Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. It is a shame that he was not here at the very start of my speech, because the previous speaker on the government side on this bill, the member for Lyons, gave an example of an instance in Tasmania where there had been an issue and an employee had been exploited. Then he went through the story and gave the example of how it had been dealt with satisfactorily, how the worker had been back-paid some $88,000 and how the employer had been dealt with in having to pay that back pay. So he gave an example of how the system is working. So the reason we are here today is not to debate whether the system is working or not, because the example that the member for Lyons gave showed that it is working. What we are here debating today, and the whole point of my speech, is that this is nothing but a piece of legislation aimed at trying to fix a broader political problem that this government has, and that broader political problem is that it cannot run a functioning immigration system.

There is no evidence whatsoever to support this bill being in this place. As I indicated, over the last 12 months there have been 24 complaints, none of them—zero—referred on to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. There have been 24 complaints in 12 months, none reported on to the immigration department. This bill is here at the behest of the union movement because they saw a problem and they said to the Gillard government, 'We want you to fix this political problem for us.' It is a sham piece of legislation.

Debate adjourned.

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