Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Migration Amendment (Offshore Resources Activity) Bill 2013. At this stage the coalition will not be supporting this bill and will be seeking to refer it to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee for further review, to clarify the economic impacts and to ensure that there are no unintended border control consequences that arise from this legislation.

As we see it today, we believe this bill is an attempt to regulate overseas workers participating in offshore resources activities by bringing these people into Australia's migration zone and thus requiring them to hold a valid visa under the Migration Act. Our concern is that this is just yet another union-placating exercise from this government and from this minister, particularly since this minister took hold of the portfolio earlier this year.

This is the same minister—who, sadly, is no longer with us at the table now—who shouted from the rooftops that there were 10,000 rorters in the 457 visa system while his department tripped over itself to distance itself from that claim. Clearly, that was a claim that was completely made up by the minister at the time.

This is the same government that in their attacks on the 457 visa program for months have been demonising skilled workers—skilled migrants—and the contribution they have made, and continue to make, to building this nation. This is an extraordinary thing to see; that after decades and decades of bipartisan support for skilled migration in this country this government would launch into the attacks that they have against skilled migrants in this country, who contribute from day one.

Now Labor have set their sights on resource projects. We have noticed that there has been quite a pattern since Minister O'Connor came into the revolving door of the immigration portfolio. First, there were these claims that I mentioned about the 457 visa rorting that no government agency and no report have been able to confirm. Perhaps, they came from his brother, the National Secretary of the CFMEU. He is well-known to the minister, obviously. Remember, this is the same CFMEU that donated more than $6 million to the Labor Party over the last decade.

We know that Minister O'Connor simply made this figure of 10,000 up. He plucked it right out of the air and was later forced to admit that this had been the case when the department did not provide, or was certainly not willing to provide, any evidence to back the claim up or to own any advice that went to him on that matter, because there was none. The officials told the Senate inquiry in no uncertain terms:

We certainly did not provide advice around a number of 10,000.

Not only that but one of Australia's most respected demographers, Professor Peter McDonald, a member of the government's own Ministerial Advisory Council on Skilled Migration, called the Prime Minister's rhetoric on this attack on 457s as 'nasty'. 'Nasty' is what he said about the Prime Minister's attacks on skilled migration.

Now we have this bill, which is clearly designed to appease the Maritime Union of Australia. This is the same union that recently boasted celebrating 114 years of union militancy. This is the same union that has given Labor $3 million since the 2010 election. This Labor government cannot face their failures on our borders, so they go off on these distractions and diversions orchestrated by their union masters to distract the attention of the Australian public. But it is not working, because the Australian public knows and can see through this.

The minister is simply doing the bidding of his union mates, the same unions who bemoan 457 abuses but who I am advised have not actually reported one of those alleged abuses to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship's investigation team. This is not surprising, given that the government has been cutting the funding of the investigatory capacities of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship for years now. That is how seriously they take these concerns.

So concerned are they about 457 workers that they employ them themselves. And so concerned is the Prime Minister about 457s that she employs 'Aussie' John McTernan on a 457 in her own office. Apparently there is a shortage of media people prepared to work for the Prime Minister.

This bill is not subtle. In his second reading speech the minister is inferring that somewhere beyond our shores and beyond the reach of the Migration Act, wealthy resources companies have sent their Australian workers packing and chained foreign workers to their oil rigs and installations to slave away around the clock, overworked and underpaid. That is the sort of imputation that this minister is putting out there in the way that he has characterised these measures. The bill is not subtle, and all it is trying to do is increase the reach of the union movement. That has been a core agenda item of this minister since he has taken over the role.

If only Labor were as concerned about protecting our borders as they are about protecting the interests of the union movement. Perhaps then, we would have had in question time today an honest response from the Prime Minister when asked about whether she continued to support the decision of former Prime Minister Rudd that has caused such havoc on our borders—to abolish proven measures, and the chaos, costs and tragedy that resulted. Perhaps if this government were as keen about protecting our borders as they are the unions then she would have responded honestly, like Mark Latham did—a former Labor leader—just last week when he said it was wrong; just plain wrong.

And it was wrong that the Prime Minister not only did not take that opportunity to do that today in obfuscating in her answer but also, by implication, she stands firmly behind that decision of Prime Minister Rudd. If Prime Minister Rudd were to return as a prime minister again in that capacity—when the government has worked through yet again the latest act of this soap opera that continues to unfold on their side of the House—then he would have to simply answer one question: was he wrong to abolish the measures of the Howard government that has led to the chaos, cost and tragedy that has resulted on our borders from that decision?

The former Prime Minister, when he lost his job, said on the eve that the new prime minister, if she were to become prime minister, was going to lurch to the right. I can only assume that, if Prime Minister Rudd were to come back as Prime Minister, he must be going to lurch to the left and compound even further the grave problems that have occurred on our borders as a result of this government's poor decisions.

There are many problems on so many levels with this bill, and I can run through them. It is worth noting upfront the rank hypocrisy of this bill because when the resources industry has come to this minister, and previously to his predecessor, seeking visas for their workers these requests have been strung out for months on end. They have tied Australian businesses and foreign investors up in union red tape and bullied and belittled skilled migrants. Labor has created sovereign risk and damaged our international reputation by continually changing the rules and moving the goalposts whenever they feel like it.

Enterprise migration agreements are a case in point. These agreements were first announced in May 2011 and were supported immediately by the coalition because, in principle, they are good policy. Yet, to date—despite the then minister announcing one on the very day with the Roy Hill Mine project, implying that this thing had been done—there is no such agreement, even to this day. There is no deed of agreement for an EMA for the Roy Hill Mine project even to this day. This is a policy that has been stillborn by this government—a government that never really believed in it in the first place. With the passing of Minister Bowen and the former minister for resources, the member for Batman, any hope that there would be any genuine follow-through passed on that this quite worthy policy would be given any serious attention by a government who is basically opposed to skilled migration in these forms.

Enterprise migration agreements are a good policy and the coalition continues to support it. Three applications were deemed by the department to be complete on 11 September 2012; yet, it was confirmed in Senate estimates that none have been approved for commencement. The government's farcical and incompetent handling of EMAs has created sovereign risk and threatened vital resource projects in the pipeline.

The mishandling of the Allseas Construction Contractors Australia issue which goes to this bill and this bill put forward before the House, has only created further confusion and threatens to deliver another blow to Australia's reputation. The industry group, Australian Mines and Metals Association., argue that this bill would impose a further level of suffocating regulatory burden on the offshore resource sector for no appreciable social or other gain, and at likely high economic cost. Moreover, AMMA fear that this bill would put at risk the viability of current projects and weigh heavily against the commencement of future projects.

This is a government that is held hostage by the unions simply tying up resource projects, installations and pipelines with yet more union red tape, stifling business and investment. This bill was drawn up by the government in response to the federal court's decision on the matter of Allseas Construction in May 2012. The court found the two pipeline vessels were not Australian resources' installations, within the meaning of the act, while they were wholly or principally engaged in operations relating to the installation of offshore pipelines. The court ruled that the vessels and noncitizens working on those vessels were not working within the migration zone as defined by subsection 5(1) of the act. As a result, overseas workers on board those vessels did not require a visa. But this minister thinks he is above the law and above the court. The bill is an unashamed attempt to get around that court decision, because it is inconvenient for the Labor Party's union masters.

The irony is that Allseas only went to court to begin with because the department of immigration had failed to provide them with the clarification they had been seeking for years. Over a number of years, the AMMA sought clarity from DIAC as to how they interpreted the migration zone with respect to workers on offshore construction vessels. The responses they received were often, 'contradictory, vague and lacking in a rigorous examination of the relevant provisions of the migration act'. Finally, Allseas gave up and went to the Federal Court to try and obtain clarity. The justice on that case confirmed on 22 May:

Allseas has endeavoured to pursue in good faith and openly, firstly, the correct interpretation of the Act from the Minister and, secondly, the obtaining of relief of a declaratory nature to clarify its obligations in those serious and imminent circumstances.

The court decision did not create a loophole; it created clarity—a clarity that was being sought by industry on these matters because clarity had not been provided.

Labor and the unions may not like the clarity, but nevertheless it has been provided. Global law firm, DLA Piper, noted in response to the court decision:

If however amendments to the Act are mooted it will be interesting to see how the legislature proposes to overcome international law and jurisdictional hurdles that may be placed in front of them.

The coalition are not satisfied that these changes overcome those jurisdictional hurdles. Moreover, the coalition is not convinced that the ramification of these changes proposed by Labor have been thoroughly worked through and resolved. This bill could have significant implications for business, for investors, for the resources industry, for matters of border protection—which I will come back to—not to mention the threat of potential litigation and jurisdictional conflict with international law and conventions relating to sovereign rights in international waters.

We need to look before we leap—not something this government is used to doing—and be certain that the changes that Labor is seeking to make, for the sake of placating their union mates, will not unwittingly create serious unforeseen consequences from the first day this bill is introduced and operative.

Concern has been expressed by industry groups, including the AMMA, that any attempt to regulate who may work or the employment conditions on foreign ships in international maritime zones off Australia's coastline would exceed our jurisdiction under international law as found by the Federal Court in relation to the scope of Migration Act. Nations may exercise limited sovereign rights in international waters under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, but there is also a caveat on sovereign rights contained in article 56(2) which states:

In exercising its rights and performing its duties under this Convention in the exclusive economic zone, the coastal State shall have due regard to the rights and duties of other States and shall act in a manner compatible with the provisions of this Convention.

This is already a heavily legislated and regulated space at international, federal and even state level, but too much regulation is rarely enough for this government.

There are overlapping areas of complex national and international jurisdiction, and any attempt to try and assert Australian law in defiance of existing legal precedents or international conventions must be carefully considered. Vessels and installations are also regulated under the Maritime Labour Convention 2006. Industry groups argue these conventions suggest that EEZ and ECS ships should be entitled to freedom of navigation and that any matters relating to labour conditions on board foreign ships are matters for the flag state. This would seem to be echoed in regulation 1.15D of the Fair Work Regulations 2009 which states:

… the Act does not apply in relation to all the waters … on the landward side of the outer limits of the territorial sea of Australia, including such waters within the limits of a State or Territory to the extent to which its application would be inconsistent with the right of innocent passage or transit passage being exercised by ship other than—

a licensed ship or a majority Australian crewed ship. Furthermore, 1.15E notes that the extension of the Fair Work Act to ships in the EEZ or above the continental shelf is subject to 'Australia's international obligations relating to foreign ships and the concurrent jurisdiction of a foreign state'. On that basis, the Migration Act cannot be seen to apply as a blanket rule across the board to all vessels in the territorial sea, the EEZ or the ECS. Clearly, there are exceptions that need to be looked into meticulously.

The coalition recognise the importance of the offshore resources industry, which is precisely why the government should not be charging into this like a bull in a china shop without due consideration of the impacts on business and projects in the pipeline. Australia is the world's ninth largest energy producer, and each year our oil and gas industries make up 2½ per cent of GDP, generating $28 billion in revenue. These industries also contribute about $9 billion in direct tax payments and supply 58 per cent of Australia's primary energy needs.

An inquiry by the Inspector of Transport Security into offshore oil and gas resources sector security found that companies are 'increasingly recruiting personnel from overseas due to skill shortages in Australia'. The government has said that estimates as to how many people are employed on these rigs without visas are sketchy—not like the minister's own claim about 457 abuses. This is convenient to the minister and his smear campaign on these arrangements, although I am surprised he has not produced another magical number like that 10,000 figure of 457 abuses in the system that I mentioned before. We do not know how many overseas workers are currently employed on these installations without visas. The minister admitted that much in his speech when he said that the government has an 'incomplete picture' of the number and identity of foreign workers in Australia's offshore maritime zones—but this has not been sufficient to stop the minister from charging in with his legislation and regulation on behalf of the unions who have encouraged him. Surely that would be the first piece of information that you would think you would attempt to gather if you were serious about reforms in this space.

The very report the minister referred to, undertaken by the Department of Infrastructure and Transport, noted that whilst companies are having to rely on personnel from overseas to overcome skills shortages in Australia, usually these employees are granted a 457 visa under which an applicant must be sponsored by an employer. The report went on to note that the overseas workers must demonstrate they have the skills to meet the requirements of the nominated position. Many working arrangements on resource installations or vessels are fly-in fly-out operations, and if companies want to be able to move their workers back to the mainland to another worksite or even just transit through an Australian airport or move into a different region of our waters, they require a valid visa for entry. The report concluded that, realistically, 'there is a limit on the extent to which work visa style vetting arrangements could be tightened or extended'.

The department of transport inquiry estimated there were 70 oil and gas facilities operating offshore within Australia's exclusive economic zone in 2012 and that, together, Australia's offshore oil and gas industries employed about 20,000 people in 2010-11. It is critical to note here what the minister has omitted to say—that whilst the Federal Court found the Migration Act may not have the reach to certain offshore installations or vessels, these workplaces are not operated in secret. In addition to the international conventions, the offshore resource industry is already subject to complex and overlapping regulatory systems imposed by various pieces of federal, state and territory legislation.

Under Australian law there are mechanisms in place to safeguard those who work on board installations or vessels in Commonwealth waters. Many installations operate under the purview of the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority, which has responsibility for the regulation of the occupational health and safety of workers on offshore facilities, wells and well operations in Commonwealth waters and in waters where state powers have been conferred. By law, offshore petroleum activities cannot begin before NOPSEMA has assessed and approved a detailed risk management plan, including how an organisation will manage risks to worker health and safety. In 2012 this organisation had oversight of 36 operators, over 151 active facilities including pipelines and production platforms, 25 titleholders across 223 petroleum titles and 257 wells, and 36 activity operators of 110 petroleum activities including drilling and seismic surveys. In 2012 it conducted 99 inspections covering a total of 156 facilities, and these visits included meetings with the health and safety representatives. During the same calendar year, just 13 complaints were made to the organisation relating to health and safety issues—the lowest recorded in seven years. This included anything from work procedures, culture, work environment, noise, heat, pollution, equipment, services, galley and accommodation to fatigue, shifts and rosters, work procedure methods, practices of management, bullying and intimidation.

If the minister has evidence to demonstrate the size of the problem he is trying to point to then by all means produce it, but the parallel between this issue and the minister's attacks on 457s is hard to miss. The coalition look forward to the investigation by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Affairs Committee, as they perhaps may be able to shed a little more light on this, as the minister has failed to do so himself in putting forward this bill. The coalition as a result cannot lend our support this bill in its present state. The case has just simply not been made by the government. We will not be party to another Labor attack by imputation on either the resource sector or skilled migrants. We will not sign up to another episode of Labor's incompetence that could land Australia in direct confrontation with international law or legal precedent, nor will the coalition support the creation of unnecessary union red tape for business.

The resources industry in Australia not only competes for skilled labour, it also competes for a very limited pool of international investment capital for which there are many alternatives. The way this government speaks about the minerals and resources sectors you would think we had a mortgage on the capital market when it comes to investment in these sectors. We do not. We have very serious competitors and, increasingly, day by day those competitors are getting the better of us. We need to be making ourselves most attractive as an investment opportunity, but this government continues to do its best to scare business off as they continue to parrot their union mantra.

In Western Australia alone there are currently $187.5 billion in major approved projects of which $107 billion are LNG projects. Another $50 billion of LNG projects are awaiting a final investment decision. This bill jeopardises the $50 billion in unapproved LNG projects by increasing the administrative burden, not to mention the costs for engaging overseas skilled workers in this project. This bill has the potential to inflict great pain for very little, if any, gain that can be demonstrated by the government in bringing this matter before the House.

But there is another area of this that is of great concern to the coalition, and that is the unforeseen consequences for border management. The Department of Infrastructure and Transport inquiry report also notes that on some facilities a particular threat is potentially posed by the crews and passengers of SIEVs, suspected illegal entry vessels, and by international fishing boats operating close to and approaching offshore facilities. Certainly, there have been circumstances where illegal boat arrivals have tried to present at oil rigs or resource installations at sea. Currently, all Australian sea and resource installations are defined as excised offshore places so if an IMA reaches an oil rig they are not taken to have arrived in Australia's migration zone and can be processed offshore. However, there is a risk that, if this bill is not properly considered, it may undermine those arrangements. And, despite the minister protesting and saying that he is happy to guarantee these matters, I frankly cannot trust those guarantees.

We need to be sure that this would in no way present any further compromise to our borders beyond what this government has already done. Any definitional changes to Australia's migration zone requires thorough investigation to prevent the occurrence of unintended consequences that may result in litigation or override the power of the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship to grant or refuse a visa. In this instance, there is also Federal Court precedent that must be taken into account.

Again, this is another reason why the bill should be referred to a committee. The coalition cannot support this bill unless assurance can be provided with substantiation other than the 'just trust us' claim that is currently made. Fundamentally, this comes down to a matter of trust, and this government's trust bank is empty when it comes to border protection. There is nothing in that account upon which this government can draw. They are not just in deficit fiscally; they are in deficit when it comes to trust. When the coalition left office in 2007, there were just four people in immigration detention who had arrived illegally by boat. That figure today is over 23,000. More than 44,000 people have turned up on boats and more than 6,000 of those were children.

A government that has failed so terribly on our borders and, under Prime Minister Rudd completely abandoned the measures that worked under that government, and to this day continues to refuse accountability and acknowledgement that that set in motion the cost, chaos and tragedy that we have now seen unfold in our borders, is not a government deserving of trust on anything. This government cannot be trusted to protect our borders.

They can be trusted to protect the interests of unions. They demonstrate that in this bill, and they have demonstrated that in other bills they are seeking to rush through the parliament as we consider these matters in these final weeks of the sitting of this parliamentary term. Whether it is Mr Rudd the member for Griffith, the former Prime Minister, whether it is the current Prime Minister, or whether it is the previous ministers for immigration or the current Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, none of them have earned the trust to come into this place and say, 'Trust me, it will be okay on our borders,' because the carnage that has followed from their decisions on this is there for everyone to see, and we do not trust them. It does not matter who leads the Labor Party, this Labor government will never be trusted on our borders because they have been such a hopeless failure.

So whatever prevails in the acts that follow on the sideshow that is occurring on that side of parliament, the one issue of trust on borders will remain in the negative. It will remain in the negative from now until the election, and the Australian people will have the opportunity to make a decision about that on 14 September. That is why at this stage the coalition is not prepared to support this bill. We will seek to have it referred to committee in the other place where some of these matters can be tested. This government operates from a very low bar when it comes to its substantiation and evidence to support their claims, and the coalition will apply an appropriate and responsible bar. The government has a long way to go.

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am astonished that the opposition which professes to be concerned about protecting our borders does not support this Migration Amendment (Offshore Resources Activity) Bill. The shadow minister claims to be concerned about protecting our borders but shows no interest in supporting Australian maritime workers. It is disgraceful that the opposition shows no concern about the prospect of foreign flag vessels using foreign workers to extract Australian resources without their having any Australian visas whatsoever. It is a remarkable and scandalous disregard for the interests of Australian workers. The opposition is so deeply and wholly owned by and hostage to large corporations that it will not protect the interests of Australian workers and is happy to see foreign workers exploited in the cause of driving down wages and conditions.

The shadow immigration minister's remarks made the ridiculous claim that the government here is acting above the law. What the government is doing is coming into this parliament with legislation. That is precisely what the rule of law is all about. He also made the claim that the Allseas decision gives clarity. The fact is that we have never had this situation before.

This bill gives all members of the House the chance to show which side they are on—Aussie maritime workers or large foreign corporations. The shadow minister for immigration has made it all too clear that the opposition is on the side of large foreign corporations, not on the side of Australian maritime workers. The shadow minister implied in his remarks that this bill was directed at skilled migrants. It does nothing of the kind. It is not about skilled migrants. What we are talking about here with the Allseas case is workers who have no visa at all, not skilled migrants. The amendments in this bill will regulate foreign workers participating in offshore resources activities by bringing these persons into the migration zone and therefore requiring them to hold a specific visa under the act. Of course, skilled migrants by definition already hold a visa.

The bill represents the government's response to the Federal Court's decision in Allseas Construction SA v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, in which the Federal Court found that foreign workers on pipe-laying vessels were not in the migration zone and therefore did not require visas. In particular, the bill provides that a person is taken to be in the migration zone while he or she is in an area to participate in or to support an offshore resources activity in relation to that area. On 15 October last year the former Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, the Hon. Chris Bowen, announced that the government would legislate to amend the act and clarify the situation around workers in Australia's offshore maritime zones to address the decision in Allseas and also in fulfilment of a commitment in the ALP platform:

Labor will ensure that all Australian employment and industries are regulated under Australian law, including those located on the landward side of the outer limits of the territorial sea of Australia, in the Exclusive Economic Zone, or in the waters above the continental shelf. To this effect, Labor will review the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) with a view to ensuring that the definition of the 'Migration Zone' encapsulates all offshore Australian employment and industries.

The Federal Court decision found that by the operation of section 5(13) of the act two pipe-laying vessels, the Lorelay and the Solitaire, were not Australian resources installations within the meaning of the act while they were wholly or principally engaged in operations relating to the installation of offshore pipelines, thus explaining why the foreign workers on these vessels were not within or working within the migration zone and did not require a visa. The decision also meant that foreign-flagged vessels operating in Australia's exclusive economic zone were beyond many of Australia's laws, creating a loophole that could be exploited to the detriment of Australian workers. The Australian Institute of Marine and Power Engineers expressed concern to me that some of the operators of vessels in the offshore oil and gas sector had taken the view that they could use foreign workers on these foreign-flagged vessels without any requirement to obtain anything more than a holiday visa to transfer through an Australian airport—that is, they could work without even having a 457 visa.

There are a large number of foreign-flagged vessels operating in Australian waters which are not engaged in international trading voyages or in interstate trading voyages. The clearest example of this category of vessel is the offshore oil and gas industry fleet. In this booming sector, a large majority of vessels are already foreign-flagged vessels. At any time, there are up to 200 vessels servicing the offshore oil and gas industry in Australia's exclusive economic zone. The majority of these vessels are foreign-flagged vessels—over two-thirds according to the Australian Institute of Marine and Power Engineers. These vessels spend the majority of their time in Australia's exclusive economic zone. Indeed, some of them have spent years in Australian waters.

Minister Bowen established a review within the department of immigration to examine how best to amend the Migration Act to extend the migration zone to all offshore resource industry workers. The shadow immigration minister said that the government had been a bull at a gate and that the minister had been charging in. Neither of these things was true. There was a Migration Maritime Taskforce comprising departmental subject matter experts with legal, operational and policy backgrounds. This was developed to conduct this review and explore options to determine the most appropriate way to ensure that foreign workers in Australia's offshore maritime zones come within the ambit of the act.

The Allseas decision reduced the number of workers in the offshore resource industry captured by the Migration Act, and this, combined with other limitations in the act's operation offshore, has left a significant gap in Australia's ability to regulate the conditions in its offshore resources industry and to regulate which foreign workers are employed on these valuable national assets. Under the current legislative framework, we have an incomplete picture of the number and identity of foreign workers in Australia's offshore maritime zones. This is in part due to the absence of a regulated visa scheme to capture those engaged in Australia's offshore maritime zones and provide the corresponding migration information.

This incomplete information has security ramifications. You would think the opposition might be concerned about security issues, but you would be wrong. The June 2012 report of the offshore oil and gas resources sector security inquiry recognised that visa security checks are one of the only ways Australia is able to examine noncitizens in this security-sensitive industry. While it is recognised—and I think we all agree—that visa character checks have their limits, in their absence the government has no information at all about some of these workers. You would expect that the opposition might be concerned about this, but apparently not.

The task force recommended that all workers should be covered, as these are Australian resources and Australian jobs. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea gives Australia the jurisdiction to do this, as it provides sovereign rights with respect to the exploration and exploitation of the natural resources of Australia's exclusive economic zone and continental shelf. There has been extensive stakeholder consultation about this problem with the offshore resources industry, unions and other Commonwealth agencies. More recently, the government has consulted on the findings of the task force and the issue, which informed our decision to implement the recommendations of the task force. More consultation will follow as we engage with stakeholders to develop supporting regulations for this change.

There has been a lot of discussion on the best way to effectively address the problem of unregulated work in Australia's offshore resources sector. This bill deals with the practical actions that are necessary to create real, effective tools to deal with this problem. The bill implements the key recommendations of the task force. The task force found that any question as to whether a person was in the migration zone or not should not be solely dependent on where that person was physically located but should also be dependent on the sorts of activities that person was conducting.

The amendments in this bill will regulate foreign workers participating in offshore resources activities by deeming them to be in the migration zone, which enlivens the requirement for them to hold a visa under the Migration Act. The bill will amend the Migration Act to provide that a person is taken to be in the migration zone while he or she is in an area to participate in or to support an offshore resources activity in relation to that area. The bill will define 'offshore resources activity' as an activity administered under the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2006, the Offshore Minerals Act 1994 or under a law of the Commonwealth, state or territory determined by the minister in writing. The amendments in this bill will bring offshore persons into the migration zone and thereby require them to hold a visa under the act.

In addition to these two acts, the bill will create a power for the minister to make a determination in writing for the purposes of defining 'offshore resources activity'. This will provide the minister with flexibility to declare certain activities administered by other regulatory schemes as offshore resource activities for the purposes of the new deemed migration zone. This would include projects that take place within areas that are within the coastal waters of the states and the Northern Territory which are regulated under state and territory laws rather than their Commonwealth equivalents.

The legislative measures will supplement the current framework under the act, which defines as part of the migration zone Australian resources installations and Australian sea installations. Together with the existing provisions in the act, this new, comprehensive framework will ensure that workers in Australia's offshore resources industry are regulated under the act and are required to hold specific visas. Individuals who engage in offshore resources activities in Australia's offshore maritime zones will be subject to existing compliance measures in the act that address breaches of work and visa conditions.

The government is working with industry and with the relevant unions to establish a specifically tailored visa pathway which will ensure that industry has the flexibility it needs while maintaining protection for Australian working conditions. It is proposed to prescribe this visa in the migration regulations of 1994. The new visa pathway will need to be in place before the requirement to hold a visa offshore commences. At this stage it is envisaged that the bill will commence in early 2014 with the intervening period used to develop the new visa arrangements.

I think it is important to implement these changes as soon as possible to give certainty to the offshore resources industry and to workers, and the government understands that industry need certainty as they develop commercial contracts and run their businesses. Where there are skills shortages and where the Australian workforce cannot provide the required labour in Australia's offshore resource activities, there will be a need for foreign workers; however, this need should not be allowed to undermine Australian working conditions and should not happen without the oversight of Australian law as is currently the case. These are Australian resources and Australian jobs. The resources are governed by Australian laws, and the jobs should be too. It gets down to the simple proposition that whilst operating in Australia foreign companies should comply with Australian laws. The current legal structures applying to the Australian maritime industry do not deliver this objective. It is critical that we as a parliament attend to the anomalous situation created by the Federal Court's decision in the Allseas case by amending the Migration Act.

We believe that there is a principle at stake here. These are Australian jobs which should be subject to Australian law. The government should act to exercise Australia's sovereign rights over the exclusive economic zone, and people working in the exclusive economic zone should be covered by Australia's laws just like people who work on the land. I commend the bill to the House.

Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on the Migration Amendment (Offshore Resources Activity) Bill 2013. I do so because I have a strong interest in this issue, given the fact that much of this activity that we are talking about happens off the coast of Western Australia, the state in which I represent the electorate of Canning. At first blush, on looking at this bill, one would think that this government was interested in some motive that was highly commendable for protecting our borders. It says here that it is not uncommon for illegal maritime arrivals to present at oil rigs and resource installations in the ocean. Currently, these ocean installations are not defined as part of Australia's migration zone. Consequently, if an illegal maritime arrival reaches an oil rig presently, they are not taken to have arrived in Australia's migration zone and could be processed offshore. The rest of this bill does not properly consider that they may undermine the offshore processing arrangements. How altruistic. But this is not what the bill is about.

This bill is about a further grab for union control of the Australian workforce. Let's have a look why. The fact of the matter is that this bill was introduced into parliament by Minister O'Connor on 30 May this year. We want to understand why it was introduced by Minister O'Connor and not by former Minister Bowen. Minister O'Connor has form in this area. You have to understand the history of somebody coming into this place with the agenda that he has. You have to know where they have been to know where they are going. We know that this minister was an Irish citizen born in England who migrated to Australia and eventually found that his best form of employment was to involve himself in the union movement—which is fine. I was a union rep myself in my previous days as a schoolteacher. Collective bargaining is not such a bad thing if it protects the rights and conditions of workers. But this is not what it is about. This is about a power grab by the unions to control the resources sector.

Not only does this minister have form from his previous working history; his brother is one of the big bosses in the CFMEU, Mr Michael O'Connor, who I understand is a very close friend of the Prime Minister. As a result, he has been sent into this place on a number of bills while there are over 200 bills that we have waiting to be passed in the next eight days in this parliament—7½ now. Why is this so important to get through in the dying days of this Gillard government? It is about shoring up one's base. It is about shoring up the financial support and support for tenure in one's seat among those in the union movement. We know that Michael O'Connor has a lot of influence. That is how his brother became a member of parliament: he had his backing. This is payback time. This is real payback time in terms of this minister and the final days of this parliament. Last week, another bill was brought into this parliament. It was called the Fair Work Amendment Bill 2013. It was meant to talk about bullying, but it was actually about rights of entry and about people being able to enter the crib rooms on worksites to sign up members on spurious safety concerns. I spoke on that bill, and this is no different. This is about allowing union representatives to fly onto areas offshore—in terms of our continental shelf and our resources zone, which is about 200 kilometres—and to fly onto these rigs, these production boats, with the same rights of entry into offshore facilities.

As I said on the Fair Work Amendment Bill 2013 last time we were here, what people do not understand is that this right of entry provision that is in this bill forced the owners of the construction and resource sites to pay for the transport and accommodation costs of the union people coming onsite. It was predicted that it could be up to $30,000. For example, you could fly from Perth to Karratha, you could get a helicopter out to a rig, you would be accommodated on the rig and then you would be flown back. The cost of all this could be up to $30,000 per person, and who is bearing the cost? This is all about right of entry onto our resource projects. Is it any wonder that we are now becoming uncompetitive with the rest of the world in terms of developing our resources projects and they are going offshore. Further to this, people complained about James Price Point being established onshore in the Kimberleys, for a whole range of reasons—some environmental. Broome was split down the middle over this issue. Their solution was to bring the gas from the development of this gas field by pipeline down to the LNG plants in Port Hedland. Not a bad solution. There was another solution around instead of developing Inpex in Darwin, taking the pipe from the Timor Sea and that northern area there as well.

The problem is that the boats that are laying the pipes and servicing this particular industry are generally manned by people with offshore companies. We do not have the resources. Earlier in this parliament, the Labor Party were successful in essentially locking out foreign flag vessels from our ports unless they received the same terms and conditions of payment on their ships. You cannot compare like with like—and we will not go down that road—but, at the end of the day, if you are flagged out of the Philippines and you arrive in Australia, and the Filipino average wage is $100 a week and it is $1,000 a week in Australia, you are essentially stopping Filipino boats coming into Australia.

Ann Pickard from Shell has decided that, instead of developing James Price Point, they will have an offshore gas facility with a massive refinement and production facility on a huge boat. Most of the skills that are on these sorts of facilities are highly specialised. Many of these people are not to be found in Australia, so you get the argument about 457s and those sorts of things. In the interim, until we do skill our workforce—and I agree with the member for Wills that we should have Australians doing these jobs—we should not stop the good job from going ahead because we do not have an Australian to do it. As a result, rather than have the project go ahead with the use of some foreign skilled workers, they are saying that you cannot have them at all. That is what this migration amendment bill is about. It is not about illegals tying up to oil rigs, it is about stopping people from coming to Australia. It is stopping people from flying through Australia and landing, for example, in Karratha, catching a helicopter out to the rig or the production platform and working on that rig so that it can produce or drill.

What the minister is doing in this bill is saying, 'We want them to now get a visa if there is a flight through Karratha.' The previous speaker—the member for Wills, Kelvin Thomson—said: 'This can be worked out. Just trust us. We'll give you a temporary holiday visa.' It does not work. You cannot get a temporary holiday visa to go and work on an offshore platform. As we have already heard, previous companies have been held up and in court for a long period of time trying to get their workers here on these so-called 'temporary visas'. He says that there needs to be certainty and that this legislation will bring certainty. It will not bring certainty to the workers and it will not bring certainty to the projects; it will only bring certainty to the unions, because they want these blokes to join a union. As I said, there is nothing wrong with joining a union, but most of the people who are coming to these offshore facilities are not Australians, because they are owned by foreign companies. What happens as a result? A tug tows a platform from South Korea down to Australia and drops it into the water off there, and then Labor says, 'Hang on, we want someone from the union and the migration department to go out and check that they have got a visa.' They are not even going to touch the mainland, in many cases, and they want them to enter into a visa arrangement. It is just impractical.

That is why the shadow minister, Scott Morrison, has said, 'This legislation shouldn't be before this House until it has been through the Senate committee.' There are a whole lot of unintended consequences in this bill that should not be allowed to happen. There are flow-on effects that could happen, for goodness' sake, with us trying to unpick them. The cant and hypocrisy about all this is that, in terms of right of entry in the bill last week, the Independents said, 'We are not going to allow this through this place unless it is bipartisan, because we don't think it is in the Australian interest to allow these sorts of last-minute changes to happen to the Australian workforce without proper scrutiny and in a rush in the last days.' Surprise, surprise: the member for New England found some way not to be here so that the bill passed by one vote. So much for sincerity and genuine behaviour. He let it through. They are saying, 'Trust us.' It is the same on this right of entry provision—they are saying, 'Trust us.' 'More consultation,' the member for Wills said. 'There needs to be more consultation, which will follow, so trust us.' How can we trust this side of the parliament with anything when they have done to our borders what they are doing now?

Why are we talking about this bill? This Gillard-Rudd government have been in power since 2007 when they changed the migration laws. We have since had 44,219 people—and probably more because this was given to me a few days ago—and the total number of boats since 2007 has been 723 boats. I cannot keep it updated in case somebody else has arrived today. They are not coming by small boats. They are coming by ferries now. Ferries carry 200 people or more. That is how many are arriving on certain boats. They are in a rush because they know that this side of the House will stop that terrible behaviour.

The government should be concentrating on stopping these people fraudulently getting to Australia. We saw on the front page of the Australian newspaper today about the lies that have been told. You do not tell a genuine story. You make up a story so you can get past the migration officials when they assess you. The officials have actually stopped assessing people now. I think the minister said we have something like 13,000, or is it 19,000, parked in the Australian community because they cannot be processed. The next government are going to inherit this problem. Whatever the figure is, it is thousands and it is a disgrace. So do not tell us about trusting you on border protection.

Here we are, trusting the minister. He said there are 10,000 rorts—and I am going to speak on this tomorrow—with 457 visas. I did a report on this which I will talk about tomorrow. It was a bipartisan report which found none of this and suddenly the minister said 10,000 and then he said he was only guessing and he was not sure. On this case, he said there are a whole lot of rorts in this activity. So in 2012 there were 99 inspections covering 156 facilities. Have a guess how many complaints they had. There were 13 complaints. They are bringing in legislation for 13 complaints when there are 13,000 people parked in the Australian community taking the resources and the welfare from the likes of the Salvation Army that could be giving it to hard done by Australians. Don't tell me this is important legislation that has to get through.

I am sure the Independents will pass this as they do everything. They are going to finally ingratiate themselves in the last eight days. Hopefully their electorates in New England and Lyne are hearing that they are going to help get this sort of legislation through because any future government that has to unpick it will have all sorts of problems because they have landed it through the Senate.

At the end of the day, this is not legislation that is important. Out of all the legislation that needs to come through this House, this is one of the least important pieces. The Labor Party is holding up this parliament and trying to ram this through. They have even changed the agenda—the speaker list—to get this through ahead of other legislation. The Higher Education Support Amendment (Asian Century) Bill 2013 was meant to be before this. So much for Gonski. This is Minister O'Connor paying back his union brother and his union mates in the dying days of this government because they know if they do not they will be in trouble in terms of their funding and their preselections. I hope people see this for what it is worth. It is a payback at the very last moment and this bill does not need to be through this House. It needs to be scrutinised properly in a committee of the Senate which was agreed to earlier and it has not been done. As a result, of course we will not be supporting this legislation.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is my pleasure to rise in this House to follow what was a very passionate and thoughtful contribution by the member for Canning as well as hat by my colleague the member for Cook. This Migration Amendment (Offshore Resources Activity) Bill 2013 will see foreign workers on overseas resource installations fall within the migration zone of Australia, thereby requiring a visa. That is what this is all about. It follows on from a Federal Court decision in May last year called the Allseas Construction case which found that two pipe laying vessels and the workers on them did not fall within the migration zone.

We cannot support this bill because, firstly, we know what its motivations are about. The member for Canning explained to this House that this is all about improving the ability of the unions to recruit workers. This is all about payback. Secondly, there has not been a rigorous analysis of the economic impacts of this bill, because it is going to increase the burden on one of our most productive sectors in the economy—namely, our resources industry. Thirdly, we do not know what the impact is going to be on our border protection system. What happens if somebody goes onto these offshore resource rigs and starts to seek asylum that way? Do they fall within the migration zone of Australia as a result of the bill? That is a legitimate question. Given this government's absolute failure to protect our borders, where we have seen more than 43,000 unauthorised arrivals come in just the few years that Labor have been in government, we cannot take them at their word. We cannot trust this government to protect our borders, let alone to protect the resource industry which does so much for the economic growth of this country.

What we are proposing today is that this bill goes to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee, where the proper questions are asked, the analysis is undertaken and, ultimately, the best interests of the Australian people and the Australian economy will subsequently be served after we have had a full debate about the merits of this bill. Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, you do not have to take my word for this. You have to hear from companies and industry bodies that are engaged in the sector to hear what they think about this government bill before us. The Australian Metals and Mines Association has said that this bill will impose a 'further level of suffocating regulatory burden' on the offshore resource sector for 'no appreciable social or other gain and at a likely high economic cost'. The member for Goldstein, the shadow minister for finance, who is sitting in this chamber, knows all about what it takes to get the productivity of our country moving. And when he hears the words of the Australian Mines and Metals Association talk about this bill in the most derogatory terms, he knows as well as I do that this is bad news for the Australian economy, an economy which, after 14 September, he will hopefully have his hands at the reins of.

This body has also said that this bill would 'put at risk the viability of current projects and weigh heavily against the commencement of future projects'. Why is that important? That is important because currently there is a pipeline of projects in Australia that is above $100 billion just for the resource sector alone. But we have seen, under this government and due to the policies of this government, significant resource projects, both onshore and offshore, either postponed or cancelled because Australia is in danger of becoming a low-productivity, high-cost economy. We all know about Olympic Dam, that $30 billion project in South Australia, and the Port Hedland extension. We know of a number of our major energy companies—I saw the Oakajee project has now been put on hold by Mitsubishi. All of these projects that would deliver untold economic benefits and employment benefits to our country have now been put on hold because of the costs of doing business in Australia. And there you have the Australian Mines and Mines Association making it abundantly clear that the legislation before this House is putting those projects in jeopardy.

We are the ninth largest energy and oil producer in the world. This is a multibillion dollar industry in Australia that contributes up to 2.5 per cent of GDP on an annual basis, and it is growing. In our region there are more than three billion people who will be entering the middle class between now and 2050. We have China, 1.3 billion people; India, another 1.3 billion people. Those people in those countries, together with Vietnam and Indonesia, are moving rapidly into the middle classes. As a consequence of that, they are demanding energy. They are demanding energy to build their economies, to put new infrastructure in place, and to provide for the homes and the services that we have all come to take for granted here in Australia and in other advanced economies around the world. So Australia is in a perfect position to service those countries as a net energy exporter to support those people as they go up the value chain and enter the middle classes. We can do that only if we are a cost-effective place in which to do business and in which to produce energy.

I said at the start we cannot support this bill because we know that it is an explicit, unashamed grab for power by the union movement, by the masters of the Labor Party in the Maritime Union and in the CFMEU. If it is not good enough to provide millions of dollars to the Labor Party, it is good enough for the unions to get 50 per cent of all Labor votes at federal and state caucuses. And to get 100 per cent of the Labor caucus being a member of the union. Now, why is this an issue? This is an issue because in the Australian economy today, in the private sector, only 13 per cent of the workforce belongs to a union. And when you take into account the public sector, it rises to 20 per cent. But the unions are dominating the legislative agenda of this government, and this is setting back the economic priorities for Australia. We had the former head of the HSU, Kathy Jackson, say of the member for Maribyrnong, who is the minister for workplace relations in this country and the former secretary of the AWU, that he is 'Dracula in charge of the blood bank'—and boy, is he that.

The member for Canning referred in his speech to the Fair Work legislation that this parliament debated a couple of weeks ago. The right of entry provisions will ensure that no worker around this country will be able to eat their lunch in peace and quiet anymore because what this House passed was right of entry provisions that will see unions enter during the lunch hours of workers right around the country to try to recruit them to their unions. And what is more, when these union reps have to travel far distances, they will be sending a bill to the employers to pay for their travel expenses. How crazy a system has this become? There are more than 120 provisions in the Fair Work Act, which those opposite have passed, that have increased the power of the unions at the expense of the employee and at the expense of the employer. And it is no wonder that industrial disputes have more than doubled under this government. It is no wonder that this government has abolished the Australian Building and Construction Commission and all that that did to create billions of dollars in new wealth and productivity improvements in our economy. It is no wonder that you have launched a war on the 457 system, and it is all because you are paying back your union mates.

The 457 visas are very relevant to this debate. The 457s are about foreign workers, just as this debate is about foreign workers on overseas resource installations.

Government Member:

A government member interjecting—

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You have said that you do not want people on 457s coming to this country. That is effectively what you have said. And this is despite former minister for immigration Chris Bowen saying in January that you, as a government, have got the balance right on 457s. And the Prime Minister of this country, Julia Gillard, saying in China when she was visiting there just recently that the balance is right on 457s. This is despite the number of people on 457s in this country dramatically increasing to the record high number of 125,000 today. This is despite half the members of the Transport Workers Union, including Tony Sheldon's own personal staff, being here on 457s. This is despite the Prime Minister's Scottish 'Svengali' John McTernan also being here on a 457. You have put aside all of that evidence and the fact that people coming to this country on 457s are filling voids in our labour force in information technology, engineering, health services and the resources sector to confect an argument against 457s based on what you are being told by your union paymasters.

This is not good for this country. We have seen a government become totally beholden to the power of the union movement. This bill before the House is just the latest example of it. This bill before the House is the latest instalment in an attack on foreign workers and an attack on the most productive sectors of our economy. It is very funny that on the 457s the Prime Minister said:

We inherited from the previous government a 457 temporary foreign worker visa program that was totally out of control …

If it is so out of control, why did you see the number of foreign workers coming to this country increase dramatically to today's record high number of 125,000? You did it because you understood back then that 457s were an important part of the economy. Even Chris Bowen said:

… migration is shaped by Australia's economic needs, and the Temporary Business 457 visa is a key pillar in this approach.

The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, said:

… we will need skilled migration. I believe we’ve got the visa settings right particularly with short term 457 visas.

So we know that you started a war on 457s for the very same reason you are starting a war on those foreign workers working on offshore resource activities and doing so to improve the economic management of those resource companies that produce export dollars for the Australian economy and help grow our system. That is the key issue here.

In conclusion, we cannot support the bill before this House because there has not been the rigorous consultation with the industry, because there has not been an assessment of the economic impact this higher regulatory burden will have and because of the complicating factors it may have for our border protection policies and our ability to protect our borders. Most of all, we cannot support this because this is just a payback to the union movement by the Labor Party.

Debate adjourned.