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

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Cook has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. If it suits the House, I will state the question in the form 'that the amendment be agreed to'. The question now is that the amendment be agreed to.

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have listened to the debate on this Migration Amendment (Temporary Sponsored Visas) Bill 2013. I heard the member for Wannon from the coalition side debating it. There are a few points I want to pick up on. I say to him, and to the coalition, it can never be a burden to protect Australian jobs. I just do not understand how that can be a burden. That is what this amendment is about. I want to protect the jobs of the people in my electorate of Page and I will do all I can to promote them. That is my job, that is my role and that is why I am supporting this amending bill before the House today.

I know from when I talk to people right across my electorate of Page that they support the system of temporary overseas workers, which is 457 visas, because they know that it is needed at times, but equally they want to be assured and reassured that the government and the parliament have laws, procedures and protocols in place that ensure that their jobs come first and that when employers are looking for employees and are struggling with that at times everything has been done that can possibly be done. I will give a couple of local examples, further on, that show 457s can work effectively where we are doing the right thing by people who are unemployed in my area.

Survey results that the Migration Council published in their report showed that 15 per cent of employers chose to use the 457 system despite admitting they had no problem finding labour locally. Someone on the other side can stand here and say everything is working and it is hunky-dory but that is just simply not true. If you look in the Migration Council report the survey results show that employers are still recruiting under the 457 system for temporary overseas workers despite saying they have had no problem finding labour locally. That is a problem and that needs to be addressed. No government can read that and go, 'Oh well, that is fine, I am just going to ignore that and just let it roll on.' It is like any system. Any system needs constant monitoring and reviewing and, if there are problems with it, you seek to fix the problems. That is what the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship has brought before this place.

The figures that I read for the 457 visa holders show they have risen by around 20 per cent and that is while employment growth has been around the one per cent mark. Thank goodness we have employment growth but, at the same time, you have this growth in 457 visas. When you do a risk analysis and you have your green, amber and red lights, these things show up as a red light. I do not know how the department do their work but I know that the boards and other things I serve on do the risk analysis and we have the lights—the green, the amber and the red. Everything I have read shows there are a lot of red lights within this system. I am talking about a national level and that governments have to look at it nationally.

We need to be assured there is investment in local training and recruitment. That is where the government has done a lot to ensure there is that investment. I turn now to my seat of Page. We have a local employment coordinator who has an advisory committee. He has done some remarkable work right across my electorate but also beyond my electorate. It goes into the electorates of Richmond, Cowper, Lyne and New England. The footprint of our local employment coordinator is quite large. I do not know how he does it but he does. It is a big area.

The member for Wannon talked about meatworks. I have an abattoir, the Northern Co-operative Meat Co., in my seat. It is a big employer with nearly a thousand employees. It uses 457 visas for temporary overseas workers and the system has been working well. Where there are some shortages, people come in on a temporary basis to work in the abattoirs on the 457 visas, but the company is also investing in local training and recruitment with the assistance of the local employment coordinator and also state training through New South Wales Department of Education and Communities. They are involved because everything we do, we do cooperatively in my area. When we do that work we all join together and work on it.

I stay apprised of all these developments because they are things I am very interested in and interested in advancing. At my local abattoirs they are actually investing in locals and training them up. They have recruited and they have trained. We also have the second largest Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population in Australia in my seat and further across that North Coast footprint. We have very high figures and higher unemployment figures resulting from that as well. Yet within our meatworks they have local people and local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander fellows. They are in there working and staying. The investment and the training are paying off. We have the two things happening there that should be happening. Where there is a shortage we have the 457s and that is working and we also have that local training and recruitment. I put that up because that is a bit of a model for people to look at to see how they should work. Everything I have read, all the figures, all the reports I have looked at show that that is not the case right across Australia. If that were the case right across Australia, we would not need to be here with the amending bill. But I am sure it does happen in other places in Australia.

This bill also says there will be labour market testing in relation to a nominated non-graduate occupation et cetera and that that will be a standard thing. I have seen the labour market testing that happens in my area because of the way we work—we have that cooperative model and we have all the figures, the stuff from DEEWR and the people on the ground. So we do that and have a process that works. I also have read that that does not work in other places. I understand it was a protocol and a protocol that has fallen down, and those protocols cannot fall down. They just have to operate to make sure this system maintains its integrity. If an amendment is required to do it, that is what we do. I can point again to how it works in my area. It also involves Regional Development Australia, which has had various incarnations. They were involved in that process. So, again, I look locally to see where it does work.

If you talk to people on the street, people always say to you: 'Okay, we've got these unemployment figures. I know people in my family who don't have jobs. They would go and do these jobs if they were recruited into them and trained. Why are we bringing people in from overseas?' That is a common refrain in the community. Every member would know that. Despite what they say in this place, every member hears that on the street and when they are out and about in all their community functions. It is up to us to explain how it works and, if it is not working, making it work better. Ultimately, these schemes and what we do in industry and the workforce rely on community acceptance, not just industry acceptance. I understand the needs of industry right across my seat. I have a fair idea of it nationally, but my job is in Page. I get it there. So it is this balance that we have to achieve all the time, and sometimes that needs recalibration.

This bill represents that recalibration. You have the system in place. There are some things that clearly are not working. We have to do the recalibration and make sure the integrity of the system is there so that each and every member can confidently say to our communities, 'We're doing the best we can by you and by those people who are unemployed and underemployed to make sure you've got every opportunity for training and recruitment.' We have to see that the employers are doing that, and then we can recruit and bring people in on the 457 visas and have temporary overseas workers.

I am well aware of it in the health area as well. There are certain needs there. I have led advocacy around recruitment of overseas born doctors where there has been a need for them in Australia, particularly in rural and remote areas. I live in an area you might not see as remote, but we have certainly had need to recruit doctors in that area. It is certainly rural and regional where I live, so we have had a need to do those things. I am talking some years back being involved in that system at state level too, opening it up so we could assist with getting medical people and doctors into those areas. So I am very mindful of always putting the needs of the community first. If we come to this place and that is our primary principle then we can make the best decisions. You start from the primary principles of community and Australian jobs first but equally balancing it with the needs of the industry because, if industry cannot work and is too hamstrung, it cannot provide the jobs that it needs to. That is always the point of this: getting that calibration right so that they are the people we look after. We need to answer those questions from our electorate absolutely honestly.

There are a few other points I want to make about this issue. This is from some of the readings that I have done like the Migration Council report and other notes in that. One of the things it says is that this legislation will require the employers to test the local labour market. I know how we do that in my area, and it will be interesting to see how that is developed with the regulation, because it needs to be done in a way that has integrity so it is really clear. It will need to be standardised like with the Fair Work Act, where we have those 10 principles. It will also need to be adaptable to certain areas and regions. That way, if we show to the community that that has been done and the employer has done it, we can say, 'Everything has been done on the ground to recruit and to give Australian citizens first go; we were not able to in this case, and therefore these people will need to come on a temporary basis and work and live in our community.' We shall welcome them because it is our obligation at the community level to welcome them into the community when they are coming to do jobs that we cannot recruit people in. Of itself, that will give integrity to the system. It will give reassurance to the community and allow employers to say, 'Yes, I need these workers here.' So we all need those benchmarks in a way that we can rely on them not just on paper and so that it is acculturated within the community so we know everything has been done.

The bill has other amendments—there are other things that is does—but that was one of the main ones I wanted to talk about. I want to finish on the coalition saying this needs bipartisanship. They have blown bipartisanship on asylum seekers. (Time expired)

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I oppose this bill and remind the previous speaker that there has been no regulatory impact statement done to accompany this bill either. That is something that was completely missing from the previous speaker's comments. That demonstrates that there is no greater difference between the philosophies of each side of this House than in the treatment of the Australian business community. Haven't we seen that!

This applies to all forms of business, whether it is a small mum-and-dad business or others and medium and large businesses, and this bill is further irrefutable proof of that difference between both sides in this place. On this side, we understand business and are the friends of business.

We understand that business, industry and, particularly, small business employ millions and millions of Australians. We are committed to helping our businesses grow. We need them to flourish and, where we can, we need to help them to do so. We need to get out of the way when we cannot assist them to grow and flourish because we need to enable them to employ even more workers.

But on the other side, as we have heard, the Labor government and its union bosses simply cannot get beyond the politics. They cannot get beyond the politics of division and envy, and it appears to me an utter resentment of the success that comes from the hard work, commitment, endeavour and risk that business, small business particularly, is prepared to take in Australia.

I make no apologies that we are here to help business and industry get ahead. It is in this nation's interests and certainly in the interests of people who work in this country. Yet the Labor government is clearly here to literally drag those businesses back down if they dare to be successful—how dare you be successful!—or just do as the unions are demanding.

This simple question and equation is emblematic of the political divide in Australia, and the current bill is a prime example of that. We know that Australian businesses and industry can only thrive with a capable and adequate workforce. It is the key to viability, productivity and being able to employ even more Australians.

I know how important workers are to a business; they are critical. In a recent survey, conducted through the Bunbury Chamber of Commerce and Industry in my electorate, the ability to attract and retain good staff was given the highest priority by Bunbury business owners. We have had major challenges in my electorate in attracting and retaining staff.

It is really clear that small businesses particularly know and respect the fact that their staff is their highest priority and critical to their business. It is a great asset and their most important resource, which brings me to the substance of this bill. Again, the coalition understands clearly what the Labor government does not and why this is clearly another cynical political exercise.

We on this side know that in some industries in some geographical regions of Australia it is simply not possible to find the workforce that businesses and local industry need, and there are a lot of reasons. It could be that the special skills or experiences needed are not available. In some instances, the skills are available, but those that have them are unwilling to travel to the regional and remote regions where the jobs are. Sometimes, it is a combination of reasons.

Those are the circumstances in which the 457 program has come to the rescue of the struggling businesses desperate for workers. You cannot produce if you have no-one to help you produce it. You simply cannot do your business. The work that is done is what keeps them in business.

We know that approximately 75 per cent of 457 visa holders are of a professional or managerial nature. These are not competing with Australian workers for unskilled jobs, but they are a vital part of keeping our economy running. If you are in a regional area, certainly in my part of the world, you know all about shortages. I wonder: why on earth has this Labor government been so utterly determined in its rhetoric to, basically, demonise foreign workers? I find it appalling.

In the same vein, it also brings that same focus to Australian small, medium and large businesses who rely on 457 visas. That is why this is a political exercise and nothing more. We certainly have not seen any of the evidence. We know that the government wanted to get this particular legislation through before the Senate report came down. We know that there is no widespread rorting of the program. The government simply failed to come up with the evidence.

We heard the totally unsupported claims that the Labor minister made and we have also heard subsequently of the 24 complaints in 12 months of which zero have been passed on to the immigration department. No evidence has been presented that this is the case. In fact the opposite from what we have here is the case. We have heard what the minister has to say about this. Unfortunately, again with the rhetoric of division, we have seen fear and political spin. This is, unfortunately, part of the Labor philosophy.

We know that there is a real business need. There is a need in industry, and there is an economic need for this bill to be defeated. If the Gillard government really lived up to its catchcry of 'put jobs and growth first', it would pull this bill immediately if that was its genuine intent. But this is not a business decision, an industrial issue or an economic issue. We know that it is simply a political issue, one that is being dictated by the unions, and, of course, the government is doing exactly what the unions want.

We know that there is no regulatory impact statement accompanying this bill, again showing how Labor does not understand business at all, is not interested in what happens in business and has no understanding.

How many Labor ministers and members have ever invested their own money, as we see with small and medium businesses? How many have actually invested their own money and taken a risk, mortgaged their own home, to build their own business? It takes years and it takes hard work and it takes passion and it takes hours and hours of worry. How many of the Labor ministers have done this? How many have ever employed local people, someone from their community? How many have ever filled out a BAS statement? Clearly, it would have to be very few, because if they had then this bill would not be before the House today, particularly if they had been the owner or the creator of a business who could not find anyone to work with them to get the work done so that they could be profitable and offer opportunities to other Australians. If they had done that they would have had firsthand experience.

Come and try to get a business up and running in a small rural or regional area. Come and look for people able to do the job you need them to do and find you are not able to get the employees you need. We do not see that experience coming through from those on the other side, and that is why this bill is before the House. When small businesses are short-staffed and in desperate need of workers, the Labor government has decided to impose a significant workload and paper trail on businesses to prove that they cannot find workers locally. Again, there is not even a regulatory impact statement to go with it—we just have to do it.

Currently, skill shortages are identified by the inclusion on the skilled occupation list of the department of immigration, which takes its advice from Skills Australia. Prospective employers can apply for 457s for workers in occupations on that list. For the occupations not on the list, employers have to undertake labour market testing and be able to demonstrate an inability to fill the positions domestically. The bill removes the distinction and requires all employers to market test, unless the minister provides an exemption. Well, we'll be waiting for that! This is political interference in employment. It is the type of input that has decimated Australia's competitive advantage and undermined our productivity. It adds just another layer.

If any of the ministers or anyone on the other side ever go out and talk to business, ask them about red tape and see what they say. Once again, you have added another layer, when business is already overburdened, and it creates uncertainty. The government, as we know, exempted this particular bill from a regulatory impact statement. That's not important! Why would that matter to business, particularly small business? I assume it must be out of embarrassment as to what that regulatory impact statement would have contained.

The south-west of Western Australia, like so much in that great state, relies on 457 visa workers to keep our region moving and growing. What is there about that that the government does not understand? It is especially noticeable in the agricultural and food processing industries. A lot of farm labour is hard and isolated work. Many Australians may not be prepared to do it. The farmers tell me so: they cannot get the workers to travel to regional and remote areas for the sort of work that is involved. As well, we know that food processing industries are struggling to find local staff; they just cannot get them, so they cannot process . Because of this we have many 457 visa holders who have found themselves fruit picking or working in abattoirs or in food processing. There is no-one to do the work, but these jobs still have to be filled because they cannot run their plant otherwise. Some might not consider those attractive jobs, but they are vital jobs if Australians want to eat and if we want to help feed others. At a time when many food producers themselves are struggling, this is not the time to make finding staff harder, but that is what the government is doing. Obviously, none of them on that side are involved in this sector; none of them have any understanding of what it is like to try to recruit and retain staff in a rural and remote area. They have no idea at all, and no consideration. They are just adding to the burden of someone doing business.

The most astounding part of this bill is its timing and the government's absolute hypocrisy. That is all this is. We know that the government has lost control of Australia's borders and we know that illegal arrivals are at the worst level this nation has seen. There have been more than 44,600 under Labor, more than the population of the city of Bunbury or the city of Busselton in my electorate. But three months from the election we are not debating that—one of the three really important issues that the Prime Minister used as her imperative for taking over from her predecessor. We are not going to fix our biggest immigration problem because that would require this government to admit that they got it wrong to start with. Instead—and here we go with the hypocrisy—we are going to target legitimate workers and struggling businesses, particularly those in rural and regional areas who cannot get workers. All I can assume from that is that they are a softer target for this government than the people smugglers.

When I move around my electorate I meet the businesses that have this problem and I know that we have real challenges in the hospitality and tourism sector. I asked a business how it was going and they said to me, 'We can't get workers.' They said they had done everything. In the end they said to me, 'Well, Nola, you go and get that bus out the front, you go and pick up everybody around who is capable of working here, or even wants to work here, and we will employ them, because we haven't got anybody to work in this business.' That is why they have to use 457 visa holders. At the time they could not get welders or heavy duty diesel mechanics, so they could not get their job done. This government is going to make it more difficult for all those business. If you are a small to medium business in rural, regional or even remote Australia and you are trying to find workers to get the job done, you have just had your job made so much more difficult by this government, which has no understanding and no interest. This is all about politics, certainly not about good government. I strongly oppose this bill.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak against the Migration Amendment (Temporary Sponsored Visas) Bill 2013. This bill is a farce. It is a cover-up. It is a smoke-and-mirrors effort by a very desperate government determined to divide Australians.

I find it fascinating to listen to the previous speakers and their hue and cry about Australian jobs. This is nothing short of hypocrisy to say the least. They would have you believe that we want to bring in skilled workers to bring slave labour into this country; to be paid at lower conditions and with lower standards than Australians. They would have you believe that the 457 visa skilled workers are being rorted and that they are taking away Australian jobs. I will come to that in a minute. What is more concerning is that the rushed attempt to ram through this piece of legislation without adequate parliamentary scrutiny through inquiry and consultation leads this coalition not to support this bill. This attack, led by the Prime Minister, is an attempt to do nothing more than pit Australians against Australians. It reeks of political opportunism.

To show you evidence of how much need there is for the 457 visa program, I will quote from a press release:

… the tourism industry is facing a shortage of skilled labour in regional areas.

… … …

The 457 visa program provides employers with an avenue to sponsor experienced tourism professionals from overseas. Not only can these professionals fill critical skills gaps, they can train young Australians looking for a career in the tourism and hospitality sectors …

As the shadow minister for tourism, did I write that press release? No. Did the Liberal Party write that press release? No. Did the tourism industry write this press release? No. This is actually a joint press release from the Labor tourism and immigration ministers in 2011. They identified a skill shortage that needed to be filled. A skill shortage that, if it is not filled, will lead to a loss of jobs and skills in Australia.

So, as I said, Labor's hypocrisy knows no bounds. They continue to belittle and demonise overseas workers at the same time that they have 457 workers on their own staff. Perhaps, during the process of the debate today, the Prime Minister could come in here and tell the House why she could find no suitably qualified Australian worker to fill the role of chief spin doctor in her office. What market testing did she do? Where was the advertising? I did not see any advertising. What processes did she go through? Or did she just do a captain's pick and say, 'I'll have you and I'll just skip the process'?

Part of the 457 visa process includes schedules with lists of skilled occupations that are allowed to be brought in under 457s. The only people this does not apply to are state or territory governments. That would include federal governments. So the Prime Minister did not even have to satisfy the employment criteria that other businesses would normally have to go through. It was a captain's pick.

I read through these lists and I was looking for 'spin doctor'. I was looking for 'chief media adviser'; nothing there for that. I did find a few here that I thought might have been close: 'theatrical adviser' or 'stage manager' maybe? 'Exit stage left'. There was a range of professions here but nothing that came close. It was obviously a captain's pick.

What we have here is pure hypocrisy by a Prime Minister, confected outrage that the 457 system was being massively rorted. In fact her minister talked of '10,000 rorts'. I would say that the government has been caught out telling porkies. Then again, maybe the performance of her chief spin doctor is the reason that she has been so driven to drop 457s; so that she would never make the same mistake again. And we could base that on the performance that she has applied due to the professional advice that she has had; perhaps she wants to stop certain people coming into Australia that she has employed.

Skilled migration has been a key driver of Australia's economic performance. It addresses skill shortages so industry can grow, and provide jobs and economic benefits for all Australians. Make no mistake, when the government introduced this bill they did it for one reason: to shore up union support. This is a Prime Minister who is run by the unions, put in there by the unions and is only loyal to the unions, not to the Australian people. This bill has been introduced because the unions demanded it.

Let us go through a few facts—and the Prime Minister keeps using those words 'the facts': in 2012-13 to 30 April, there have only been 6,740 primary applications lodged for 457 visas in the accommodation and food services industry. I quote that because I am the shadow minister for tourism. What I would like this Labor government to explain is: if we did not have this program, how many tourism businesses would have to shut because they did not have the skilled staff necessary to open their business?

How would a Gillard government expect hotels or restaurants to open if they do not have the professional chefs to prepare the meals? More so, and outside that realm, how will the mining camps feed the fly-in fly-out miners without the food professionals? If you take out one link in the chain, Australian jobs suffer.

So, if you have no chefs—no food professionals, and your restaurant cannot open—that means the Australian back-of-house staff and front-of-house staff have no jobs. If the hotel cannot open because it cannot provide food, then that means the whole chain of workers in there no longer have jobs. If you cannot feed your miners out at the mine site they do not go there, so all of those jobs are affected. This government does not understand the ramifications of its own actions. The government clearly needs to understand that there is a skills shortage in a whole range of areas.

The coalition has serious concerns about this bill, and not the least the fact that there is no regulatory impact statement—nor has there been proper consultation. I note a release from Tourism Accommodation Australia, which says:

TAA has serious concerns about the Government's plans to restrict the use of 457 skilled worker visas, which are critical to the accommodation industry.

In contrast to the over-the-top rhetoric being employed by some members of the Government, 457 visas are not taking jobs away from Australians. 457 visas are reserved for workers with specific skills or qualifications in identified areas of shortage in the local workforce.

457 visas are used by a majority of accommodation hotels to fill skills shortages in areas such as cookery and hotel management.

Tightening the screws on 457 visas will do nothing to help Australian workers find jobs, but it will impose yet more red tape and regulation on employers in the accommodation industry that are, in many cases, already struggling to meet the service demands of customers.

That is from one of the peak bodies in the tourism industry. This is a government that does not even bother to consult with the largest employment group in Australia.

This bill contains a bizarre attack—it is actually a 'back to the future' attempt to reintroduce labour market testing, which operated from 1996 through to 2001, and was found at the time to be ineffective, costly and with a significant delay to employer recruitment action. But most concerning, this bill is based on a false premise. The government has completely made up the numbers to suggest widespread abuse of the 457 scheme. Labor's attack on skilled migration is a desperate distraction from their failed border protection policies, which have seen almost 700 boats arrive with more than 44,200 people on board. To give you an idea, Mr Deputy Speaker, there are 108,000 people in Australia on 457 visas—108,000—and there have been 44,200 people arrive on this government's stint. That is 39 per cent—just so that you understand the numbers.

I think there is a greater problem with those who come here illegally rather than those who come here legally, who provide great benefit to our economy and who actually help to produce jobs in Australia. In fact, the only jobs that illegal immigrants help to grow in Australia are those that actually have to go and monitor, administer and control them whilst they are in detention.

So on one hand we have a group of people who are contributing to our economy and on the other hand we have a group of people who are costing this economy over $10 billion. The government has its priorities wrong. It wants to stop those who are going to come here for the right reasons and promote those who come here for the wrong reasons.

This Prime Minister has a renewed enthusiasm to trash-talk our skilled migration program by demonising the 457 skilled migration visas. It damages our international reputation and makes a mockery of the government's own Asian century white paper, which barely lasted through the summer. It demonstrates that this Prime Minister has truly lost her way. This Prime Minister, and the previous Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, spent years telling Australia and its international audience that they had the balance right on 457 migration visas. Yet now the Prime Minister, after her visit to Western Sydney, is telling everyone that the system is out of control.

Yet it was just 12 months ago that the Prime Minister said, 'I believe we've got the visa settings right, particularly with short-term 457 visas'. Only 940 visas have been introduced above and beyond last year's measures. That is growth of only 1.7 per cent. Boy, I wish that the illegal immigrants would increase by only 1.7 per cent; we would not have the budget mess that we have now.

The changes to the 457 migration scheme have not been based on any demonstrated rorting or widespread abuse as the government has claimed. The minister has claimed a figure of 10,000 cases of people rorting 457 visas. He said that we have to look at the excessive growth of the 457 visa regime. There is no evidence of 10,000 rorts. It is a figure, a number, pulled out of the air by a minister who knows not what he does. In fact, the Migration Council of Australia has disputed Labor's claims and condemned the Prime Minister for demonising 457 skilled migration visas.

The government's own advisers say that there is no evidence of widespread rorting of 457 skilled migration programs. In fact, demographer Professor Peter McDonald, a member of the government's Ministerial Advisory Council on Skilled Migration, has called the Prime Minister's rhetoric 'nasty'. Under Labor, 457 skilled migration visa grants have grown to their highest level ever: 125,070 visa applications were granted in 2011-12. If any rorts have occurred, they have occurred on this Labor government's watch.

Since 2007-08, Labor has cut the resourcing for compliance work in DIAC, including 457 monitoring, by over $20 million. That is 30 per cent. Monitoring visits to employers are down 67 per cent. The number of employer sponsors formally warned has also dropped by two thirds. Just as Labor cannot protect our borders, they cannot police the immigration system they have here in Australia.

As I said before, the 457 visa program plays a critical part in our Australian economy. It provides for short-term take-up of necessary skills for projects, employment and industries to go ahead. As I said earlier in my speech, if you take out one key link in the employment chain then hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs will suffer. This government has not thought it through, and it has not thought it through because it is a slave of the union movement. This is nothing more than shoring up union support, not supporting Australians into Australia's jobs. They should be condemned for their rhetoric; they should be condemned for their actions. This bill should not pass the House.

Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will not be supporting the Migration Amendment (Temporary Sponsored Visas) Bill 2013. Both the Prime Minister and the minister have been informed of this, both informally over the past week at least and formally in writing. I have looked closely at the forms that a business sponsor fills in when applying for a subclass 457 visa for an employee and the forms clearly show obligations for the business sponsors to follow as well as showing sanctions and penalties that are available to the minister and the department where these standards and obligations are not met. These include financial penalties, the removal of any rights to participate in the future in visa programs—the 457 program and others—and other quite onerous penalties. Form 1196N, the business sponsor application form, states:

To ensure the integrity of the subclass 457 visa program, the department has a thorough monitoring process to assist in ensuring compliance with all program requirements and all relevant Australian laws.

That is in the actual form itself that business sponsors use to apply to the Australian government Department of Immigration and Citizenship when nominating overseas employees to work temporarily in Australia.

When you look at the form, you see that the sponsorship obligations are very clear. There is a sponsorship obligation to cooperate with inspectors. The form states that the standard business sponsor must cooperate with inspectors appointed under the Migration Act in all aspects of the application process. There is an obligation to ensure equivalent terms and conditions of employment. The form states:

The standard business sponsor must ensure that the terms and conditions of employment provided to a primary sponsored person are no less favourable than the terms and conditions the person provides, or would provide, to an Australian citizen or Australian permanent resident to perform equivalent work in the person's workplace at the same location.

So, in relation to the issue of Aussie jobs versus foreign workers, the obligation on the business sponsor is already there to make sure that that is not an either/or choice.

There are obligations to pay travel costs to enable sponsored persons to leave Australia. There are obligations to pay costs incurred by the Commonwealth to locate or remove unlawful noncitizens. There may be people concerned that there are people running around the countryside at taxpayers' expense, but the obligation is on the business sponsor to meet costs incurred in that case.

There is an obligation to keep records. There have been concerns expressed that people may be running some sort of racket in some businesses—'abusing' and 'rorting' is some of the language that has been used. There are obligations in the application process to keep all records, and sanctions and penalties can be applied if there has been any abuse of that. There is an obligation to provide records and to provide information to the minister. When you fill in your very first form you are aware of those obligations. There is an obligation to provide information to the department when certain events occur.

There are obligations to ensure the primary sponsored person works or participates in the nominated occupation, program or activity. That seems to be at the heart of what we are debating today. There seems to be some argument presented that people are not working in the nominated occupation, program or activity. Yet when you fill in form 1196N you are signing your business, your sponsorship and your reputation to an obligation that ensures that primary sponsored persons work or participate in the nominated occupation, program or activity.

There are obligations not to recover certain costs from a primary sponsored person or a secondary sponsored person. There are sanctions for failing to satisfy sponsorship obligations. The penalties exist under current law. The form states:

If the standard business sponsor fails to satisfy a sponsorship obligation, the Minister may take one or more of the following actions:

not just 457s; you can take businesses out from applying for any foreign worker in any form—

You can take money from these businesses if they do not meet the recognised obligations. The minister can:

Then the form goes into a whole range of other circumstances in which the minister may take administrative action, including the provision of false or misleading information to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship or the Migration Review Tribunal. So if anyone is bowling up with false information and then employing someone in a different job, the power is here in very clear terms, in the initial form that is filled in in the application process, for the minister to do something about it. And there is a whole range of other circumstances in which the minister can act.

The point about why I have gone through that is this: when this rhetoric began two months ago—that there was broadscale rorting of the 457 visas—I asked for evidence from the ministers and the various supporters involved in this push to demonstrate that the rhetoric was real, that there was widescale rorting. The best evidence that the ministers and certain unions have been able to put forward—this is not to comment or reflect on other work that they do—is some sort of argument that in the construction industry there has been 1.1 per cent growth generally, but there has been a 20 per cent growth in 457 visas. My response is, that is not evidence of widescale rorting. That is evidence of obligations and sanctions under current law being met.

DIAC and the minister are either using the powers they have got or they are not. What is going on within the minister's office and within the minister's discretion as a decision maker to use the very clear obligations and sanctions under the existing process? Why aren't they being used if there is this widescale rorting? When you look at the forms filled in, it is very clear, and the powers are very clear—and the powers are actually pretty good and pretty strong—so what is the problem in using them? All I can find is what seems to be a concern about resourcing—that is, the inspectors involved seem to be overworked or undervalued or have some sort of problem in their ability to do the job that existing law is asking them to do and that I think all Australians are asking them to do. Australians are asking them to promote Aussie jobs. That is what is really at the heart of what we are debating today.

To clarify that point: if what we are really debating has nothing to do with 457 visas, if we really are debating or setting up a debate over the next three months around Aussie jobs, I have to put on the record that it is a bit of a no-brainer. I think every single person in this chamber supports Aussie jobs. I am going to a jobs expo tomorrow in my electorate. I have worked tirelessly with a range of stakeholders locally on the mid-North Coast of New South Wales to promote not only a reduction in unemployment, which is now down to record low levels on the mid-North Coast of New South Wales, but also strategies to deal with some of the more problematic issues around participation rates and those broader long-term unemployment issues in our local communities. So there is no question that I or any other member in this chamber values and supports Australian jobs first.

As many here also know, I am a 100 per cent supporter of the Australian education system and the skills and training that is needed to address our skills shortage in Australia. That is a no-brainer, and I am pleased the minister in the chair smiles at that comment because we have had many conversations—in fact we were just having a conversation about this very issue—about the importance of delivering equity in education at a secondary level, a vocational level and a tertiary level. I think the government has done some fantastic work in that area. In fact if we are talking of legacies, that has the great potential to be the legacy of the 43rd Parliament. Out of all the reforms that have been done, it is the delivery of the principle and value of equity in our education system to engage all Australians, no matter the colour of their skin, no matter the money in the pocket, no matter the location they live, that I think has seen some tremendous work. That is not in doubt here either.

What is in doubt is this: if we make a change to 457 visas, does that fix anything? Does it fix our skills shortage? Does it actually deal with the problems that have been raised via emails, where certain people seem to be saying, 'I don't have a job and I know anecdotally of someone in business who was saying they just got a foreign worker in from overseas, so please support this legislation'? Come on. Our process needs to have a bit more integrity than that if we are going to really delve down into what exactly is the problem that we are trying to fix.

My reason for voting against this is not necessarily that there are not business sponsors who may be taking advantage of this application form process. My reason for voting against this is this application form process is fine when you read the obligations and the sanctions and the penalties that are available to the minister and the department. My reason for voting against this is we do not need new law; we need existing law to be acted upon. We need, frankly, the harden-up message of delivering on the existing sanctions and the existing penalties that are in the existing form and the existing process if government truly is aware of problems in our business community and in the Australian employment market.

This is not about legislation; this is about existing laws. This is about resourcing a department. This is about the department having the backbone to follow up on the issues involved if they do exist. And this is about them doing the job on behalf of the Australian people and Australian taxpayers: chasing down the business sponsors who may be doing the wrong thing; using the laws and powers they have to place the sanctions and penalties on them, to send the message out that that is not the point of this exercise, that Aussie jobs do matter, if we are serious about that; and getting on with fixing the skills shortage that this country has got but that it should not have, and which is a lag on productivity in this country.

I do not support this legislation for those reasons. I invite everyone to have a look at the forms that we are talking about and to ask themselves whether the obligations and the sanctions and the penalties need to be somehow strengthened and, if so, outline what that strengthening is. At this stage it looks pretty clear to me, and I encourage the government to use the powers they have.

Harry Jenkins (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To allow the sun to shine in, I was wondering whether the member for Lyne would allow me to ask a question of him under sessional order 142A about his speech in this second reading debate?

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Does the member for Lyne accept the member for Scullin's request for a question under sessional order 142A?

Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would welcome, I think, the first use of this question-in-second-reading-speeches idea that came in at the start of the 43rd Parliament. I very much invite the former Speaker to ask his question.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will give the member for Scullin the call.

Harry Jenkins (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As long as it is not counted in my 30 seconds.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

May I add that I also welcome the debut of the question.

Harry Jenkins (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I apologise to the member for Lyne. He is the bronze medal winner. I have already delivered my gold and silver medals in this category, and I have now managed to be deflected from my very incisive question, but I will get to it.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Scullin will get to the question.

Harry Jenkins (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank you for your guidance, Deputy Speaker. I ask the member for Lyne: in his research and investigation, whether he has gone beyond form 1196N and really looked at the legislative base for the obligations that are on the form. What has been put to us here is, on balance, that there are insufficient legislative mechanisms and insufficient investigatory measures available. If we look to the extension of inspectorates into fair work and other inspectors, I think that there is more meat to this proposal than meets the eye, that there is too much deregulation in 2001.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Scullin will get to the question. The member for Lyne has the call.

Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As someone who negotiated this change in 2010, I cannot actually recall how long I have got to respond.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You have got two minutes.

Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If a former Speaker, the member for Scullin, is arguing a case that there is some sort of inability for a minister to use current sanctions and penalties, if that is the real issue, then I would welcome that as the discussion that we all have as members of parliament. But that is not what is being bowled up before the chamber today. What is being bowled up before the chamber today is, in my view—and as one MP, the limited research that any of us can do to the best of our ability—a separate idea to that. It is a very valuable conversation that we could and should have.

What is being bowled up is a return of labour market testing that was removed in 2001 for, for all I can see, very valued reasons to improve and streamline our processes of government on behalf of not only business but taxpayers in meeting skills shortages. I do not think that the case is mounted as to why we are going backwards rather than forwards in developing new standards in the legislative base—I think that was the term that the member for Scullin used. My point is that I think that the legislative base is fine. From what I can see, if there are cases of business sponsors misusing or rorting, then let us chase them down with the laws that we have got. The sanctions and penalties are clear. If it is a resourcing issue, let us resource properly, and let us send the dogs onto those who are breaking the law. (Time expired)

Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

While the member for Lyne is in the chamber, I want to say that I do not often compliment him; I do not often do that in this place. Let me say that that is the finest speech I have heard him deliver in this chamber, and I would say to him that others should review and listen to his very eloquent speech delivered on this bill.

The Prime Minister, in her Press Club address earlier in the year, said that there would be days for governing. If that is what this is, I think the legitimate question can be asked: governing for whom? This bill should give some very strong clues. This bill, and other bills, that the government is trying to ram through the parliament in the dying days of this government follows on from previous bills that were rammed through last week that give additional union powers for right of entry to ensure that union members can come into workplaces, speak to employees in their lunch rooms to try and join them up to the union. Not only that, we saw last week that there was a bill that allowed for union members to be flown around the country to remote locations and to have that paid for by the employer—their flights, accommodation and all the rest—so that they could join up union members in workplaces. This legislation is also driven by the union movement's demands. Let me quote from the ACTU Secretary, Dave Oliver, who said of these 457 visas:

This is nothing short of a racket involving migration agents, involving loan sharks, involving shonky employers that are exploiting workers on our shores, which is just totally unacceptable.

He went on to talk about the fact that 457 workers face losing their jobs for being off work, being ill or engaging with unions, and then he said:

They are threatened that if they speak out at any stage well they'll be sacked, and under the current scheme in 30 days they're deported.

The vice president of the ALP and the secretary of the Transport Union Workers, Tony Sheldon, talked about these 457 visas and said that it is essentially engaging in human trafficking and a form of slavery. He says that if you are trafficking people into this country to exploit them against the standards and ethics and legal requirements of this country, the appropriate title is human trafficking. These are quite strange statements when you examine them, and when you examine that there are, as the member for Lyne has rightly pointed out, already obligations on employers with sanctions and penalties that can be enforced against any exploitation. Certainly, on this side of chamber we do not support that.

This focus on foreign workers, on foreign workers somehow taking Australian jobs, is curious when you consider that Tony Sheldon, one of the main architects of the bill that is before the parliament right now, has three people in his union who are on 457 visas. So it is a bit of a case of 'do not what I do but just simply do as I say'. His chief of staff, his media officer and his senior organiser are all on 457 visas because apparently he could not find anybody suitably qualified in Australia to do those jobs. This is at a time when he says 457 visas are 'harming the community'. It is also curious that the Prime Minister would bring forward this bill when in her office she has her senior communications adviser here—you guessed it—on a 457 visa.

One can only ask the question: why is it then that the government is bringing forward this bill? It is a union demand, and that is very clear. Is it because the union movement gives such significant donations to the Labor side of politics? Is it because the union leadership helped the architects of the removal of the former Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, with one of them, Paul Howse, actually going on television saying that he had in fact been part of that decision to install Julia Gillard as Prime Minister? Is it because we have paid union organisers, paid for by the union membership of the Australian workers, working for the Labor Party during election campaigns? Is it for these reasons that we see this bill before the parliament? Well, one can only ask the questions.

The government say that there is a significant problem with 457 visas. They claim, and the minister has claimed this on a number of occasions, that there have been 10,000 cases of abuse. When he was asked to justify this quiet extraordinary claim and when he was asked for the evidence, he had to walk away from that claim. He said actually it was just a forecast, not based on any evidence but simply a forecast. I suppose he was really taking a leaf out of Treasurer Wayne Swan's book here as he likes to pronounce forecasts and his forecasts are never usually terribly accurate. When the minister was asked if there had been any reports done on this and if there was any evidence from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship of widespread abuse and rorting, the clear answer to that question was no.

When you turn to groups and ask the Australian Industry Group or the Migration Council Australia if there is any evidence to suggest that there has been widespread abuse and rorting, the answer again is no. When you ask a member of the government's own Ministerial Advisory Council on Skilled Migration, Professor Peter McDonald, whether or not there has been any widespread abuse and rorting, again clearly the answer is no. So where there is no evidence to support the claim that has been made by the minister and by the government to bring forward this legislation before the parliament, one can only really be reminded of that great Australian film, The Castle, where Dennis Denuto was before the judge and was asked, 'Well, where is the evidence for this?' and he shrugged and said, 'Well, look, it is simply the vibe.' So one can only think that the minister has channelled the vibe and because of this we are seeing very damaging legislation being brought before us here today.

We on this side of the chamber are equally concerned about workers, whether they are Australian or they are foreign, being abused and being ripped off. Nobody would sanction that, which is why we have laws in place already to deal with that. But I suppose if the members opposite are concerned about rip-offs and abuses—abuses of power, abuses of funds, abuses of workers—perhaps they ought to look a little bit closer to home and I suggest they start with the Health Services Union, which have now had a number of reports into them whereby even members of this place have been accused of abusing union funds for their own gain. So if they are concerned about rackets and if they are concerned about abuse, I suspect and think that they should look a little bit closer to home. What we have seen from the government is a very irresponsible campaign to demonise foreign workers and they have done that through statements made by the minister and by the Prime Minister and members of this government. It is grossly irresponsible and, dare I say it, it has been verging at times on being racist.

The government wants to make significant changes in this bill to bring forward market testing. To explain this to those who are in the chamber today, currently there is no market testing needed when somebody is brought in on a 457 visa. You simply have to check whether or not the occupation has been listed on the consolidated skills occupation list, and this gets changed from time to time. It is updated by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, based on advice from Skills Australia, to make sure that we are responding in the most responsible way to the needs of the Australian community and the needs of the workforce. This bill will bring forward new market testing, with new onerous obligations that will be imposed on businesses when they bring in somebody on a 457 visa. These are new compliance obligations and new imposts on business. So, given that these are significant new obligations and new imposts and they will have significant costs, one would expect that there would be a regulatory impact statement, a RIS. This is something that is required of every piece of legislation brought into the parliament, but not in this case with a union piece of legislation—no, there are exceptions for such pieces. In fact, the Prime Minister has waived the need for a regulation impact statement. She has said instead that it is not necessary to have a RIS. Why would that be? I think that that would be perhaps because it would not withstand scrutiny to have a RIS.

This government has been quite extraordinary in bringing new obligations to business. As deputy chair of the coalition's Deregulation Taskforce I have travelled the country, I have spoken with businesses, and I have seen with my own eyes the amount of regulation and red tape that they have had to cope with, largely as a result of new regulations and bills brought forward by this government. There have been more than 23,000 new regulations imposed by this government since 2007. Is it any wonder that our businesses are suffering and that, as a result, jobs suffer? With these extra costs and obligations it will, of course, cost businesses in terms of time. The whole point of skilled migration is to be able to have a flexible market—to ensure that we are able to respond in a timely fashion to the needs of business so that we can continue to grow our economy and continue to more broadly grow jobs and opportunities for all.

Our skilled migration process has been essential throughout our history to our economic success and to our economy. You only need to look back at the Snowy Mountains scheme to know that this scheme was largely delivered by migrant workers. Today we know that there are so many people who come here on 457 visas for a period of time to help contribute to our economy. I think of Victoria in the great success that we have had both as a state and as a nation in breakthroughs—in cutting-edge research—with our scientists and medical researchers. We have a number of people here on 457 visas doing this important work that puts Australia at the forefront. Yet this government would jeopardise that with this bill. This government would put a stop to that with this bill.

The 457 visas have been a major component of the skilled migration program. This program is temporary. That is quite an important point to note. We bring workers in when they are needed and when they are not needed, we don't. This program needs to have that flexibility. And let us not demonise the people who choose to come here and work in Australia, because these people pay taxes. They bring their families, they pay for their own welfare, their health needs, their education needs. They do all of that. They make a contribution to our economy.

In the time remaining let me say that it is important that we have a skilled migration program that has integrity. We do not want to see abuses or exploitation occur, but as the member for Lyne so rightly pointed out, we have these protections in place under the current laws that are available right now. It is the government that actually cut the compliance—not the opposition, but the government. So if there is a problem, and of course there has been no evidence presented that there is, then it is a problem of the government's own creation and they ought to take responsibility for that. (Time expired)

Debate adjourned.