Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on the motion to take note of the answers given by Senator Abetz to questions put to him in question time. But I just want to say that that was a shocking waste of five minutes—that was terrible. You really had no grasp, Senator Seselja.

I want to touch on the important issue of the use of foreign workers, particularly but not limited to those on 457 visas. Everyone in this place knows my commitment to the Kimberley, after 30 years of working up and down that area both as a truckie and then as a senator. If we did not have foreign workers, backpackers, in the Kimberley, I would be the first one to admit that the Kimberley would close down. Roadhouses would not be open, pubs would not be open and cafes would not be open. It is a well-known fact.

We on this side of the chamber have never ever set out to demonise foreign workers. Our problem is when they are used to the exclusion of Australian workers, on substandard rates of pay and conditions, and when Australians are not even given the opportunity to apply for the job. It is all right for Senator Back to carry on, raise his voice, scream and somehow attack me. I was half asleep, but he woke me up. I do not know how I fitted into it.

Mr Deputy President, you have a commitment to working people, as demonstrated in your previous life. I am not running this as an argument from just this side of the chamber, but I am going to pose a small question that I do not expect to be answered. I am going to plant a seed in those opposite. I contacted a very good friend of mine yesterday. We were having a chat. I wanted to ask him how things were in WA. He has a transport company. I am going to dig deeper into this. He said to me: 'You are not going to believe what is happening in WA.' He said he has never seen it so bad, that it is shocking. He said, 'There is a mob in WA that have started up a removals company and they only target office removals,' which is a very, very important part of the removals industry, because it employs a heck of a lot of workers, predominantly after hours and on weekends. As an ex furniture removalist I say we made our cream on office removals on the weekend. But he has put to me—and he is going to give me the information—that this mob that have started up only use backpackers. They only access foreign backpackers to go out there, put on a pair of sand shoes or desert boots—no training, no occupational health and safety, not Australian residents, not going to spend a heap of their money and time here in WA. It is just a means to get a few bob and then take off somewhere else.

We welcome backpackers—crikey, the more the merrier—but I am going to dig deeper. There is an accusation that there are a number of mining companies in Western Australia using this mob. I am not talking little backyard ventures. I will report it to the Senate, I will investigate fully and I will go out in the media and tell that lot up there. I will be banging, clapping and throwing hand grenades—whatever I have to do. I do not want to start a 'union' fight; this is not a union fight. But I challenge that side of the chamber to stand with me because o senator in this place, no member of parliament in the other place, if these accusations are proven correct, could ever justify it. Not even the maddies on the far right on that side could justify the use of backpackers to circumvent Australian citizens carrying out furniture removals—office removals for multi-billion-dollar companies.

With that one cleared, I go to some of the questions to Senator Abetz. I was the one who raised the point about the mess that is their party room and the mocking that started. You do not have to be Einstein and pick up the paper every day to work out there is something going wrong on that side of the parliamentary chambers. You do not have to be Einstein to work out that every time the Treasurer and member for North Sydney opens his mouth there is a bevy of backbenchers who cannot wait to brief the media to have a crack at the mess that was and is this budget. Over 100 days, every day we go to the media there is someone backgrounding about what a mess this is. Even today. I am not going to have enough time, unfortunately, but the latest one is the absolute meltdown of the Treasurer in their party room today. I have run out of time, but I will get to contribute to this slapdown— (Time expired)

Question agreed to.