Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Is the Prime Minister aware of the case of Jack Zhang, a printing worker from China working on a 457 visa in Victoria, who was forced to pay two fees of $10,000 to buy a job in Australia, who was underpaid by around $400 a week and who was then sacked and evicted as soon as he had paid off his $10,000 fee? Why does the Prime Minister allow this exploitation and why does he persist with this deliberate plan to drive down Australian wages?

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no plan to drive down Australian wages. It is very interesting that I am asked this question today, when the national accounts for the June quarter show that wages under this government, since March of 1996, have risen by 16.4 per cent in real terms. The only time in recent recorded history that wages have been driven down was the period between March 1983 and March 1996, when the Statistician records that real wages actually fell by 0.2 per cent.

As to the particulars of that individual case, I am not personally aware of it. I do not know who that man’s employer was; it may even have been a state government agency.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms Macklin interjecting

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The deputy leader has asked her question.

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will get some information and, if there is anything I can inform the House of, I will be happy to do so.