Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

to move:

That this House:

(1)

notes that:

(a)

the floods in Queensland, Victoria, NSW and Tasmania have devastated critical infrastructure, including roads, railway, housing, schools and service infrastructure;

(b)

the cost of re-building this critical infrastructure will be many billions of dollars;

(c)

the Australian labour market is currently experiencing critical shortages in a number of skilled occupations;

(d)

demand for workers in these occupations will increase substantially in order to rebuild critical infrastructure across the country;

(e)

almost 1 million people are currently in Australia on a variety of temporary visas;

(f)

more than 400 000 people are in Australia on student visas;

(g)

there is a backlog of more than 140 000 applications in the skilled migration program;

(h)

the current Government has been unable to process in a timely way, offshore visa applications across a range of categories, especially in the skilled categories; and

(i)

current processing times for sub-class 457 Business (Long Stay) Visas is between 3 to 12 months; and

(2)

calls for the Government to:

(a)

introduce, for a prescribed period of time, a regulation which allows the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship to waive all visa conditions which would otherwise prevent the holder of a temporary visa resident in Australia from making an onshore application to undertake paid work, where the:

(i)

Minister has declared a state of emergency for the purpose of the operation of these provisions;

(ii)

applicant has the support of a relevant employer or is sponsored by a State government; and

(iii)

applicant is seeking employment in an occupation nominated on the Skilled Occupation Lists or any other such occupation nominated for the purpose of these provisions by the Minister; and

(b)

re-instate all pre-existing visa conditions at the end of the specified period.

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