Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (Senator Vanstone) to questions without notice asked today relating to skills shortages and to detention practices.

Senator Vanstone, in her public comments over the last week or so, has let the cat out of the bag. She has made it clear that one of the real agendas behind the government’s skilled migration policy—the increase of skilled guest workers in this country—is to suppress wages. She has confirmed again today in question time that one of the benefits of the government’s guest worker policy is that it helps suppress wage claims—the ones she regards as unreasonable.

We know that this government has an agenda that is all about downward pressure on wages. It is about seeking to drive down wages and conditions in this country. We know that that is the effect of the extreme industrial relations laws that this government has rammed through this parliament. The effect of these laws will be the seeking to lower the minimum wage in this country. We know, for example, that the government is imposing, through the delay in the so-called Fair Pay Commission considering the minimum wage claim, an effective wage freeze in this country for low-paid Australian workers because the Fair Pay Commission will not be considering this until spring this year, which is well over a year after the previous wage increase.

We also know that Professor Harper, the head of the Fair Pay Commission, has acknowledged that the government’s industrial relations legislation may well result in a lower minimum wage and we know for sure that, under this government’s extreme industrial relations changes, Australian workers can be required to trade away wages and conditions—such as overtime, penalty rates and rostering—for just 2c an hour. We know all of these things about the government’s industrial relations agenda and the effects it will have—that is, reducing wages, particularly those of the low paid in this country.

But this government is not content with simply imposing the parameters for lower wages on the poorest Australian workers through its industrial relations laws. The government also wants to ensure that employers have access to cheap sources of labour to undermine the wages and conditions of those workers in Australia who are lucky enough to be able, through their union or because of their position in the marketplace, to negotiate wages and conditions above the paltry minimum that this government seeks to impose. That is where the skilled migrant scheme comes in.

What we have seen from this government is a failure to train. The skills shortage we are experiencing in this country, particularly in the traditional trades, is a direct result of the Howard government’s failure to train Australians. I want to point out something, because in one of her answers Senator Vanstone decried Labor’s record on training. There was a particular Commonwealth minister who in 1996-97 proposed and presided over a reduction in Commonwealth training expenditure in 1997 and 1998. Which minister might that have been? Might it have been Senator Amanda Vanstone? Might it have been Senator Vanstone as Minister for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs in 1996-97 who presided over a cut in Commonwealth training expenditure from $909 million to $904 million in 1998?

Because there was an attack on the Leader of the Opposition’s training record, can I also point out that as minister in 1992 he provided an additional $720 million over three years to grow the vocational education and training system in this country, which is about $925 million in today’s dollar terms. This government reduced VET grants in 1996-97 and abolished the National Skills Shortages Strategy in the 1997-98 budget. It has presided over a failure to train. As a result of that, we have a skills shortage that means that there are some workers in this country who, by virtue of having skills in demand, can negotiate, under certified agreements, higher wages and conditions than the minimum that this government seeks to impose through its industrial relations changes.

So what do the government do? They say: ‘We’ll get you too. We’ll make sure that these employers can bring in skilled workers who can be employed under the minimum conditions.’ So workers in this country get it every which way. They get it under the government’s extreme industrial relations laws, which are about reducing wages, as Professor Harper demonstrated and as the examples that we have cited, like Spotlight, have demonstrated. These industrial relations changes are effectively about reducing minimum wages in this country and, on top of that, the government are ensuring through their guest worker strategy that those workers who are able to negotiate higher wages and conditions above these minima have to compete with cheaper labour sources from overseas. (Time expired)