Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Last night I thought I would have the opportunity to get up and speak in this debate on the Customs Amendment (China-Australia Free Trade Agreement Implementation) Bill 2015, but I did not. But I did get the chance to hear from other participants. There have been a number of people who have participated so far in this debate, and I have to say that I am very disappointed that government members—backbenchers and ministers—have not apologised to people on this side of the House. They have not apologised to the Leader of the Opposition, they have not apologised to the union movement and they have not apologised to the many, many working people who have raised legitimate concerns about this agreement and the impact that it will have on local jobs. I call on them to apologise because they are the people who stood up time and time again in this parliament and in the public arena and made accusations against people for calling for safeguards to protect Australian jobs. They accused us of xenophobia. They accused us of racism. Yet what we saw yesterday and what we see today is the government agreeing to sensible safeguards to protect Australian jobs.

It needs to be said loud and clear that if you stand up to protect Australian jobs it is not racism, it is not xenophobia. That is just the government's scaremongering, and it is good to see that they are starting to back down on that rhetoric because that rhetoric is dangerous for two reasons. The first is that it diminishes the genuine racism and xenophobia that is going on in our community. It is the case in Australia at the moment that we have to tackle racism and bigotry head-on. We should not be using it as a throwaway remark to scare people in a debate that, at the heart of it, is about jobs.

I am glad the government has agreed to Labor's amendments. This will ensure that this legislation goes through with safeguards in place to protect Australian jobs. The government also has not been truly honest with the Australian people about how many jobs this agreement will create. They like to throw around the word 'jobs'—it is going to create 'jobs'—and they continue to say that word. But what we have discovered, and what the evidence is saying, is that it will create some jobs but not the hundreds of thousands that this government is claiming. The minister and the members of the backbench are out there saying, 'This agreement will create hundreds of thousands of jobs.' That is simply not true. At least be honest with the Australian people about how many jobs this agreement will create. The minister, in the other place, has already been forced to back down and correct the Hansard. What she claimed was that these three free trade agreements combined would create 178,000 jobs. It is not true, and the minister has, to her credit, corrected the Hansard record. On Tuesday, 13 October, she said:

I have since been advised that the methodology was inaccurate.

Can we really trust a government that cannot even get something as simple as that right? How inaccurate was it? They misread the table. They added up every year to come to that bogus figure of 178,000 jobs. What they did not do was read the paragraph up the top of the table that said that in 2020 there would be 14,566 more jobs if the FTAs were implemented compared to what would have been the case if they were not. That is all.

Let's just put that figure into context. This government has already sacked 16,000 public servants. Last month alone 13,000 full-time jobs were lost. For all the rhetoric saying that these free trade agreements will be the silver bullet to create jobs in this country, it has turned out to be nothing more than an overinflated, ambitious claim by this government. There is to be 14,566 more jobs by 2020. To put that into context, this government has already sacked 16,000 public servants, and last month's figures alone show that 13,000 full-time jobs were lost. What we do not know is what kind of jobs these agreements will create—full-time jobs or part-time jobs. What we also do not know is who will work these jobs, which is why these safeguards were so critical.

We hear time and time again how critical this agreement is for industries that this government is the champion of. This includes agriculture, and it is a good deal for agriculture—for the businesses in agriculture, for the people who might make profits in agriculture. But without Labor's amendments there was no guarantee that regional Australians would share in that opportunity and that they would get the jobs. Right now, who works in agriculture in the dairy industry? There are 40,000 people working in dairy, yet dairy is now on the 457 visa list. Dairy relies on overseas temporary workers. In the agriculture industry, horticulture relies on overseas temporary workers. The beef industry, the food processing industry and the seafood industry—all the industries that this government says will benefit from these agreements, and they will—rely on overseas workers.

Yet this government was not willing to put the safeguards in place to ensure (1) that those overseas workers were paid Australian wages and conditions, (2) that they would be protected from exploitation and (3) that we would only go to an overseas worker if there was not a local worker available. Labor's amendments ensure we have the safeguards in place so that locals can get the opportunity of these agreements. Labor's amendments ensure that people in Australian jobs are protected and that Australian people will get the first chance at these jobs that are created in the agriculture industry and the financial services industry across our economy.

This government does not care about local people and giving them the opportunities. If they were serious about creating jobs in our economy, they would have had these safeguards in the beginning. They would have listened to the concerns of the union movement and listened to the concerns of the Labor Party and they would not have stood up here in question time and accused us of some quite shocking things which just simply were not true. Labor's agreement around safeguards will ensure that there is labour market testing. A new legal requirement in the Migration Regulations will require labour market testing for all work agreements. So this is not just good for this free trade deal; it is good for all the deals. People need to know that if there is a skills shortage it is a genuine one.

Weekly, if not daily, we hear reports in the media about worker exploitation. The Fair Work Ombudsman is working overtime to ensure that we are prosecuting exploitation. We need to ensure first and foremost that, if there is a local job created, it gets offered to a local worker first. Labor's safeguards will also uphold Australian pay and conditions, through a better wage system for 457 visa workers. How? A new legal requirement that the market salary for a standard 457 visa holder will be used in enterprise agreement rates as the salary benchmark. That is critical to ensure that workers in similar industries are being paid the Australian rate of pay, not some made-up rate of pay with the award at a minimum.

We will also ensure through the safeguards that the temporary skilled migration income threshold is to be reviewed to make sure it is in line and it is a benchmark. What will also be required as a result of Labor's safeguard amendments, which the government has agreed to, is the maintenance of Australian skills and safety standards, to ensure foreign workers have the relevant licence under Australian law. This is critical. All of you in your offices would have seen the letter that was signed by the Minister for Trade and Investment that declared the industries where the skill assessment would be waived. It was doing the rounds of social media and it created a lot of anxiety within the community. But now the government has agreed to Labor's amendment which will ensure a new legal requirement that 457 visa holders in the trade occupations must obtain a licence within 90 days of arriving here on that visa, will not work without holding the licence and will notify the department of immigration if a licence is refused or revoked. These conditions will be written into the migration regulations.

These are the critical safeguards that Australians wanted to see to ensure that, when you work in the trades in Australia, you have an Australian qualification. When somebody comes here as a 457 visa worker, they will be required now to demonstrate that they have those skills. Australia has some of the best safety records in the world, some of the safest workplaces, and our tradespeople work really hard to get their qualifications. It is wrong to have a situation where someone from overseas can come in and not be required to meet that same bar. These safeguards ensure that that situation will not now happen. That is why this government needs to be really honest. It is great that it has finally, after month and months, understood the concerns of the Australian people, the concerns of the union movement and what we have been saying from the Australian Labor Party. There is no point to a free trade agreement with any country if it does not deliver for all Australians. The free trade agreement should not just be about profits and about ensuring exporters get a better deal when their product goes into China. It should also be about spreading that goodwill, that opportunity, to all Australians. Without these safeguards in place that the government has agreed to, we could not guarantee that that would happen.

In my electorate, which is a regional electorate, this has been an issue where the government divided the community—winemaker and farmer versus the tradies. It divided the community because one group was saying, 'Why should someone come here and work in our industry without having my qualification?' and on the other end the government was saying to the farmers, 'You've got to back this deal in because it is going to be good for tariffs.' That is what this government did. What we have been able to do, because the government has agreed to our amendments, is bridge that so now the tradies are safe and our winemakers and our farmers will actually benefit from the changes that we have got going forward. I am glad the government has seen the error of its ways and has agreed to Labor's amendments.

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