business? Or are you going off to the realms of the far right—not believing in your philosophical or economic treatises that were by the people you claim you're devoted to? There are no moral moorings or economic understanding in the coalition parties if they vote against this legislation. Through their ignorance and their actions during the time they were in government, they opposed a good national economy. They opposed decency in the workplace. They opposed good wages and conditions in jobs.

As the member for Makin rightly pointed out, we will always bring in migrants to the community in a regulated steady approach. But we've had to do it in terms of what we've done in this country because they didn't invest in education or TAFE. They didn't train enough people up. We had to establish Jobs and Skills Australia with the identification of the workforce shortages and needs. Today we're going to vote to make bad employers good employers and allow people choice. The party of free enterprise and liberalism, the party that believes that people should have the right to choose and have free will, today will come across, sit on that side of the chamber on that side of the chamber and vote against everything they claim they believe in.

See this speech in context