Laurie Ferguson (Reid, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Urban Development and Consumer Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Migration Amendment (Employer Sanctions) Bill 2006. I initially indicate endorsement of the opposition amendment, which goes to the issues of the protracted time that it has taken for this legislation to arrive, the use of the ‘reckless’ requirement to minimise the possibility of convictions and the issue of higher penalties for those employers who are repeat offenders. Many opposition speakers have made mention of the protracted history of the road to this legislation. Having listened to a number of the government’s speakers, I really have some feeling for the ministers involved—it is quite clear from the contributions of the members for Mallee, Riverina and Fisher that there is no great enthusiasm for this legislation on the government benches.

The member for Riverina spoke of a grower here or there possibly being a problem. She seemed to be preoccupied with possible embarrassment to employers in asking people whether they were ‘illegals’. She actually referred to the reality, in her mind, that you would be categorising certain nationalities. Just for her advice, perhaps the issue is a bit more complex because, from recollection, the main overstayers are from the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and China. The member for Mallee spoke in a similar vein.

The member for Fisher, in his characteristic idiosyncratic way, went a bit further. He spoke of a ‘carping opposition’ on these matters. He said: ‘It is not an important piece of legislation. It is very timely that it has arrived now after seven or eight years,’ and he thought that criticisms of tardiness were misplaced. Whilst on the surface one might think that there has been a lack of action by ministers involved, I perhaps feel that they have had a really hard row to hoe in bringing this legislation here, given a significant number of government members are preoccupied with the interests of particular industries. They have no interest whatsoever in the situation of Australian workers who are being undermined by this dereliction and whose conditions—their livelihoods and their families’ livelihoods—are being destroyed every day. These government members obviously have very little interest in the predicament of those people working illegally in often tenuous legal circumstances.

We have had some history of these matters. On 9 February 2004, Amanda Vanstone, the minister for immigration at the time, sent a letter to the national secretary of the construction, forestry and mining union. This week, as a matter of fact, she spoke of considerable work being done to make it easier for employers to check the work rights of visa holders. She said:

In addition to the work that has been done developing this legislation, my department has continued to conduct educative programs et cetera.

But, most particularly, she spoke those three long years ago of the proposed employer sanctions legislation which was ‘on the government’s legislative agenda’. She said:

My department is currently exploring options to ensure this proposal is an effective means of sanctioning employers who continue to employ illegal workers.

Three years ago we had assurances that legislation was just around the corner—that the department was working strenuously on the matter to try and get there. That was a whole three years ago but it was only a minor point along the road.

There was also the 1999 inquiry. Once again the member for Riverina seemed to be critical of the inquiry, but it certainly determined that there was an area of exploitation and a need for action. We can also talk about the ANAO audit of 2004-05. The member for Riverina assured us about DIMIA’s activities in following up people in her area but that ANAO report was not too fulsome in its praise of the department’s performance in this field. It said:

Although DIMIA publishes its estimate of overstayers, it is unable to provide an estimate of the number of noncitizens who are likely to be in breach of their visa conditions, for example, by working illegally.

That was in the report of 2004-05. That report further noted:

The ANAO suggests that DIMIA could assist users in interpreting the overstayer estimate and enhance the transparency and clarity in its external reporting by monitoring report of the error rate.

It also spoke of a number of criticisms of the department’s performance in this area. Previous ANAO performance audits into DIMIA’s onshore compliance function found that the development of data transfer arranged with other agencies at the state, federal and local authority levels had been slow. It noted the importance of effective coordination. It also spoke of failures in the development of IMTel. No evidence was found of any of the above quality assurance processes being in place or being considered for development. It further noted the need for more consistent integration of compliance target group profiling with DIMIA’s intelligence gathering and analysis capability et cetera.

So in this field we have had a significant number of assurances over the years from Ministers Vanstone and Ruddock and the CFMEU, which has been the most active union in this area, that the government was going to legislate. But it is seven years since the report and we have seen very little until this point. And, as the opposition’s amendment makes clear, we still have an unsatisfactory piece of legislation.

Bodies such as ACCI want to describe any criticism in this field as xenophobia. Quite frankly, I think the reality is that this government, which won an election in this country by indicating falsehoods about refugee claimants and their arrival in this country, has had a parallel policy of indicating to the Australian electorate a degree of toughness with regard to asylum seekers and a degree of toughness towards people who should be held in detention centres but, at the same time, has had a policy of ensuring that conditions in this country are minimised by opening the doors in relation to work visas and through a lack of action to protect conditions in this country in the immigration field.

I want to give a bit of credit to the former minister for immigration, Minister Vanstone. One thing about this politician is that she is very honest and very direct about what she says. She is the only person in this government to confess publicly that behind the liberalisation in relation to visas was a policy to repress wages. She actually went on the record in the last month to indicate that that was part of the situation. So whilst others have been less fulsome, she clearly belled the cat in that area.

At last report there were 46,000 illegals, and a significant number of them were people who were working illegally. According to the department’s records, as at June 2006 there were 630,000 people on temporary entry visas—an increase of 8½ per cent over the previous year—and 155,000 of those people had been here for over a year. Given the ANAO’s research and their indictment of the department and a situation which has not improved markedly over time, I cannot have the confidence of the member for Riverina that, with these huge numbers, there is the interest of the government or the department to make sure that conditions are protected.

We have had indications from government members that there is not really a problem and that perhaps legislation is unwarranted or a bit over the top, but I have a contrasting story about what is happening in this country. I could refer to five young Cook Islanders who came to Australia on individual contracts with a promise of a better life. One of the five, Sam Kautai, came here at 17 years of age, signing a contract to work 60 to 70 hours a week and receiving only $50 a month in payment. He was vigorously assaulted by his employer—his jaw being broken—when he questioned the practices of Freliesma Guttering Pty Ltd in February 2006. The contractor actually set conditions with regard to his private life and what he was allowed to do. As I say, that is typical of the other side of this agenda, where contracts are being utilised in this field to seriously undermine conditions.

I could refer to workers who have died on the job. I could refer to the infamous Lake Cargelligo circumstance, where a South African worker, Mr Malothane, was treated so badly as to entertain the interests of the South African government. He was then put on a plane and whisked out of the country. It took CFMEU activity inside South Africa to try to take up his case. Work safety on that site put people in severe danger, and the situation was such that this South African worker was rushed out of the country when injured. He is quoted as saying that he was never paid any money whatsoever. Mr Malothane spoke no English. He could only converse in Afrikaans and Tswana. I congratulate the Australian on following up that story.

So we have a more complex picture than desperate Riverina farmers who cannot get any Australians to work for them and who, out of kindness, are looking to pay people award rates. The situation is far more complex. In Sydney we now see the industry largely being at the behest of tourists. Illegals are becoming a very common phenomena on building sites—sometimes with their spouses accompanying them, working into the late hours of the evening. That is one picture behind this legislation. There is a need for this legislation. It is long overdue. There has been a lot of media focus.

We also had the death of Mr Kow Chey, an illegal worker who died on a Strathfield building site, on the verge of my electorate. His employer would not even contribute to the funeral. The employer, as usual, knew nothing about his status. So when we say how difficult it is and how embarrassed employers are to ask about whether someone is illegal, the other part of the picture is the reality where many of these employers are clearly aware that the people they are employing are illegal, that they are in very difficult circumstances legally, that they do not want to go near the department, that they are fearful for their future and that they are desperate to stay here. As the member for Riverina noted, many of these people will work for lower wages and conditions due to the fact that the wages and conditions in the nations that they derive from are far less than those in Australia.

This legislation is long overdue. On many occasions there have been assurances from ministers that this was around the corner and that things were happening. When the member for Fisher says that there is no tardiness and that it is not an important piece of legislation, I wonder which piece of legislation he is comparing it to. Perhaps he was comparing it to the new citizenship legislation in this country—where we require people to be permanent residents here for four years rather than two—which took a year to get to the debating stage and, in the interim, over 100,000 people became Australian citizens when it was supposedly a security risk to the country because they were only required to be here for two years.

In conclusion, I support the opposition’s amendment, noting that the legislation is overdue and noting that the ‘reckless’ requirement will make it very difficult to procure prosecutions in an area where it is very necessary.

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