Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The cliche is that a day is a long time in politics. The way the parliament, the media, and the Australian public engage in issues and non-issues makes this statement, at times, most appropriate. A term in government is, comparatively, a gift. A decade in power is a true privilege. Those in power for a decade are arguably the most privileged people in public life, and this government has used that opportunity to re-create Australian life in its own image. And what shape has Australia taken? What characteristics that may be common among people has this government purposefully concentrated on, nurtured and promoted among our nation’s people?

The most significant element of this government’s 10-year approach to government is evident in the way it treats people, and the encouragement it gives Australians to treat others in the same way. This government has spent the last 10 years training Australians how to treat each other and other peoples. Two of the greatest mechanisms of this encouragement have been Work Choices and its migrant worker visa system.

It is amazing to note that even though Work Choices has not even been implemented yet we are seeing the effect it is having. A human resource company recently advertised some industrial labour solutions and were gloating that they can now fix situations permanently through, and I quote from one of their letters: ‘No more EBAs. No unfair dismissals. No casuals into full time. No redundancies. No unions. No problems.’ That is what they wrote in a letter advertising their company.

The Melbourne car parts manufacturer, Dana, has clawed back 20 per cent of the wages and other entitlements of new employees. That is another example. Bakers Delight workers are losing sick and annual leave entitlements with compensation of as little as 75c an hour, and having to work evenings, weekends and public holidays without penalty rates. That is another example. That is Australians getting less money, less time off and less stability for the same work. That is great progress in 10 years—less money. What we have is a government that encourages your employer to give you less money. That is what this government has achieved in 10 years.

This government is reinforcing this downward pressure with its migration strategy. I will list some examples of what it has engineered. Two hundred temporary workers from China are to be issued with visas to work at an abattoir in South Australia at Murray Bridge—a town with unemployment way above the national average and where late last year a major employer closed down with around 160 workers losing their jobs.

The second example is workers from overseas who have been given visas to work in well-known Canberra restaurants claiming they have been underpaid, have worked dangerously excessive workloads and have been refused medical treatment when suffering third-degree burns.

The third example is Slovenian workers being issued with the wrong type of visa and brought in to build part of the General Motors Holden production line at Elizabeth in South Australia. Elizabeth is another area that has high unemployment and where many car workers have recently lost their jobs. Another example is the investigation into US company Halliburton importing Indonesian workers to work 12-hour shifts for 80 days without a break digging ditches for its gas extraction operations in the outback in South Australia.

They are just a few of the examples that have come to light in the last month or so. Almost daily, there are new examples coming to light of employers being issued visas by the government to bring in temporary workers from overseas—many of whom will be exploited with low pay and poor employment conditions. The migration strategy will lead to cheap unskilled labour being imported from overseas that will be masqueraded as apprenticeships. This government is encouraging business to say to young Australians, ‘I’m not going to give you a job, let alone training. Go on the dole until I offer you a job worth half as much, and you’ll be forced to take it for fear of a Centrelink breach and total loss of income.’ That is what we are coming to.

This is the attitude of this government. This government has spent 10 years developing, nurturing and actively encouraging the use of both skilled and unskilled migrant workers as disposable industrial tools, and it is consistent with this government’s warped views on Australia and ‘real Australians’. Scratch the surface, and you will still find the Prime Minister’s views of 1988. All you had to do was listen to the Minister for Health and Ageing here in this chamber two days ago during question time and you would have heard very clearly what they believe in.

This 10 years has not only affected Australian workers, young Australians in need of training and Australians without an Anglo-Celtic surname, like myself. Another group, one of the most potentially dependent on the goodwill of this nation, has had 10 years of sweet-talking, courting and not much else: our elderly. In 1996 the number of aged care beds for people aged 70 and over was 92 per thousand— (Time expired)