Darren Cheeseman (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship. Will the minister update the House about the government's efforts to ensure that 457 visas are not being used to undermine workers and to ensure that they are only being used for acute skill shortages?

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Corangamite for his very important question and his ongoing support for workers in his region, the Geelong region. It is important that we get this right. It is important that we put in place protections for workers in all regions of this country. I note that in November last year the then Premier of Victoria, Ted Baillieu, wrote to my predecessor, Minister Bowen, seeking a change to the draft guidelines for regional migration agreements that would allow them to apply to both Bendigo and Geelong. Currently the guidelines outline that such an agreement 'will facilitate labour flows to regional areas where there are acute skill shortages and, in particular, regions that are isolated from large populations and do not have local skills'. In those circumstances, under the draft guidelines, I could understand the proposition. But Geelong and Bendigo are not remote areas and nor do they have, in the broad sense, acute skill shortages. They still have the possibility to use the 457 visa legitimately with applications, but this approach would be very, very dangerous for the opportunities for workers and trainees and apprentices in these areas. Moreover, Geelong and Bendigo have an unemployment figure that is higher than the national employment average.

What the Victorian government is effectively saying by writing to the Commonwealth is, 'We want to make it easier to bring in hundreds, if not thousands, of overseas workers to take jobs in this region before we provide opportunities to those that live in that region.' The very same government, of course, announced cuts to training and TAFE places, so we have the situation where we have a Victorian Liberal government looking to cut spending in training in a region and at the same time requesting the federal government provide them with a new arrangement to open up the 457 scheme to apply in a way that does not operate in the conventional sense. That is a recipe for disaster. That is a lethal cocktail that will actually cause problems for workers who deserve the first opportunities in Geelong and, indeed, in Bendigo. It will indeed reduce the chances of young people getting training and therefore skills, because of the cuts, and deny them opportunities.

That is bad enough. But we have as well a federal opposition that has announced that they will remove the protections currently in place for the 457 scheme. They have also said that they want to restore access and bring it back to the way in which it was used under the Howard government. They said it was perfectly fine then.

That is not the case. If you remove those protections, if you allow Victorian Liberal state governments to continue to cut training places and TAFE budgets, you will see too many young people missing out and too many workers missing out on genuine opportunities to get a decent job.