Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the Migration Amendment (Charging for a Migration Outcome) Bill 2015. Before I move into the legislation proper, I just want to give a bit of context to our immigration scheme or the arrangements by which people who come to Australia are dealt with.

Firstly, one could break it into two groups. The vast majority of people who arrive in Australia are people with a visa. The other group is obviously people who come to Australia seeking asylum. If they come as irregular maritime arrivals they are treated slightly differently to people that may arrive by passenger vehicles or planes with a visa and then seek asylum. We do have international commitments and treaties that say we will consider an asylum seeker's claims if they are fleeing persecution. Strangely, if they were starving to death it would not give them grounds to seek asylum. That is one of the cruel realities of the globe, especially when you have nearly 60 million people displaced throughout the world—some internally in countries and others who have moved from one country to another. That is a reality.

This legislation deals with visa holders who arrive in Australia. Many people come to Australia holding a tourist visa, a study visa or a working visa. It could be as simple as the 417 visa for food picking and packing. I know there is a significant Taiwanese community in Moreton, and many people from Taiwan come and spend time fruit picking and packing and enjoying Australia on a working holiday. There is also another type of visa, the 457, a skilled migration visa, which is basically designed so that the economy gets the benefit, when we have a skills gap, of bringing in people from overseas on these temporary visas.

Unlike the tourist visa, the study visa or the working holiday visa, 457s can actually—from all but the moment they start here—start the journey to applying for citizenship. This is my understanding of it: if you come here on a tourist visa and meet an Australian and fall in love and then want to become an Australian, you would not be able to stay in Australia under your tourist visa or your working holiday visa. If you wanted to change your visa status you would have to leave the country. It might only be temporary—just go to New Zealand for one night and then come back and apply for a different set of arrangements if you have fallen in love or if you are a tourist and you like our universities and want to change to a study visa. With most visas, you come to Australia under that visa scheme and then you basically have to leave and then reapply. I think there might be a slight change if you are seeking asylum, but the vast majority of the people we are talking about have 457s.

For example, when the mining boom was at its peak there was a real shortage of mining engineers, so we had an intake of mining engineers particularly from South Africa and from a few other countries. Now, with the mining boom well and truly off the boil, the focus of any good government is on giving jobs to Australian mining engineers because there would not be a skill gap—we now have enough mining engineers. That is just a short explanation of these types of visas, particularly the 457 visa, which is what this legislation is particularly about. There is some mischief created from it.

The amendments moved by the government are sensible amendments. Labor will be suggesting some others in the Senate. Basically, the legislation before the House makes it unlawful for a sponsor to be paid by visa applicants for a migration outcome and that this should be reinforced by a robust penalty and conviction framework. It deals with the situation where a person with connections to China says to a person, 'I will sponsor you and give you the job. If we've got a skills gap, I will give you the job, and you will actually pay me.' In certain circumstances people would be so keen to come to Australia because of our higher standard of living and our great system of support, so they would say, 'All right, I'm happy to get my wage in one hand and give a backhander to the employer or the sponsor,' so that they are able to stay in the country because the clock would be ticking, and so they could apply for citizenship down the track. That is not what the 457 skills gap visa was intended to do—not at all. The 457 visa was designed to support an economy that was booming; it was not designed for people to exploit vulnerable people in other parts of the world.

As we saw recently with the Four Corners program looking at 7-Eleven, people on study visas can be exploited. It is easy for people to import their understanding of workplace relations from their country and what might be a reasonable wage over there and say, 'I'm prepared to get that here in Australia.' Obviously, that undermines the conditions of other workers. I know it is a problem. In fact, I have been talking to Ken Lai from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office about catching up with some of the Taiwanese backpackers, people who come on working holidays. Some of them have been exploited, sadly sometimes by people from the Taiwanese community who are the unscrupulous people between the farmer or the producer and hiring Taiwanese backpackers. They are paying ridiculous amounts for accommodation, paying for transport to pick tomatoes and all sorts of things.

At the moment, the government has no specific powers to take legal action against such payment for visas activities. This bill will make such activity unlawful in relation to certain skilled work visa programs that have either a sponsorship or a nomination element. We know it can be exploitative. I have heard stories. I have had people come to my office to talk about their tales of where, if they speak up, they run the risk of their sponsor sending them out of the country. Previously if your sponsor, normally your employer, severed that relationship, I think it was in 28 days you were sent out of the country.

Sadly we saw sexual harassment, employers or sponsors requesting sexual favours so that they did not deport someone, particularly if they were near the end of their time in Australia where they were close to meeting the time frame so that they could apply for Australian citizenship. Such exploitation does occur and if people are lied to about their right to join a union, it can be problematic. This legislation is designed to reduce the chance of exploitation and to protect vulnerable workers. There is a Senate inquiry currently into that.

Based upon the submissions to the inquiry which we have seen, the Labor Party are going to suggest a couple of amendments to the government. Firstly, we are seeking to apply this bill not just to 457 visas but also to persons on student visas and to persons on working holiday visas. As I said, that is something we will be taking up with the Taiwanese representative in Queensland, Ken Lai. In fact, we are going on a road trip to talk to some of the Taiwanese community who are, it is my understanding, being exploited.

The second amendment is to make clear that the penalty regime outlined in this bill—which could in some circumstances apply to the visa applicant, the employee, who is often the vulnerable person—would not be able to occur in circumstances where it is clear that the visa applicant has been coerced by the sponsor or a related third party into offering, making, asking for or receiving a benefit, or if the visa applicant has been the subject of human trafficking, which does occur, forced labour or slavery offences under the Criminal Code. In other words, we want to protect the victims, the people who speak up about exploitation. We do not want them to be the subject of the penalty.

The third set of amendments the Labor Party will be putting forward is to increase the level of penalties for sponsors in respect of breaches of the immigration act—a further disincentive to them exploiting. The fourth amendment is to institute a new measure which would say that any person in this country who is working under a student visa or a working holiday visa would have to be employed as a person, rather than what often occurs nowadays where they say you have to have an ABN. They then have all the requirements that come with having an Australian business number. We would suggest that they should be employed under a contract of employment, to be treated as a real person. Too often people are exploited as a business. It does happen more and more where people are trying to get out of their obligations they have to their employees.

The fifth amendment is about protecting whistleblowers. We saw that in the 7-Eleven case where those brave people worked with investigative reporters from Four Corners to tell their stories. There just happened to be an observant member of the public who went to Four Corners and was able to detail this horrible exploitation where systematically—I should not say in every one of the 620 stores—there seemed to be underpayment of the 7-Eleven workers. Thousands of international students who were here to study were being exploited in the course of their work. The chairman of 7-Eleven, Russell Withers, did resign, but I do not think that is the end of this exploitation of people on study visas. So it is very important that there is a robust system of protection for whistleblowers.

The sixth amendment we will be putting forward is the requirement that the minister table an annual report about the operation and impact of the provisions introduced as part of this legislation. The seventh one is making sure that unions are part of this solution, where unions or registered employee organisations are able to undertake prosecutions for breaches of the Migration Act.

The Labor Party has come a long way in the last 130 years regarding workers from overseas; from having a closed, protectionist view to now accepting that overseas workers can play a valuable role. You talk to the organisers at the meatworkers union, and they will show you their newsletters in three or four different languages. They are happy to work with overseas workers, because obviously if everyone gets paid the right amount they are not undercutting the conditions for Australians. That is how the modern union movement is able to assist in making sure that the Migration Act does its job, which is all about making sure that people who come to Australia come here for the right reasons, that they work under the appropriate conditions; and that the exploiters—I am loath to call them criminals, but the people who exploit the aspirations of people in other countries—do not receive remuneration and do not make money off the sweat of the brow of these visa holders.

I commend this legislation to the House, particularly the robust penalty and conviction arrangements. It would be nice to see a few convictions occur so that the message is sent: 'Do not exploit these visa holders'.

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