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

In going through this audit report, it occurred to me that it is very relevant to some of the debate we have been having over the course of the last several months in respect of the abuse of the 457 skilled worker visa. This report clearly indicates that there is already a very comprehensive employment exchange program, job placement program, managed reasonably effectively by DEWR. The purpose of that program is to link supply and demand, the supply being job seekers and the demand being vacancies. The employment exchange program, which DEWR have in place, sets up a vacancy database and a job seeker database, matches them and has a notification process. There is also a payment process for placements.

The primary audit objective was to assess whether DEWR’s management and oversight of job placement and matching services is effective and, in particular, whether DEWR effectively manages, monitors and reports the performance of the JPOs in providing job placement services; whether DEWR effectively manages the provision of matching services, including the completion of vocational profiles and provision of vacancy information through auto-matching to job seekers; whether the job seeker and vacancy data in DEWR’s job search system is of high quality and is managed effectively; and whether DEWR effectively measures, monitors and reports job placement service outcomes. In particular, the third area I mentioned, which was whether the job seeker and vacancy data in DEWR’s job search system is of a high quality and whether it is managed effectively, goes directly to the issue of the skilled migration visa.

It occurs to me—and I raised this yesterday in this place as well—that there is substantial abuse of this visa application, but there is also substantial proper use of this visa. When it is managed in an area where there are identified skills shortages, where work has been done to try to employ people from within Australia and where that cannot happen, the logical process, when those skills are needed, is to try to recruit them from overseas. That is step 1.

But it should not simply be as easy as that. What is the next step? Surely, we have a process where people who require skills on an ongoing basis should be asked: ‘What contribution are you making to ensure that this is not a long-term shortage? Have you advertised? Why can’t you fill the position from within Australia? If you cannot fill it from within Australia and you need to temporarily get skilled migrants from overseas, what are you going to do to ensure that this is not an ongoing skills shortage?’ Being an electrician by trade before I came into this place, I am very concerned that in the electrical and, indeed, the plumbing area we have situations in Victoria where large numbers of apprentices are being put off or being put on down time because employers cannot provide enough work for apprentices at the same time as they are bringing in skilled electricians and skilled plumbers on 457 visas.

The reason they can do that is that there is no process where people actually have to demonstrate to the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs that they have advertised within this country and explain the reasons that they cannot attract workers to this country. They should also have to demonstrate to DIMA what they are doing to ensure there is ongoing training in the skills where there are shortages. I find it extraordinary that in areas of traditional trades where, because of the privatisation processes that have happened over the last 20 years, the public sector no longer fulfils a lot of that training need, the obligation has fallen on the private sector and they have failed to meet their obligation to train skilled workers. Yet, at the same time, they take the easy option of saying: ‘No-one else has done the training. I don’t do the training, so what I’ll do is try to get people from overseas to come and do that work and I won’t have a commitment to employing and training young Australians.’

VICTEC, the largest specialised electrical and plumbing group training company in the country based in Victoria, has 220 apprentice electricians. For this year up to 34 apprentices in any given month have been sent back from employers, have remained on down time and have not been paid, because employers have not got enough work to train these people. Out of the 65 plumbers at VICTEC, up to 16 of those apprentices have not been paid, being on down time, because again employers do not have enough work.

It does concern me that we have this visa system which is absolutely out of control. It seems to be the easy option for many employers—even though we have heard the minister say it is not an easy option—because employers are not being challenged. In my view, it would remove much of the abuse of this visa if employers first of all had to establish that there was indeed a problem in recruiting someone with those skills from Australia through an advertising process and then demonstrate that they actually had a plan to ensure that this was not going to be a long-term, ongoing problem. If you had that, you would get rid of a lot of the rogues who are using this visa purely for reasons of driving down wages and getting cheap, compliant labour to meet whatever objectives they seem to have. It really is beyond me that the government does not apply this simple test.

We have just seen reported in the press today—I am awaiting the formal details—that DIMA, I understand, has organised an agreement in the meat industry where employers will have to demonstrate that they have in fact advertised for those skills. That is a private agreement being negotiated between the meat industry and the appropriate department. If it is good enough there, where we know there has been substantial abuse, why isn’t that test being applied everywhere else? It is a logical test; it should be done.

No-one on this side objects to this visa if it is used appropriately where there is a demonstrated skills shortage. We do not have a problem with that. I urge the government, if they really want to have this visa used for the right purposes, to take away the opportunity for improper motives from employers by putting some few simple tests in place. It would take a lot of the heat out of this issue and we could get on with dealing with the problem of the general skills shortage in a more appropriate and structured way. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.