Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very aware of the potential power of symbolic acts. One of my proudest days in this parliament was the day, in 2008, when the parliament delivered a national apology to the stolen generations. I have supported the RECOGNISE campaign to include recognition of Indigenous Australians as the First Australians in the Constitution. But at the end of the day symbolism can only take you so far. It is practical action which makes the difference.

It was distressing to hear, once again, in yesterday's Closing the Gap report just how little progress has been made in accomplishing employment outcomes for Indigenous Australians. We all know about the dignity of work and how there is nothing like it for building self-respect. But the goal of halving the employment gap by 2018 is not on track. Indeed, the Indigenous employment rate fell from 53.8 per cent in 2008 to 47.5 per cent in 2012-13. I believe it is a national disgrace that we have not done more to ensure Indigenous Australians have job opportunities.

In order to do better, we should look closely at what is going on in rural and regional Australia. When we do this we find that employers choose to bring in, and are allowed or even encouraged to bring in, temporary migrant workers. Let me give a classic example. In August 2009, Boys from the Bush Projects, an organisation working with remote Indigenous young people, said the following:

The employment of choice for many young Indigenous people living in remote communities is working in a meat processing plant, and they have proven to very good workers. The Remote Area Work Scheme was developed specifically to help disadvantaged Indigenous youth living in remote communities, to gain employment in the meat processing industry.

However, the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations favours the importation of foreign workers for these positions instead of young Aboriginal workers. This outcome is achieved by fast tracking the application of foreign workers.

The unnecessary protracted delay by the Department to provide modest funding for the Remote Area Work Scheme to recruit and support young Indigenous people into immediate employment in the meat industry ... makes mockery of the Australian Government's clearly defined stance on closing the unemployment gap for Aboriginal people.

In addition to the fast tracking of foreign worker applications, one of the approval requirements for a foreign worker, is that the applicant employer must have exhausted all efforts to employ available Indigenous people. Yet the department makes no check on whether or not the applicants have rejected an offer by the Remote Area Work Scheme to provide young Indigenous workers.

New regulations now see boners and slicers identified as skilled workers under the 457 visa process. Nearly all the young people placed into abattoirs by Remote Area Work Scheme were given the job of boning and slicing. These are tasks that can be mastered by these young people within a few weeks. This is exactly what some meat processors and overseas recruitment companies are doing. They are going to places like China and South Korea to run short training courses and then bringing these people into Australia as skilled and unskilled labourers.

The most glaring examples of how temporary work visa programs disadvantage Indigenous Australians in regional areas are the 457 visa program, especially the so-called 457 labour agreements, and the working holiday visa program, the 417 and 462 visas. The 457 labour agreements involve, in theory at least, some effort to establish that Australian workers are not available to do the work, though the systems are opaque and can be rorted.

The working holiday visa program does not even pretend to do that. In 2015 the World Bank did a study which concluded that employers' ready access to working holiday visa holders, backpackers and illegal foreign workers was 'undermining' demand for Pacific islanders under the seasonal worker pilot program. The World Bank report recommended that the government scrap or scale back visa extensions for backpackers who work on farms, and spend more money monitoring compliance with the rules.

This government needs to put the same effort into researching the adverse effects of all these visa programs on demand for Indigenous Australians and then remedying them. The findings will be the same. Labour agreements allow employers to access 457 visas for lower skilled foreign workers not eligible for the standard, or 'non-concessional', 457 visa program. These 'concessional' foreign workers are in semiskilled occupations or, where they are in skilled occupations, they have substandard English language skills or qualifications, or wages below the standard 457 minimum.

According to the latest Department of Immigration and Border Protection annual report, at 30 June 2015 there were 213 labour agreements in place and a further 29 agreements still to be finalised. Around 3,000 concessional 457 visa workers would have been working in Australia in mid-2015 under labour agreements—assuming they represent 2.9 per cent of all 457 visa holders, their share of total 457 visa grants. Many of these concessional 457 visa workers are doing jobs located outside the major capital cities, mainly in Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia. The vast majority are probably in regional or rural areas. Labour agreements operate in many sectors of Australian primary industry, including the meat, pork and fishing industries.

The meat industry is the most important for 457 labour agreements. For the past five years, around 1,000 so-called skilled meat workers have been employed at any one time on concessional 457s in Australia. At the end of March 2015, the figure was 900. Nearly all are from countries where English is not the first language. Around 85 per cent are from the Philippines or Brazil, with the rest mainly Vietnamese or Chinese. The partners of these 457 meat workers often also work for the same meat industry employer, so the real size of the 457 workforce in this sector is larger than the official figures suggest.

The Senate inquiry into temporary work visas has heard evidence that 457 meat worker numbers are declining because employers have found an even cheaper temporary foreign labour supply—417 visa holders from Korea and elsewhere are said to be replacing 457 meat workers because the 417s can be engaged as 'contractors' or ABN workers and paid below-award wages, often through labour hire companies. The 2015 joint investigation by the ABC's Four Cornersprogram and Fairfax exposed some shocking examples of this practice.

In the first six months of 2015-16, 'skilled meat worker' is still one of the top 15 occupations for 457 visa grants in two Australian states—Queensland and South Australia. In South Australia, there were actually more 457 visa grants for 'skilled meat workers' than any other occupation. In Queensland, 'skilled meat workers' are ranked sixth by number of 457 visa grants.

According to the immigration department's guidelines on meat industry labour agreements, employers granted access to concessional 457 visas are meant to 'maintain a good record of training Australians through the provision of employment, training and career progression' during the three-year term of the agreement. The departmental guidelines do not even mention training or employing Indigenous Australians. I have not seen any published information from the department on what, if anything, has been achieved, or even tried, in terms of providing a foothold into stable employment for the first Australians, by employers of the 1,000 or so 457 meat workers over the last five years.

For all Australians, but especially for Indigenous Australians, the worst features of the working holiday visa program are probably the so-called second year working holiday visa and the coalition government's recent extension of work rights for working holiday visa holders in northern Australia. The second year working holiday visa is available to all 417 visa holders who do three months work in regional Australia in the agriculture, construction or mining industries. There has been huge growth in the number of 417 visa holders taking up the second year visa, especially in horticulture and other sectors of agriculture. Between 2005-06 and 2013-14, the number of second year 417 visas granted grew from just 2,700 to over 45,000. In 2014-15, visa grants fell to 41,000 but will rise again under this government's visa deregulation agenda. Over 90 per cent of these young foreign nationals do their work in the agricultural sector.

I endorse the CFMEU submission to the Senate inquiry into temporary work visas, which said:

… employers seeking access to WHM—

working holiday maker—

labour should not have the benefit of the state providing them with a form of 'forced labour' of temporary visa holders. That is what parts of Australian primary industry now have, with a captive workforce of 41,300 WHMs doing 88 days work in agriculture to gain their second 417 visa in 2013-14. That is equal to 13% of average total employment in Agriculture, forestry and fishing in that year of 310,000, as measured by the ABS. The percentage is even more significant, if considering only horticulture where most WHMs do their '88 days'.

What chance have Indigenous Australians got of finding regular seasonal work in agriculture when the Australian government is funnelling thousands of often desperate young foreign workers into the sector, with the incentive of getting a visa allowing another year's stay and work in Australia? There is no legal obligation on employers to even look for Australian workers before hiring foreign nationals on working holiday visas, and some subclass 417 visa holders will work for nothing just to get a visa for the second year.

The coalition government has two initiatives to extend work rights for working holiday visa holders in northern Australia. This area includes all of the Northern Territory and those areas of Western Australia and Queensland above the Tropic of Capricorn. The first has already been implemented and gives subclass 417 and 462 visa holders the right to work for 12 months with the same employer in five designated industries: agriculture, forestry and fishing; construction; mining; aged and disability care; and tourism and hospitality. The standard 417 or 462 visa limitation is six months with the same employer. The second initiative will enable subclass 462 visa holders to obtain a second year visa for the first time, by doing three months work in Northern Australia in the agriculture, tourism and hospitality industries.

I would like to hear from the government how these working holiday visa initiatives will help the employment prospects of Indigenous Australians in northern Australia. How does the government think that employers will respond to an increased labour supply of young foreign nationals, many desperate for work to stay in Australia? Does the government seriously believe that injecting this increased supply of temporary foreign labour into northern Australia will increase incentives for employers to hire and train Indigenous Australians? The government should table the independent assessment of the impact of these working holiday visa initiatives on the labour market opportunities for Indigenous Australians in northern Australia, which it should have commissioned. If it does not have one, it must explain why.

Instead of hand wringing about our failure to close the gap, the government needs to take practical steps on its temporary visa programs. On 457 labour agreements: especially in the meat industry there must be stronger measures and legal obligations to ensure that employers engage, train and retain progressively more Indigenous Australians over the life of these agreements and that, where there are problems, measures are instituted to address these, with government financial support.

On the 417 and 462 second year working holiday visa: the government should heed the recommendation of the World Bank report and scrap or scale back access to this visa, instead of expanding access, as it is recklessly doing. If the government were serious about improving the employment outcomes for Indigenous Australians, it would commission serious research to identify the full impact of its working holiday visa initiatives on the First Australians and act on the findings.

On the problem of foreign workers working in agriculture either with no valid visa or in breach of the visa conditions identified by the World Bank: the government must get serious about enforcing the employer sanctions provisions put into the Migration Act by the former Labor government. Only serious enforcement action and substantial financial penalties under the no-fault civil penalty provisions will effectively deter employers of illegal workers. At 30 June 2015 there had been no prosecution at all of any employer for the civil or criminal offences of the employer sanction provisions.

Finally, employers should make an annual contribution to a training fund for each 457 visa holder they sponsor. The money in this fund should go towards the training and employment of Indigenous Australians. I think Indigenous Australians are entitled to better than they have been receiving. The closing the gap report makes it clear that we are not making progress in relation to Indigenous employment. The steps I have outlined would enable us to make greater progress in relation to Indigenous employment.

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