Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Here we go again: another bill, another gag. I will restricting my remarks to allow Senator Humphries the time to speak on this migration amendment legislation as well. He was involved in the very short inquiry that was held into the Migration Amendment (Offshore Resources Activity) Bill, which Senator Cash has told us about. The evidence that was taken in that inquiry makes it obvious that this is about a payoff to former Prime Minister Gillard's mates in the unions. That is all it is. It is about a pay-off to the unions. There was not even a regulation impact statement proposed on this legislation. Yet, under the Australian government's requirements, when there is a regulatory proposal that is likely to have an impact on business or the not-for-profit sector, unless it is of a minor or machinery nature and does not substantially alter existing arrangements there must be a regulation impact statement.

Why was there not a regulation impact statement? Firstly, I do not think that former Prime Minister Gillard wanted these bills exposed to the scrutiny that might go with a regulation impact statement. Goodness, someone might have actually worked out—as Senator Cash pointed out—that we do not even know, in terms of the overseas aspects of this bill, whether we are breaking the international Law of the Sea by putting this piece of legislation through. We do not know that. Goodness, we would not want a regulation impact statement for the temporary sponsored visas, or it might come out that there is in fact a much simpler and much better way of fixing this. That would be to simply look at the consolidated occupations list that is used and think about how you might amend that. I think that is the way we need to look at this.

If there are problems with the standard consolidated occupations list, for heaven's sake, let us just look at them and think about how we might fix that. I agree with Joanna Howe, writing in The Conversation earlier this week, when she said that the current mechanism for identifying skills shortages is too crude. There are 600 occupations on the consolidated standard occupations list. That is clearly too many. If the government's aim had been to improve the 457 visa system, the way they should have gone about it was to improve that list so that it genuinely represented occupations where there were shortages. It is not a tricky thing to do. It is a good list, it is a contemporary list and it is updated regularly—unlike the clunky labour market testing, which this government wants to put through.

I am reminded that the last time labour market testing was part of the 457 regime in Australia, there were all manner of rumours of rorts by the unions who were conducting the labour market testing for large employers. Particularly in the mining and grazing industries, the unions would—for a fee, of course—suss out whether there were enough local people to do the job or not. Those rumours were rife, particularly throughout Queensland, the last time there was a labour market test.

As Ms Howe pointed out in terms of labour market tests:

The issue with employer-conducted labour market testing is that this won’t stop the rorts of the 457 visa scheme. Good employers already recruit for local workers and when they can’t, they make an application to the department to use the 457 visa scheme. The vast majority of Australian employers are decent, law-abiding men and women who use the 457 visa scheme to fill genuine skill shortages. Nonetheless, bad employers exist.

There are not 10,000 of them, as the minister fantasised about when he was desperately trying to find an excuse for this union-instigated legislation—which should be voted down by anybody with a grain of courage or decency.