Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise certainly to support this motion and to raise a few additional areas of concern. I want to address the comments by the previous Liberal speaker—normally a very sensible person. They made absolutely absurd suggestions, attempting to suggest that it is racist to be concerned about the circumstances in which people who are brought into this country find themselves or be concerned as to whether there are going to be a sufficient number of jobs for our children and our grandchildren, and that this is somehow an ethnically based concern. Can I say two things over and over again: it is the union movement that has consistently stood up for workers overseas; it is the union movement that has been most active in prosecuting injustice done to workers in this country, including foreign workers in this country. The MUA has taken a role in protecting foreign work crews in the ships of shame. The international union movement funds the development of trade unions in countries like Cambodia where it is absolutely essential for the development of fairness on those workforces. So do not come into this place and talk about racism in the union movement. The union movement has been doing a magnificent job in this country and internationally to get justice for workers.

In relation to guest workers, I would like to think that I had a big involvement in getting a guest worker program available for East Timorese workers in the Kimberley at a time when we could not get workers, and that had the active support of the trade union movement in Western Australia and across Australia generally. The union movement has always understood that where we have a shortage of labour we invite foreign labour in, but we want to make sure those conditions are fair and that we ensure that we have enough jobs for people at home.

There are two things about this. Minister Michaelia Cash—and we hear this repeated over and over again—talks about the decline in the number of 457 visas. You would expect a decline in the number of 457 visas as unemployment has grown under the watch of this government. One of the things we are not really seeing is how the visas interact with each other. We have more and more people contacting us from the worksite saying, 'Guys, it's not the 457 visas that people are coming in under; it's the different visa classes.' The 400 visa class is particularly interesting. If we look at the figures of the 400 visa class, which is for temporary work, a short stay—supposedly for people of a high skill level—in 2012-13 there were 6,000 of those visas. By last year that figure had increased to 54,000 visas, and we are on track this year for over 70,000 visas. In fact, the 400 visa is fast outpacing the 457 visa. I suspect that what we are in fact seeing is people moving away for very much identical purposes. They are moving away from the 457, which everyone knows about, to the other visa classes, including the 400 visa class. I do not think the people of Australia are really being given an accurate picture about what is happening.

The second point I want to make relates to who is investigating the conduct of the employers who are bringing people in under these temporary visas. I was very disappointed to see that in relation to the Samsung matter—the quite notorious Samsung matter where young people were brought in notionally as engineers and professionals and put in jobs that were basically anything other than professional jobs, and they were made to work 84 hours a week and were underpaid—the investigation into the scandal was conducted by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection. For some reason, it did not go to the Fair Work Commission; it went to the department of immigration. Unsurprisingly, the department of immigration found only two aspects of noncompliance, whereas the information that we have from a whistleblower who was involved in HR in the firm is that this was systemic. It was understood by the workers in the Pilbara that this was happening, and yet we had a whitewash on the matter. (Time expired)

Debate adjourned.

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