Cassandra Fernando (Holt, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) recognises that:

(a) up to one in six recent migrants to Australia is paid less than the minimum wage;

(b) exploitation does not just affect individual workers but effectively drives down wages and worsens conditions for all Australian workers; and

(c) about 20 per cent of anonymous reports and disputes resolved by the Fair Work Ombudsman, and up to 80 per cent of litigations initiated by the Ombudsman in recent years involved migrants;

(2) acknowledges the Government is delivering on its commitment to improving employer compliance in the workplace by:

(a) introducing new criminal offences, additional enforcement tools, increased pecuniary penalties and a prohibition measure; and

(b) enhancing safeguards and protections for workers through co-designing a range of initiatives; and

(3) commends the Government for introducing stronger protections for temporary migrant workers to ensure a better future for all workers.

I support the Albanese Labor government's remarkable reforms to reducing migrant worker exploitation in Australia. My electorate, like several others across the country, is home to a large number of people born overseas. Many of them moved to Australia during their working lives to live in a country where they believed they could earn a fair day's wage for a fair day's work, be guaranteed work rights essential for a productive economy and be protected from harassment and coercion in the workplace. Most migrants, including me and my family, were in for a rude shock.

I started working at several fast-food and hospitality chains from an early age to supplement the income I used to receive from working in retail. Early on I noticed the stark contrast in the treatment of migrant workers, like me, and the treatment of my Australian-born colleagues. We were offered employment only if we agreed to work for cash in hand. Our super contributions were overlooked and when asked about it the excuses ranged from 'administrative errors' to lies such as, 'Only Australian citizens receive super.' Unpaid overtime became the rule, not the exception. Any protest against this treatment was responded to with threats that we would be reported to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, as it was known at the time, for breaking the law, even though we were forced to do so.

Some of you might ask, if that was the treatment at a workplace, why did you not change jobs? The fact is that, many times when the line was pushed too far, we did. But we realised that this exploitation was systematic. The constant underpayment, rorting and harassment were not limited to a particular employer. Instead, they were endemic and quickly dampened any hope of being treated fairly in the workplace.

Plenty of research conducted since then reflects the experiences migrants often go through. The Grattan Institute noted in one of their reports that one in six recent migrants are paid below the minimum wage, and a report by Unions NSW reached similar conclusions. Temporary visa holders make up four per cent of the workforce, but in 2021-22 they made up 26 per cent of all litigations initiated for breaching the Fair Work Act. For a decade, the previous government put the safety of migrant workers at the bottom by failing to implement the recommendations of the Migrant Workers Taskforce report. All workers in Australia should be safe and feel protected at work, regardless of their visa status, and it hurts all workers when employers engage in a race to the bottom.

The Migration Amendment (Strengthening Employer Compliance) Bill 2023 will provide greater penalties to target unethical employers who mistreat and exploit vulnerable migrant workers on temporary visas. By establishing a criminal offence to deter employers from coercing, unduly influencing or pressuring a temporary migrant worker to breach a work related visa condition, the bill will protect employees who are on the weaker end of the power imbalance. In addition, it will be an offence for employers to use a person's immigration status to exploit them in the workplace. Employers who engage in improper practices, such as underpaying or otherwise breaching their obligations in the employment of workers, will also be prohibited from hiring any additional people on temporary visas for a period. The Australian Border Force will be provided with new tools to improve compliance outcomes, modelled on measures available to Fair Work inspectors.

I commend the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, Andrew Giles MP, for introducing these reforms, and I would also like to wish Andrew Giles MP a happy 50th birthday. I am proud the Albanese Labor government is delivering stronger protections to ensure a better future for all workers in this country. I thank the House.

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Russell Broadbent (Monash, Liberal Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Firstly, I congratulate the member for Holt on her address and for bringing to the parliament her personal experience of what happened to her and her family. One of the good parts about this place is that the parliament attracts a diversity of people, and the member for Holt has obviously risen above the outcomes and did not remain cynical about the approach of Australian employers in this country. She obviously joined the Labor Party. I would have suggested she might have joined the Liberal Party had she been thinking correctly at the time, but she joined the Labor Party, and she's ended up right here in this parliament as the member for Holt in the House of Representatives. Obviously, she made the point that there are people out there who are without the control of government.

I would also offer the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs my great congratulations on his 50th birthday. Mine was 22 years ago, and he sounds very young, but I certainly congratulate Andrew. Andrew has been a friend in this House for a long time. Andrew, I congratulate you on your 50th birthday, which is a very significant birthday in the life of anyone, especially when you are a member of parliament and you have some very difficult issues to face. These issues have been brought to our attention by the member for Holt, and there will be legislation covering these things.

All governments, going back to Labor governments before the coalition government, know that we can't find around 60,000 people in Australia. We don't know where they are. We don't know where they're working. We are able, at different times, to put in a task force and go and find as many people as possible and see who's exploiting the system.

But there must be a proviso here, and I hope that will be in the legislation. That proviso is this: let it not be a witch hunt for employers who break the rules without knowing they're breaking the rules—for those people who legitimately think that they're paying the award rate when there have been changes that weren't brought to their attention, as has happened with some of the biggest organisations in Australia, who all believed they were paying their employees correctly, and they weren't.

The member for Holt was talking about something totally different to that misunderstanding of the award or whatever the big banks and other people claim. You're talking about direct exploitation of workers for the benefit of that organisation, especially migrant workers who come here. Why do they come? Why do we give many of them a visa to come directly to Australia? That is because they are in another country of their own and they are in difficult circumstances like we would not understand in this country. Families come to this country with hope, a view to gain some control of their lives and, most importantly, the desire to belong. They come to this nation to belong.

To be exploited when you first come here with all your hopes and dreams put before you—your first job as a migrant, and you are seen to be a second-class citizen straight off. What you thought you were coming to isn't your experience immediately. You then need to have leaders in your community to go to, a union to go to, a mentor to go to—someone to tell, 'This is happening to me.' But too often they haven't got the contacts and those sorts of abilities to say this, and they are too frightened of their experience. They have a job. 'If I go to another one, does the same thing happened to me? Is it any different with the next employer?' That question would have to be asked.

So I thank the member for Holt for bringing this to the attention of the parliament. I look forward to the introduction of that legislation into the parliament, and I actually hope it achieves all that it sets out to achieve. But I remind everybody: let there be clear winners in this place and not innocent bystanders knocked over by the legislation.

Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I take great pride in being in this chamber today supporting the member for Holt by speaking in support of the motion that she has moved here today and standing in support of Australia's migrant workforce and all migrant workers in our country. It should not come as a surprise to see members from this side of the chamber stand up in support of workers, especially those workers who have migrated to Australia on a temporary basis. Whether their purpose for coming to Australia was to work, whether they are working in addition to studying in Australia or whether they have been engaged by an unscrupulous employer to work outside the conditions of their visa, if they're working in Australia, they deserve the ability to do so free from exploitation and free from the possibility of exploitation. That exploitation may be in the form of underpayment of wages, conditions, the minimum legal standard or a rate they are entitled to, all the way through to making migrant workers work beyond the conditions of their visa or even withholding a migrant worker's passport. Sadly the list is significantly longer than these examples.

Further to this, it should come as no surprise that it is a Labor government that comes to this parliament to stand up for the rights of working people to make it harder for employers to get away with exploiting our migrant workforce and harder to exploit all workers. Every one of us, after hearing that up to one in six migrants to Australia is paid less than the minimum wage, should find that statistic shocking to the core. We don't want to think that it's true, but we all know it is. We can't ignore our obligations and our duties as parliamentarians to stop this from happening. I know I won't, I know the member for Holt won't, I know the member for Tangney won't, I know the member for Solomon won't and I especially know the Albanese Labor government won't.

Those of us from the union movement can point to a number of examples that would count as horror stories of migrant worker exploitation in its own right, but the catalyst for action was the systemic breaches that were uncovered in 7-Eleven's stores. Luckily for those who had worked or were working at 7-Eleven at the time—and, for that matter, migrant workers across Australia who were experiencing systematic breaches of their workplace rights or entitlements—regardless of whether they knew this at the time or not, these reports were so flagrant and so well-documented by the media that it shocked the conscience to such an extent that the Turnbull government was forced to act. The Migrant Workers Taskforce was created to provide a report to the government at the time on an issue that, at least, our side of politics was not naively unaware of. At the end of the day, providing recommendations as part of the report to government might just have been what the doctor ordered. However, the previous government would do what they did best.

As we all know, the report was first commissioned back when Malcolm Turnbull was Prime Minister. The task force finally delivered its report to the government well after the member for Cook had ambitions for Malcolm's job and subsequently became Prime Minister himself. The Morrison government received that report in February 2019, with the government's response provided in early March 2019. An election was held not long after that. Then, nearly one whole parliament later, the Morrison government introduced the Migration Amendment (Protecting Migrant Workers) Bill 2021. They did so at the end of November 2021, knowing they were only going to have a handful of sitting days in the next year before they called an election.

Like with many other things in the life of that government, they achieved what they wanted to achieve: being able to say that they did something while they ran down the clock. It may have taken two changes of prime minister since the task force's inception, but, most importantly, it took a change of government. Now we finally have a government, the Albanese Labor government, that is introducing legislation into this place to protect our migrant workforce from exploitative practices from employers or prospective employers. Whether you want to say that the previous government's lack of real action to legislate on this matter was by circumstance or design, it is frankly no coincidence that it is Labor standing up for all working people, regardless of their origin. If they work on our shores, they are deserving of our protection in the workplace.

Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Holt for the motion. All workers deserve to be treated fairly, and that's a principle that I certainly believe in. I think the tone of this motion is that temporary migrant workers are routinely exploited. I want to emphasise that I don't think this is the case in my electorate, and I want to give some examples. Overseas labour is fundamental to our productivity, and my region has a significant agricultural and horticultural sector. A lot of the migrants who came after the war, particularly after World War II, stayed on, developed wonderful businesses and now have incredible lives and incredible families. I think that's something we should all celebrate.

The manufacturing businesses, vehicle workshops, dry-cleaning, hospitality, farms and food manufacturers are incredibly reliant on migrant workers. Overseas workers are not—as used to be said—taking jobs from Australian workers; increasingly, they are our workers. Migrants held 26.3 per cent of all jobs in Australia in 2019 and 2020. There have been some issues with migrant workers in the nation. The Australian Border Force's register of sanctioned sponsors has identified businesses or individuals who have breached their sponsorship obligations. In Victoria, going back to 2015, there are more than 300 on the list. There are just two agricultural businesses in Victoria that appear on that register, and both happen to be in my electorate.

I know there is a need for constant vigilance and constant enforcement of the laws that exist, and we'll certainly look at new legislation that can increase that. But it can't be all stick and no carrot. I think mistakes can be made if the system is too complex. Running a business is hard work. It's very difficult, so mistakes can be made. Then, there can be malfeasance. That needs to be punished, and I fully support that. I think about what Labor's proposing to do with PALM, the Pacific Labour Mobility Scheme. They've changed the PALM scheme to guarantee a minimum of 30 hours of pay per week. It sounds good to people who have never run a business, or a horticultural business, but, in my electorate, horticultural business is paying tens of thousands of dollars to top up workers' wages, regardless of the amount of productivity in that week. The fruit might not be ready to harvest, but they'll get the hours the week after. That doesn't work for the farming systems.

I want to share this story. I recently went to the funeral of an elderly fruit grower whose family has been growing fruit in my region for a number of years. He was an older guy; he was in his early 80s. It was very sad that we lost him. The most inspiring thing at the funeral was when the Pacific Islander workers, who had been back and forth between that farm and their home in the Pacific Islands for so many years, got up and sang their Pacific Island songs from their culture to honour this man who'd worked so well with them and given them such dignity through his business. They helped his business, and his business helped them to send money home to their families. The respect for this elderly fruit grower that was had by those Pacific workers—that's the way it should work, and that's the way we want it to work. I can assure the member for Holt that, overwhelmingly, in my electorate that's the way it does work. If there are ways in which we can make it work like that for everyone, then I'm all ears and I'm sure this side will be very supportive of that. But it has got to make sure that productivity of business and profitability of business are at the forefront. Without that, none of us have a job, whether you're a migrant worker or an Australian worker. That's why the previous coalition government introduced the ag visa—we thought it would be a good way to get more migrant workers here, also on a path to permanency. We'll look at your legislation about migrant workers, but please relook at the ag visa. I think it was a way of getting—

An honourable member: You guys didn't do anything—

a real win-win situation for not only businesses in the region but also migrant workers.

Sam Lim (Tangney, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Modern Australia has been built by immigration on the land that our First Nations have cared for through countless generations. Except for them, we are all immigrants. One-third of workers in Australia are immigrants, one-fifth are not citizens, and seven per cent are temporary migrants. In most cases, they are highly skilled. Half of them are likely to already have a bachelor degree or postgrad. But being highly skilled seems to not be enough in Australia. It was the Albanese Labor government that raised the Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold. Before that, it had not been updated in 10 years. Employers could get away with offering skilled migrants below market wages. Until this government made the decision to fix the complicated visa system, many qualified migrants were left with no option but to take unskilled jobs with much lower pay.

When you are granted a visa to come to Australia, you receive a notification from the Department of Home Affairs with a section that reads, 'All people working in Australia, including those from overseas, have rights and protections at work.' This is a part of our cultural DNA. It is a basic principle of giving everybody a fair go. It is recognising that we are a multicultural society, a country where many talented people of diverse origins can come to have a fulfilling career. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. According to statistics from the ABS and Fair Work, newly arrived migrant workers are more likely to be underpaid. As many as 16 per cent of migrant workers were paid below the minimum wage. That is 82,000 workers. Underpayment is just the first form of exploitation. Other forms include under-the-table cash payments, which contribute to employment insecurity. Underpaid super contributions, underpaid penalty rates, underpaid leave and unreasonable deductions for accommodation are also common practices.

So many workers are treated as if they do not belong. They are threatened with being reported to the authorities, even if they are lawful migrants. It is so much worse when this lack of empathy comes from the people elected to take care of everyone. In 2020, at the start of the pandemic, the then Prime Minister told migrants, 'It's time to go home.' I want to tell Mr Morrison: for many of them, many of us, Australia is home.

The disadvantages that many migrant workers face are not just a handicap for them; they have consequences for our economy. Employers that underpay workers gain an unfair advantage. Their competitors suffer from the pressure of having to reduce costs to survive. In a market where workers are underpaid, both Australian-born and immigrant workers lose bargaining power. This harms businesses that do the right thing; it harms workers regardless of where they are from; and it damages our reputation. Why would any skilled professional want to come to Australia if their rights won't be protected?

Our commitment is to protect the rights of workers, no matter where they come from. The Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Protecting Worker Entitlements) Act 2023, passed in June, guarantees that workers will continue to have the same rights and entitlements under workplace law regardless of their migration status. But it is necessary to take this a step further and implement the recommendation made by the Report of the Migrant Workers Taskforce. Introducing new criminal offences and increasing the maximum criminal and civil penalties for work related offences in the Migration Act will deter those employers seeking to exploit vulnerable workers. Breaching a work related visa condition should not be considered a criminal offence, and worker exploitation should be considered in decisions regarding visa cancellations. (Time expired)

James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Firstly, I obviously commend the sentiment in this motion regarding ensuring that workers aren't exploited in this country—any workers, particularly, as this motion touches on, migrant workers. I certainly believe that we have a relatively robust framework in this country to make sure that, where wrongdoing occurs, the avenues are there for taking that up and potentially initiating prosecution. We have the Fair Work Commission. I accept that a lot of migrants who might be in that circumstance could do with some more support and understanding of what their rights are and how they can access remedies for mistreatment.

But I also want to take the opportunity to put on the record that I hope the great employers of this nation, particularly small businesses, don't take this motion as an indication that parliament thinks that anyone who employs someone has a natural inclination to exploit them, because that's complete rubbish. In fact, I have never come across a business in my electorate that doesn't value its employees as its most important asset. Businesses invest in their employees. Very often they pay them more than they need to. They certainly access the skilled migration system and find it of great value, and they do that after they have exhausted the avenue of employing Australians. They work through the very difficult skilled migration system, and I agree with the intention of dramatically simplifying that. I hope that is genuinely the government's intention.

The problem has been the unions. For years and years, they have stood in the way of that. The unions have always thought that a migrant is here to steal an Australian's job. That's been the policy position of the unions, who have fought against any attempt to simplify the system. We know that, when we were in government just recently, the unions visited South-East Asian embassies, telling them not to sign up to our visa program. They said not to do it, because in the view of the unions this was some type of attempt for us to help migrants come in and fill jobs in regional communities that apparently should be kept for Australians. These people just don't exist to fill the roles. We wish that they did. 'I'd much rather go through all the trouble of sponsoring someone to come in through the skilled migration program rather than employ an Australian,' said no business ever! There is no way you wouldn't much prefer to employ an Australian. But obviously we value the migration program and the opportunity to bring skilled workers into our economy, because we all recognise the benefit of that and we want our economy to be growing. We don't want to constrict our economy by not having the appropriate workforce.

The government have two positions here, or their union masters have one and they've got another. This one says that migrants need more support and protection, but we've got a union movement trying to constrict migration into the country. That's why we know that the ag visa is a nonstarter with the Labor Party. It's nothing to do with what the view of the government might be; it's just the rules of union control over that political party. These are the things you can and can't do, and the unions make and dictate those policies. So we're all for sensible, skilled migration into this country and we're all for addressing skills shortages, particularly in regional areas. We demonstrated that in government. Businesses don't want to exploit workers. That's not the default position of employers whatsoever.

This motion talks about people being paid less than the minimum wage. That's unacceptable. I know a lot of people earning less than the minimum wage. You know who they are? They are small-business owners. They are people who, when you look at the amount of hours they put into their business—their cafe, newsagency or whatever—and you divide that by what they are earning, they are being paid way below the minimum wage. Some of the lowest-paid workers in our economy are small-business owners, people who own their own business. They get paid last if they get paid at all, and in tough times they don't get paid at all. They can lose money and lose their business.

In speaking to this motion, I don't want it to seem in any way that there's some default position that employers are evil and always seeking to exploit their workforce like we're in a Charles Dickens novel. That's not the case at all. I stand up for employers and say, 'Thank you for what you do: for running businesses, for employing Australians, for paying the taxes that allow us to have the society that we so richly appreciate.'

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired and the debate is interrupted. The resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.