Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I spoke on a similar bill to this when it was brought through the House previously and I am pleased to do so again. In speaking to the Migration Amendment (Offshore Resources Activity) Repeal Bill 2014, I need to make a few preliminary observations and then speak to the core of the bill.

Basically, the bill looks to simplify what was going to become under Labor an extremely complex set of arrangements for those international maritime workers and businesses who sought to help build our nation's capacity in the resources sector for the benefit of all Australians. It seems to have become commonplace for coalition members such as myself to stand here and speak on bills which seek to clean up the mess left by Labor when it relates to migration—and if I have time, I will go into that later.

But I say at the outset I have raised this in our own party room and I have raised this in this House before: there is no conflict in my mind as to who should have jobs priority in Australia. It should be Australians. There is no conflict whatsoever. It is nondebatable. But the problem is that every now and again we find a specialised sector of the workforce where Australians do not have the qualifications required. When I have raised the issue previously—and you may recall my raising this, Mr Deputy Speaker—we found there are anomalies. We get the anomaly in a special skills set where you could have a welder, for example, who is quite capable of doing everyday welding and even some specialty welding, but when he is required to do special alloy welding, such as welding under the ocean with special rods, not everybody has that skill set readily available. I am sure that there are Australians that do have that skill, but they are not readily available and on the spot. I have made the point previously that where these shortfalls are occurring, it is the onus of the businesses and, dare I say, the governments of Australia, to make sure that Australians are upskilled so that they can do these jobs. There is not enough compulsion on those wanting to be involved in these sectors to make sure that they are value-adding to their workers so that they can take on specific projects. I make that caveat before I continue and say anything else in relation to this bill.

What needs to be understood in relation to this bill—and the previous speaker, the member for Corio raised this—was that in May 2012 the Federal Court precipitated this bill because they found that Allseas pipelaying vessels and noncitizens working on these vessels were not within, or not working within, migration as defined by the Migration Act at the time when laying these pipes. That was an unusual set of circumstances and needed to be clarified and the court ruled that way.

The Labor Party decided on a legislative response. The decision was in response to the action taken by Allseas against the Labor government after assertions were made that Allseas should be employing deckhands and crews on 457 visas. Normally, the Labor Party is railing against 457 visas, and we have seen the union ads about how terrible 457 visas are. As I said, Australians first—but if you cannot get an Australian you have to get the job done

The complication with this particular bill is that many of these people never came to the Australian shore. They did not even get to step foot on mainland Australia. They were coming on boats—for example, on transport rigs or pipe-laying boats—that never actually entered the territorial zone of Australian waters. They were in the wider territorial zone, 200 kilometres out. And, dare I say, there is another technicality with people who flew into an international airport, like Broome. I understand that Karratha has the ability too. Technically, they never actually set foot on Australian soil and they never had to provide a visa. They were picked up from the airport and flown out to the rigs or the barges. So it was an interesting complication and, correctly, it had to be dealt with.

The original offshore resources activity migration bill to change this was rushed through the parliament in the dying days of the Gillard government. This bill was not introduced to meet an urgent and essential concern of the industry or government; it was introduced basically as a favour to their mates in the union, because they were anti anyone who was not a member of the union.

In his dying days as the Minister for Immigration, the member for Gorton put this bill forward to facilitate a further union power grab on the offshore resources industry. We know that offshore at the moment we have all these demarcation disputes. We have Martin Ferguson, the former resources minister, railing against this big time, that it is un-Australian and it is hurting Australia. And, of course, they have turned on him now. The demarcation dispute is between the AWU, the MUA and the CFMEU. You have all this argy-bargy and trying to muscle in on the territory to make sure that they are all members of their unions. This is what this is about. This is not trying to resolve it; this is about a power grab for their particular union.

Why was it introduced on the 30th by the then Minister O'Connor, the member for Gorton, and not the then soon-to-be Minister for Immigration, the member for—Chris—

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