Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

I thank members again for their contributions. I will touch on a couple of points made by the honourable member opposite. Firstly, in relation to the 457 program, Labor runs this nonsense line that somehow a small percentage of people or categories ultimately are affected. The fact is that everybody applying for a visa or who would have applied under the old arrangements is affected by the changes we make. We introduced labour market testing, which has been strengthened. That is not recognised by those opposite. Criminal history checks are now mandatory. Again, it affects every applicant. There is new genuine temporary entry assessment. Employers will have a strengthened obligation to contribute to the training of Australian workers. Tax file numbers will be collected and matched with ATO records. Every single applicant under the new arrangement will be subject to these conditions.

Yes, we abolished the 457 program because it was rorted. Labor presided over a particular mess in this area that has been well documented. Again, the Labor Party have to own up for the mistakes that they made and that they continued to make right up until the time they were thrown out of office. Labor's CSOL contained 651 occupations. It has been reduced to 435. Of the 435 occupations on the new list, 24 are available for sponsorship only in regional areas and 268 occupations are only eligible for a two-year visa.

The point is that we have restored integrity to the program. For example—and this again gives the lie to the words just uttered by the member for Blair—22,000 visas were granted under Labor in the occupations that have been removed from the list. They put the nonsense argument that we have dealt with the miscellaneous occupations on the list and have knocked out the insignificant ones, but 22,000 visas were issued by Labor under those categories—they are not eligible under our program.

Yes, we have said, quite prudently, that we will review the list twice yearly, as you would expect. If people have a good case to make to Employment—and we rely on advice from the Department of Employment—for occupations to come off or occupations to be listed, we will take that advice. I think that is prudent. Again, when some of these fundamental issues are missed by Labor it gives you an insight into the lack of capacity they have in management of these programs, which was evidenced so regularly when they were in government.

There was reference made by the honourable member opposite to the ANAO. Those issues were dealt with by the secretary in Senate estimates, but I make the point that it is pretty hard for this department when 1,000 people a week are being pulled off boats and processed on Christmas Island and they are having to, in rapid response times, set up camps and arrangements in concert with Nauru, PNG, Christmas Island or the 17 detention centres they had to open here. What is the criticism of the Labor Party? The criticism of the department by the Labor Party constantly in Senate estimates and again repeated here blindly by the member for Blair today is that the department should have gone through every process, every procurement box-ticking exercise—

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