Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the following matter be referred to the Legal and Constitutional References Committee for inquiry and report:

Temporary Business Long Stay (subclass 457) visas, with particular reference to:

(a)

the general efficiency and effectiveness of the visa;

(b)

the safeguards in place to ensure the integrity of the system;

(c)

the Government’s performance as administrator of the visa system;

(d)

the role of domestic and international labour hire firms and agreements;

(e)

the potential for displacement of Australian workers;

(f)

the difference between the pay and conditions of visa holders and the relevant rates in the Australian labour market;

(g)

the Government’s labour market testing required before visa approval;

(h)

the Government’s requirements of Regional Certifying Bodies for visa certification;

(i)

the interaction of this visa with the Work Choices legislation; and

(j)

any other related matter.

Today, I would have preferred to see the Senate accept, move and allow the reference to go off to the Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee. Unfortunately, that is not the case. It is particularly unfortunate when only yesterday we had a Procedure Committee debate about how this government has taken the single-minded view of reducing the number of committees from 16 to eight. Our side, Labor, submits that the prime motivation for this is effectively to deny this place the ability to scrutinise legislation and other matters and hold the government to account. We find on day 2—in other words, the next day—that it is also keen on ensuring that there would not be proper scrutiny of its work.

At the outset, it is worth reiterating this small point: Labor supports 457 temporary visas as a mechanism to address short-term skills shortages. It was the Keating Labor government which in late 1995 first announced that it would introduce a temporary skilled visa program. This motion would have allowed the Senate—but I know the numbers in this place; this government is going to vote it down—to have a look at how this government has managed the visa program. But, more broadly, there were a number of heads that went to the motion that would allow the Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee to look at this area.

A temporary skilled visa program is a necessary component of a sensible approach to ensuring that Australia has a complete complement of skills across all occupations. But it is a short-term solution. It cannot replace training Australians to address skills shortages in the long term. On the other hand, new skills training will not have an impact on skills that are required now, so a temporary skilled visa is a positive initiative if designed and administered correctly. However, along with the Work Choices legislation, it appears the present iteration of the 457 temporary skilled visa program is the centrepiece of the Howard government’s persistent attempts over the last decade to drive down the wages and standards of Australian workers and continue to Americanise Australia.

It has had a number of opportunities to look at 457 visas. Back in 1999 there was a Review of illegal workers in Australia: Improving migration compliance in the workplace. This government has had this on the agenda for some time but has ignored it, and has ensured that the mechanism continues to drive down skills and wages. It ensured that this happened by not requiring a labour market test, by allowing 457 visas into industries where there was already a skills overload of Australian graduates and by approving visas for wages far less than market value or the current certified agreement or enterprise agreement. The visa is the hallmark of a government that is out of touch with Australian families. It is these abuses of the 457 visa system that require the attention of a references committee.

Dealing with each part, of course the government’s performance as administrator of the visa system is worth looking at. This government is charged with the responsibility of administering the visa system. Has it been doing its job well? Are there any failures? I can certainly assure the Senate that I am unlikely to hear the answers from Senator Vanstone herself. In its drive to push down the wages and standards of Australian workers, the latest development on this front has been a move from skilled labour to semiskilled labour, and there are even reports of unskilled labour being utilised. There are reports—and I will not go into them in detail; I do not want to take up the entire time that is available—in a range of semiskilled and unskilled industries where these visas are being used. There are more examples of this shift as well coming out of the meat processing industry in South Australia which have been reported in various newspapers. It is not something that this government can ignore or hide. It cannot say, ‘It is just not happening.’

It is clear that the government is abusing its position in administering this legislation in an endeavour to expand 457 to include the areas of unskilled and semiskilled labour and to Amercanise Australia. It has nothing to do with a skill shortage but everything to do with driving down the wages and conditions of Australian workers. It does have the potential to displace Australian workers. There is evidence that the 457 visas are already adversely affecting jobs and the training of young Australians in some sectors. A recent study by Mr Bob Kinnaird looked closely at the information, communication, technology—ICT—industry. The study’s key findings were damning. He found a situation in which, despite a near record proportion of Australian computer science graduates being unable to find full-time work, increasing numbers of 457 visas were granted for foreign workers in the ICT field. The ICT field is not a field where there is a skills shortage. It is a field in which Australian graduates are finding it increasingly hard to find employment. This is not a field where we should be seeing increasing numbers of foreign workers entering Australia. It does fly in the face of the idea of a temporary visa scheme to remedy temporary skill shortages, if that is what the government is going to argue. It puts paid to the argument that we need to import these workers because of a skills shortage. It is being pushed by an out-of-touch government because there is an agenda here to attack the rights and conditions of Australian workers in part via the importation of foreign workers who are not given the same protections in terms of salaries as Australian workers.

Of course, then there is the difference between pay and conditions. To sponsor a foreign worker on a 457 visa, there is a requirement on the employer—and the government will hide behind it—that the foreign worker be paid either an award wage or the minimum wage set out in the legislation, whichever is highest. The problem, of course, is that the market employment area does not work like that. There are certified agreements, enterprise agreements, award conditions, overaward payments and perhaps even what might be described as market rates, but they are not required to be met. If an employer cannot find an Australian to work at the minimum temporary work visa salary, which may be $20,000 below the EB, the CA or the market rate for that profession, then it is said that there is a skill shortage. I doubt very much whether in fact there is a skill shortage, but that is what the employer will argue because they do not want to pay the minimum wage that is set out.

There should be labour market testing and this government should be doing it. Before August 1996 there was a principle in operation to help counter this problem and ensure that there was labour market testing: for temporary work visas, access to Australia’s labour market by foreign nationals should not be at the expense of the employment of Australian citizens and Australian permanent residents. That was the concept. It is a concept that this government wants to skate away from. As part of this, employers were required to undertake labour market testing and demonstrate that no suitable Australian citizen or resident was available for those jobs. Australians essentially got the first bite at the apple under that scheme. It is not a concept that this government finds sensible to ensure happens today.

Currently an employer wishing to bring in a foreign worker on a temporary four-year visa does not even have to advertise the position in Australia. Under Senator Vanstone’s administration, it appears some employers believe it is cheaper in the long run to travel internationally in search of staff than take out an ad in a regional newspaper. It is hard to believe, but it is true. One employer, Golden West Group Training in Queensland, wrote to the shadow minister for immigration on 26 May saying: ‘You may well suggest we attract and migrate labour from areas of high unemployment both on the coast and interstate. However, this group training organisation under the current funding regime does not have the resources to advertise and recruit outside its own area.’ That is what it said. But in the same letter Golden West stated: ‘Golden West recently exhibited at the DIMA-sponsored Australia Needs Skills Expo in Shanghai and Hong Kong.’ That is where they were found. And what were they doing there, you might ask? They cannot get the funds to look for workers in Australia, but they can end up in Shanghai and Manila in an attempt to attract further overseas qualified and experienced people to rural Queensland. It beggars belief.

So, under this scheme, employers will actively seek out workers from overseas, not because of any problems with finding workers in Australia but because it is simpler and cheaper to do it overseas, it appears. As we know from the parliamentary secretary to the minister, Mr Andrew Robb, advertising in local areas is not even required. That is from the parliamentary secretary’s mouth. I always mention Senator Vanstone, but her portfolio has been pared back; most of it has been given to Mr Andrew Robb in any event. But we know that this government enjoys this scheme and will defend it, come what may.

Of course the government do not want a references committee to have a look at it. The argument might be put that it is a guest worker program by stealth. That is something that would disappoint me more than anything—if this government were in fact using this scheme as the thin edge of the wedge to introduce a guest worker program. We have a move to semiskilled and unskilled labour; we have no labour market testing; we have wages in many industries well below the market rate, which can be used in the scheme; and we have no requirements to advertise the position. When you put those elements together, you could only describe it as a de facto guest worker program. In truth, the government is playing three-card monte with it. You pick up a card that says ‘temporary skilled visa’ but when you turn it over it says ‘guest worker’. Let’s add in the fact that most 457 visas are granted to people who are already onshore—so, many are already here under another arrangement—and you can see that what we are effectively developing is a pool of workers with few legal rights whose remaining in Australia is dependent on the goodwill of their employers. And we are putting them up against Australian workers.

This is part of the government’s plan to Americanise our workforce. In 10 years we have gone from a country that was based on the Australian concept of a fair go all round to one that, under Mr Howard, has an increasingly Americanised dog-eat-dog style economy and value system.

Of course, it does not stop there. These visas interact with Work Choices. The reference to the committee will deal with that interaction as well, between the visa system and the Work Choices legislation that was forced through this house last year. As we know, the intended outcome of the Howard government’s Work Choices legislation was to weaken the bargaining power of Australian workers and to drive down wages and conditions. But this visa system is also going to have an impact on this area as well. Even before Work Choices was rammed down the throats of the Australian public, foreign workers were already in less of a bargaining position than Australian workers. They have of course had less experience with the Australian workplace relations system. They have potentially fewer network supports, such as family. They have less of an idea of their workplace rights—or what is left of Australian workplace rights.

And it does not stop there. The impact of the 457 visa scheme on Australian wages and conditions will make the labour market even harsher for them than for Australians. A foreign worker is in a far worse bargaining situation than an Australian worker is when presented with an Australian workplace agreement and told to take it or leave it. As a foreign worker, if you do not sign an AWA, not only do you now not get the job but you also may not get a visa, and where will that leave you? This is the way employers can use the scheme. It is not an Australian value that I enjoin with.

It really takes an out-of-touch government to say that this scheme should not be looked at by a references committee. They will stand by and say: ‘We accept the abuses under the system. We accept the failings of the system because the outcome suits us.’ Employers are—

Debate interrupted.