Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

In the few minutes that I have before we adjourn tonight, I will take the opportunity to reflect on what the previous speaker has said and actually add to it. The government is asking us to trust the Minister for Home Affairs with labour market testing. Do they really think Australian workers and the Australian people are going to buy that? This is a man who stood in here at question time yesterday, looked up in the gallery and had a go at some coalminers—called them thugs and said they were going to break arms on construction sites. The guy clearly is so blinded by his hatred for organised labour and blinded by his hatred for hardworking Queenslanders, so in it for the kill and so in it for the hunt, that he turns up to the gallery—

Mr Dick interjecting—

He can't be independent; he can't be biased—and he's the person that this government wants to put in charge of labour market testing! Labour market testing is critical when it comes to: 'Do we or do we not need overseas temporary migrant workers in this country?' The whole premise of a temporary migrant worker with a skill is the fact that we don't have those skills in this country.

Under this government, proper labour market testing has failed. I meet young nurses all the time who've just graduated and are ready to start their career but can't get jobs in our hospitals because too many jobs have gone to people who were here on 457 visas or whatever new name the government has given it. I feel for those workers who've come into our country in good faith—they've been recruited; they've come here to work—but they are now pinned against Australian workers because this government has dropped the ball when it comes to skilled migration and temporary skilled migration. This is one of the core, fundamental problems—

Debate interrupted.

See this speech in context