Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Hansard source

My associations are well known, and I say without any equivocation that I am on the side of workers in this matter. What we have here is a situation where the number of 457 visas granted has risen from 28,042 to 40,000 in one year. This is a program that has been fundamentally transformed under this minister. This is no longer a case of just meeting skills shortages; this is a case where the government is seeking to use this visa, in conjunction with its other draconian industrial relations policies, to drive down wages. It is being used as a device to break the power of working people in this country.

There could be no better example than what is occurring in the meat industry. We have given example after example, and this government has failed to respond to them in this chamber. I raised this matter earlier this week, and questions have still not been answered. The minister was only too happy to go on The 7.30 Report back in July and say, ‘I think there might have been some situations where people have tried to pay less than they should.’ Of course she said, ‘That is not something we condone.’ Of course when she gets caught it is not condoned. It is not condoned when it is exposed.

There are some 2,000 people on this visa in the meat industry at the moment. We have situations where workers are being asked to pay to agents in China as much as $10,000 to $20,000 to organise a visa. The workers then come to Australia and they are employed by a company, which often takes direct deductions for them for their housing and then undercuts their rate of pay, and then those workers have to meet the payment to the migration agent. People are being ripped off and are not provided with any protection by this government.

This is not a question of attacking migrant workers; it is a question of defending them. If the Democrats do not understand the difference, it is no wonder that they are being wiped out as a political force in this country. If they do not understand the fundamental difference in terms of human rights, of not allowing workers to be ripped off by this sort of program, then they are in a dreadful state.

This week and last week, the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs abused Labor senators who raised these questions. She has crowed about reports that she has drawn upon. Only yesterday she drew upon the report of Professor Peter McDonald from the Australian National University. She said that the unions and the opposition were wrong in their claims. What she failed to tell this Senate and the public is that the survey in the report that she drew upon was conducted in 2003 and 2004—before the transformation of this program under her administration. She failed to point out that this program did start as a relatively benign and modest program aimed at meeting skills shortages, but it has been transformed by this government, which is waging war upon the working people of this country in their drive to push down wages.

This program has fundamentally been transformed by a government that is seeking to establish a guest worker program. It wants to put a workers in a situation like that stated by the manager of the abattoirs at Bunbury. He has a number of people from Ghana employed at his plant. He was quoted in The Australian of Monday, 4 April 2005 as saying:

If they don’t work out or do the things required of them, you just inform Immigration and they go home.

That of course is the great advantage of this program for the unscrupulous. It is the situation that we have at the Wagstaff abattoir in Victoria. I have raised the matter at Senate estimates and have made inquiries seeking information, and I have had no response from this government.

This government is introducing a brave new world of 457 visas. It has done so throughout the last two years—importing guest workers to keep wages down. We now understand that the minister has been forced to agree with the states in various meetings with state ministers that there is the need for a major renovation of this program. She has admitted that up to 10 crucial aspects of the program are essentially flawed and require urgent and fundamental review—that is, the basic features of this program require substantive renovation. The minister has had to acknowledge that the 457 visa edifice is crumbling and is in danger of imminent and inglorious collapse—and so it should collapse.

The minister has conceded to the states that there is significant potential for breaches associated with the program. She has implied that sanctions in the regime are inadequate. I know that there have been at least 19 cases where sanctions have had to be applied. She has conceded that the kinds of breaches that are at risk of occurring include the underpayment of wages and breaches with regard to the housing of workers and occupational health and safety concerns. Contrary to her tirade against my colleague Senator Lundy in question time last week—when she declared that the problem of employer rorts in Canberra restaurants was negligible—the minister has had to admit to state ministers that the hospitality industry is a key problem industry with regard to 457 visas. The minister and the government have admitted that there are issues regarding the payment of wages to 457 visa holders, including the payment of overtime, the indexation of the 457 visa minimum salary levels and the deductions made by employers from workers’ salaries.

I think the minister said today that $65,000 was the average salary in the meat industry. Her departmental officials pointed out at Senate estimates that the minimum requirement was $42,000. That is a very substantial difference—not to mention the way in which you can get a figure of $42,000 to appear on a piece of paper. The fact is that the minister has been misleading the Senate on these fundamental questions. The minister has also had to agree that there is a need for information sharing between the Australian government and the states with regard to 457 visas, particularly on the question of determining skills shortages. I know of a recent situation in Victoria in the meat industry where the local area committee that was used as the basis for declaring the skills shortage in Victoria was drawn from South Australia so that the concerns that the Victorian government has expressed could be bypassed.

The minister has had to acknowledge that there is a serious problem with forum-shopping between various DIMA offices with regard to the regional certifying bodies and employers seeking 457 visa sponsoring status. She has acknowledged these things in discussions with her colleagues at the state level. She does not do it in here. She tells us an entirely different story. The minister has agreed that measures for determining employer commitment to the training of Australians must be more robust. She also says that there is agreement that communication between DIMA and 457 visa holders needs to be improved. At the same time, the minister has also indicated that she wants to strengthen the English language requirements for 457 visas. I do not think you would get a clearer critique than that which comes from the minister herself in her discussions with state ministers—not what she says here, but what she actually says through the various interdepartmental and ministerial briefings.

The minister nails a whole list of problems and shortcomings that have now been identified with the operations of the regional certifying bodies. They have been admitted to by the minister. They include questions of accountability, of record keeping and of serious conflicts of interest. This is not the genteel, benign program that some senators here would like to have us believe it is. This is not a program which just brings in a few extra doctors and nurses. This is a program that, if it is not watched, could be used to fundamentally undermine human rights in this country. That is something that we should all be very concerned about. We should not be coming in here with mealy-mouthed defences and suggesting somehow or other that it is racist to suggest that people are entitled to decent wages and conditions, that their civil rights should be protected and that they cannot be threatened by unscrupulous employers who say: ‘You either cop what I tell you or we will get Immigration to deport you.’ The labour agreements that the minister is now seeking to negotiate are a measure of her concern—(Time expired)