Amanda Vanstone (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

It is not a question of what hours you work; it is a question of whether you invite the ABC into your house. They were allegedly only there for a few hours. I saw the ABC there—rather conveniently—a few hours later when, allegedly, the workers were taking calls from their wives in the Philippines. It was just fortuitous that these things all came together at the time the ABC cameras were there. The allegation is that some workers have been sacked—that is what the ABC says—as a consequence of their deciding to join a union. The department is investigating this. I should say that I had some advice provided from another source just before question time which leads me to conclude that this may be like many of the other allegations raised—ones that need very careful attention. For example, an allegation was raised with respect to Halliburton: we were told that Indonesian workers were getting paid $20 to $40 a day. That was only their daily bonus—they were getting paid something like $A60,000. Or there is the example of the Czech workers at the Holden plant, who were installing highly specialist equipment. Senator, you can be sure I will be looking very closely at this one.