Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It takes a lot of skill to flip burgers, doesn't it—something that Australians apparently cannot do, according to Labor!

The union movement has been particularly active in filling jobs that should have gone to Australians with workers from overseas. The Australian Education Union, the Australian Services Union, the Finance Sector Union, the Maritime Union of Australia, the National Tertiary Education Union, the National Union of Workers, the 'shoppies' union, the Transport Workers Union and United Voice have all brought in foreign workers on 457 visas.

We need a system that allows employers to bring in workers from overseas in certain circumstances. It is undoubtedly the case that there are skills shortages in our country and not all of them can be easily and quickly filled by local training. In emerging fields of enterprise and technology and in highly specialised roles we need to bring people in to ensure that we can stay up to date and exploit new opportunities. We want genuinely highly skilled people to come to our country, grow our economy, offer our people new products and services, create jobs and encourage inward investment. But we need to achieve that in a way that puts Australian workers first. We need to make sure that every foreign worker is adding something to our workforce, rather than taking it away.

I therefore want to ask the minister three questions. Would the minister please outline what steps the government is taking to ensure that highly skilled foreign nationals will continue to be attracted to work in Australia, but will not be a substitute for Australian workers? What are the key differences between the 457 visa, and the new Temporary Skills Shortage visas? What is the rationale for the new 'two-year work experience' requirement? If this wasn't already a requirement, what was there to stop foreign graduates from competing with Australian graduates for entry level jobs?

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