Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I always enjoy the contributions of the member for Groom. His final thoughts remind me of the day the Leader of the Opposition came to my electorate—it was the Monday after the government announced the detail of its carbon price and all that goes with it including the compensation. He decided he would visit Wambo mine, owned and operated by Peabody, in my electorate. He was there to tell the whole world, including those who live in my electorate, that the carbon price was going to bring the coalmining industry to a halt—it would destroy the coalmining industry—only to learn that while he was on his feet scaring the workers Peabody in the United States was announcing a multibillion-dollar takeover of Macarthur Coal. That is how concerned they were about the future of the coalmining industry in this country.

People listening to this debate this afternoon, whether they be in the gallery or listening on the radio in the car or at home—and I am told that there are still some masochists around that do these things—may have thought that this was a debate about the resources sector and the use of foreign workers at the Roy Hill mine in the Pilbara. But of course it is not, and anyone who listened to either the member for Cook or the member for Groom would know that now only too well. All they really said were two things. First of all, they said they agree with our policy. They agree that enterprise migration agreements are a good thing for the resources sector and a good thing for the country. That is unequivocal. They made that very, very clear.

Second, they attacked the Prime Minister over process. That is the big point they were trying to make today. In other words, they are not here talking about opportunities for the nation; they are talking about opportunities for them. I am not here to talk about political opportunism; I do want to talk about opportunities for the nation, opportunities that are presented to us by the mining boom and, just as importantly, how we maximise and capitalise on them and of course how we spread the opportunity of that boom and how we make sure that all Australians have the opportunity to benefit from what is happening in the resources sector in particular. And that is of course what the 2012 budget was all about.

EMAs, the enterprise migration agreements, were announced in the 2011 budget without much fuss. The announcement got very good publicity because everyone agreed, including the opposition, that that was exactly the sort of thing we need to be doing in the face of the resources boom to manage the capacity and constraints we are up against, particularly in skills and labour. They are ensuring that we can cater for that peak demand when the labour market just cannot provide all the workers the resources sector needs from time to time. It makes sure that valuable resources projects can proceed regardless of those capacity constraints.

Of course 457 visas, the visas used to bring in foreign workers when it can be demonstrated that the skilled labour simply is not available at any given time in Australia, can be used with or without these migration agreements. But these agreements allow us to better manage the process. They allow us to talk to the company before the applications are made about how many 457s they might need but, more particularly, about the basis on which they will be used to ensure that the pay and other conditions of the workers involved are exactly the same as those which apply to Australian workers so that companies cannot exploit the situation and bring in foreign workers at the expense of Australian workers to save money. They allow us to manage these peaks in demand well ahead of time.

In the case of Roy Hill, it is a very simple proposition. They are developing a $9.5 billion project which will require 8,000 workers, most of them skilled—engineers, electricians, plumbers, you name it—creating 8,000 job opportunities. But the company says, 'We do not believe, having tested the labour market and as much as we will try, that we are going to be able to get 8,000 people.' So based on sound advice and research, the government says, 'We will let you apply for up to 1,700 or thereabouts 457s to allow you to meet that peak demand.' What that means for anyone in this chamber—at least on this side who can do the simple maths—is that there are still more than 6,000 jobs which will go to Australians. So you can not have the project and have no jobs, or you can have the project and allow temporarily 1,700 foreign workers to come in while creating 6,000 Australian jobs and, in addition, 2,000 training places, including, I think, 200-odd apprenticeships and of course opportunities for Indigenous Australians. It sounds like a pretty good idea, but I do not really need to labour on it because the opposition have made it abundantly clear that they think this is a good idea, and we welcome their support for it.

Of course we are not just doing that in terms of our planning and management for the mining boom; we are also investing $3 billion in addition in skills to ensure that we do not have another decade like we had under the former Tory government when we did not anticipate and plan for the mining boom. If John Howard had properly anticipated and planned for the mining boom, we would probably not be bringing in 1,700 workers, because we would have taken the opportunity many years ago to skill enough people for these sorts of resources projects. But we are doing this concurrently to ensure that those mistakes are not made again.

Both the member for Cook, and the member for Groom to a lesser extent, spent a lot of time talking about sovereign risk. It was a bit offensive, because they were talking about it as if no-one on this side knew what that meant. I know who is causing the sovereign risk here. It is those who sit on that side who are trying to undermine the very agreements which they support, again, for no other reason than political opportunism.

I suspect the member for Groom in particular, and of course the member for Cook, have probably never had to raise in excess of $9 billion for a resources project, or any other sort of business for that matter. But if they have a think about it for a while they will see that it is not just a matter of picking up the phone to the local bank manager. It is far more complex and far more difficult than that. When you go to the equity funds, the banks, the private investors or whoever it might be, they do almost excessive due diligence. If you are going to invest big money in these projects, you want to know what the risks are. You do not have to be an award-winning economist—like we have on this side of course, and I do not name him because I can never remember whether he is the member for Canberra or Fraser; he is member for Fraser—to know that if you are sitting in London or New York and looking at Australia you know straightaway to ask, 'Aha, it is a $9 million project requiring 8,000 workers. Where are they going to get them from?' They will identify immediately that there is a big risk involved in this project unless those presenting the project have already taken that into account, can prove that they have taken that into account, and can prove that they have found a way of dealing with this problem. Big tick. That is what this is all about.

Gina Rinehart and others can much more easily provide peace of mind for those with concerns if they have one of these agreements. They no longer have to say, 'Well, we think that we will be able to apply for and secure 457 visas.' They no longer have to rely on a lick and a promise. They can now present one of these migration agreements to the potential investors and say: 'It's signed off. The government has agreed. We'll provide 6,000 Australian jobs, but they'll let us temporarily bring in 1,700 foreign workers so that this $9.5 billion project can proceed.' It does not get any simpler than that.

Very quickly, the member for Groom wanted to know what the caucus committee is going to do. The government decision is made. It is a done deal. The caucus committee want to participate in these matters, and so they should; they want to be diligent to make sure these things keep working well and make sure Australian workers are protected and that is exactly what the caucus committee will do. (Time expired)

See this speech in context