Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration, Integration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

What we have had from the minister makes patently clear what the US state department was concerned about. If you have a situation where you are able to have somebody, simply because they are a visa holder, work at rates of pay that are radically less than what are otherwise being paid in the market—and we all know that market rates in many circumstances are significantly higher than what the minimum award rates are or what the minimum salary level is—then you have a circumstance where you have what the Australian community would regard as an abuse but which, under the 457 visa program, is completely legal. The reason the United States is particularly aware of this is that it does have a system where your visa rate has to take into account the prevailing wage for the industry in the particular region. Is the government mindful of considering introducing a test beyond the MSL of taking into account the prevailing wage?

See this speech in context