Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I guess that demonstration from Senator McGauran just confirms why we ought to be so worried about this scheme. He has tried to drive all the issues down to the level of a joke. We are very concerned about the abuse of the 457 visa category. We certainly acknowledge that, in areas where there is a demonstrated skills shortage, there should be such a scheme. As Senator Campbell pointed out, in the case of nurses this scheme has worked very well, and we support that. People have come in, they are not being exploited and they are receiving the proper rates of pay that apply to the other nurses in those situations.

Senator Humphries and Senator McGauran seem to be in a state of denial about the evidence that has been presented day after day in this parliament and widely in the public domain. They want to deny that there are actually problems. But there are very serious problems. The most serious problem is that you do not need to demonstrate that there is a skills shortage to apply this visa.

All the government would need to do to make this process work more appropriately and to take out most of the abuse would be to ensure that, if an employer wants to bring someone in for a skills based vacancy because they cannot fill that vacancy from within Australia, they are able to demonstrate that that is truly the case. If there were a process where the employer had to at least advertise, go through a process and demonstrate to DIMA that they had tried to fill the vacancy from within Australia, I think that would take a lot of the abuse out of the system. I cannot understand why the government will not take that very minor but absolutely important step. One would automatically assume that if you need to recruit from overseas it is because you cannot fill the position from within Australia. For those who do not even bother to do that but simply have a preference for employing people from overseas, you have to seriously question their motivation. That is what leads to the abuse, and the abuse has been demonstrated time after time.

Senator Humphries said that it is not appropriate for the opposition to raise matters that are under investigation by the department and that, in all instances, these matters are under investigation. I want to say to Senator Humphries that I think that is a little bit rich. If we look at the ABC Tissues case, back in August 2005 ABC Tissues was found to have breached a number of migration rules and regulations in terms of these visas. They were found to be in breach then. But what happened? Time after time, they were allowed to reuse the visa when they had knowingly broken the conditions. They were able to bring people in under the same visa application again, and there were simply more breaches.

I cannot remember whether Senator Humphries was here yesterday, but I assume he probably was here during question time. He would have heard Senator Vanstone say—in answer to a question I asked her—that the Hunan industrial company, which works directly for ABC Tissues, was getting a notice of intention to sanction on a number of grounds, including failing to pay the minimum salary level, failing to comply with other migration laws, failing to comply with workplace relations laws, not ensuring the necessary licensing of workers, failing to notify Immigration of relevant changes in circumstances and failing to deduct tax instalments.

Senator Vanstone has admitted these breaches in this area. These are breaches that have already occurred. So what has happened? That company, ABC Tissues and the Italian company—which Senator Vanstone did not name but referred to as the other company involved in the group of three—are continuing to be granted more 457 visas when it has been clearly demonstrated that those visas are being abused. Case after case has been put on the public record and raised here.

Senator Humphries, who obviously was not listening to Minister Vanstone yesterday, went on to ask on what basis we say that the government is not interested in ensuring that the law is upheld. We only have to point to that particular case. In August 2005 the company was found to have breached the migration laws and it is already through the process— (Time expired)

Question agreed to.