George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) recognises the importance of the actions of this Government in abolishing the Temporary Work (Skilled) visa (subclass 457) program to ensure that the interests of Australian workers are protected;

(2) notes that a review of the changes by Dr Bob Birrell of the Australian Population Research Institute highlights their significance by making the following points, that the:

(a) abolition of the 457 visa program is a 'game changer' rather than being mere 'window dressing' as was claimed by critics in the media and members of the Opposition;

(b) reset stops the past immigration policy outcome of employers recruiting as many temporary skilled foreign workers as they wanted and then facilitating their transition to permanent residence via the Employer Nomination Scheme visa (subclass 186); and

(c) changes go some way to 'redressing the balance between employer interests and those of domestic workers';

(3) further notes that the 457 visa program had become 'bloated out and a proxy pathway to permanent residence' as stated by the head of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, Mr Mike Pezzullo; and

(4) commends the Government on its actions which are predicted to reduce skilled migration numbers by more than 50,000, or one quarter, of the total program, thus resulting in more jobs being available for Australian workers.

In November last year I called on the Australian government to abolish the 457 visa program in North Queensland. At that time the region was suffering from a severe downturn in the resources sector. Many highly skilled and experienced workers from the mining industry who found themselves out of work were noticing the high prevalence of foreign workers employed under the 457 visa program.

The 457 visa program was supposed to be where employers turned as a last resort when they couldn't find any Australians qualified and willing to do a job. But locals had lost what little confidence there was in the program. There was a clear view that Australian workers were being displaced in favour of foreign workers. I called for 457 visas to be scrapped in North Queensland because there was a very large pool of highly skilled workers desperately looking for jobs, and there were systemic flaws in that program that meant the program was failing the Australian people nationwide.

This time last year there were more than a million people holding temporary visas in Australia, and most of them held rights to work in Australia. Of those, 172,000 held 457 visas. To put this into context, there were only around 12 million people employed in the country. Now, North Queensland was not the only place where the program was being abused. So it was particularly good news, to me, when the Prime Minister announced back in April this year that the 457 visa program would be scrapped altogether, saying, 'Australian workers must have priority for Australian jobs, so we're abolishing the 457 visa.' He went on to say, 'We will no longer allow 457 visas to be passports to jobs that could and should go to Australians.'

The Liberal-National government has always recognised that businesses need certainty of labour. The best way to create jobs for Australians is to create an environment where people are willing to invest in new businesses and to grow those businesses. That has meant, in the past, looking for a flexible labour force that can plug the gaps. But any measures taken to create a ready and stable workforce should never come at the expense of jobs for Australians. The primary objective must be to get Australians into the workforce. That's got to be the priority.

In supporting the PM's announcement, the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection said:

… I say we'll work with … companies, but if they can't fill Australian jobs with Australian workers, we don't want the default position to be a foreign worker going into that position in the first instance. We want it … as the last alternative, the last option.

People in my electorate in North Queensland took a more cynical view, believing that companies were turning to the 457 visa program as the first option. The Leader of the Opposition tried to play on that previous cynicism to criticise the solution, saying that scrapping the program altogether was only cosmetic. In fact, he went further, saying that the changes were a con job. It certainly isn't a con job for workers in my electorate who now have a better chance of getting a job.

The businesses who have complained about how hard it is now for them to hire a foreign worker don't think it's a cosmetic thing or a con job. For instance, Health Insurance Consultants Australia believe that the reset is such a game changer that they see an opportunity to include health insurance in salary packages to make them more attractive to the local workers. When talking about the visa changes, they said:

… it's clear that they will reduce the supply of skilled migrant workers and make it more difficult to replace skilled employees who are leaving Australia when their visas expire.

This is likely to increase competition for local skilled workers, meaning business will have to improve both their wages and benefit packages in order to compete in a changing labour market.

If the Labor leader was honest with himself, he would admit that he didn't want any changes to have such a meaningful impact on a problem that he and his party created. That's because it was under the previous Labor government that the number of 457 visas blew out of all proportion and were being rorted as a back door to Australian residency. The number of 457 visas in North Queensland reached its peak under the previous Labor administration. It quickly declined after Labor was booted out of office.

During the Senate estimates hearings in May of this year, the head of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, Mike Pezzullo, admitted that the 457 visa program had become 'bloated out and a proxy pathway to permanent residency'. That's because employers were not required to demonstrate that there was even a need for a worker of any kind, and they were not required to show that any temporary resident had necessary skills. The program was always open to abuse.

Last month, the Australian Population Research Institute released a report, authored by Professor Bob Birrell, entitled The coalition's 457 visa reset: tougher than you think. The report said:

As is evident, the 457 visa is extremely generous to employers and open to abuse if employers want to use the carrot of permanent residence to tie the sponsored person to wages and conditions below those prevailing in the wider labour market. In addition, it makes a large number of jobs inaccessible to domestic job aspirants, at a time when there is increasing competition for employment.

It's not surprising that the Labor leader doesn't want the reset to fix the problem, but fix it it does through a number of measures, including culling 216 jobs from the list of occupations eligible for the temporary skills shortage jobs, removing the ability of employers to offer a permanent residence carrot, introducing a labour market testing regime to prevent foreigners competing with locals for job, introducing higher fees and training levies on employers and adding tougher requirements for experience and credentials of potential applicants.

The effect of these measures will be far from cosmetic, and it has been far from cosmetic. To quote Professor Birrell's report:

Make no mistake about the significance of the reset. When fully in place from March 2018, the flagship ENS program will fall to less than a third its recent size of 48,250. The number of TSS visas will also fall sharply relative to the current number of 457 visas being granted. Those who think that immigration levels are set in concrete will have to reassess this belief.

It goes on to say:

The reset leaves Labor exposed. It has been inert on immigration policy.

It's hardly surprising that Labor has been inert on immigration policy. Labor and the Greens opened the floodgates to 50,000 illegal maritime arrivals and some 800 boats and, at the same time, lost control of the foreign workers rorting the 457 visa system. This government stopped the boats and it stopped the 457 visa rorts. Meanwhile, half of those opposite want to get in government so they can undo it all and bring back the policies of Rudd and Gillard.

Most of the measures we are introducing to stop the abuse of programs to address short-term workforce shortages are about creating obstacles to employing a foreign worker. By making the process more onerous and more expensive, there is less incentive to try to rort the system. It's still possible for a business that is genuinely unable to find an Australian worker to secure an alternative, but it won't be easy and it won't be cheap. Those hurdles will not be not enough to discourage a business that is in genuine and desperate need.

If we look at this visa reset through the eyes of an employer wanting to access a temporary skills shortage visa, we see a number of obstacles and disincentives, including: the additional visa costs; the additional training levies; providing evidence of labour market testing—that costs a fair bit; monitoring of wage payments so employers can't short-change workers; and employers being named and shamed for noncompliance.

For an employer seeking an employer-sponsored visa, there are just as many hurdles and disincentives, including: TSS visa holders in the two-year stream of occupations being no longer eligible for an ENS visa; employers having to demonstrate genuine need; higher standards of English required for those who are sponsored; the applicant has to be employed by the sponsor for three years, rather than two; and being named and shamed once again for noncompliance on wages. That's the sort of real response that Australian workers expect—a response that puts their interests first.

The Labor Party like to bleat on and on about 457s; I remember they did that back when they were in government. But they never did anything but talk about it. They were full of talk. They had lots of opportunities to fix that problem, but they never, ever did. They just let the problem get worse and worse. We have acted. The Liberal-National government's reset on the 457 visa program is, as I said, anything but cosmetic. It's actually a 'game changer'. Those aren't my words; those are the words of the Australian Population Research Institute. It is a game changer that will ensure Australian workers get first crack at Australian jobs. The game is changing. The winners are going to be Australian workers. It is this government's view and my firm view that Australian workers should get Australian jobs, that any Australian job should be open first and foremost to an Australian worker. Only where an Australian worker cannot fill that role should foreign workers be looked at. That is now the policy of this government. We have dealt with it, and we have delivered—unlike Labor, simply talking about it and doing nothing.

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