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

In the brief time I had last night, I was outlining to the House how it is possible that the government thinks, in this migration legislation that it has put forward, that people on this side of the House and people in the community can be expected to trust the Minister for Home Affairs when it comes to the critical issue of labour market testing. Why is labour market testing critical? Because it goes to the fundamental reason for temporary skilled migration. We have a real problem in this country and it's been building over time, for almost a generation now. A generation ago, you could finish school, finish university, finish your TAFE qualifications and walk into an entry-level job. They existed—the Commonwealth Bank, the Public Service and anywhere there were jobs available. People who are in their 50s and 60s say that, even if you didn't like that job, you could quit that job and get your next job tomorrow. Today those entry-level jobs don't really exist. There are fewer and fewer of them. Even in the Commonwealth Public Service today, we're employing far fewer young people in entry-level jobs than we did a generation ago.

What that has meant is that over time we have created skills gaps in some of our industries. I want to acknowledge that there are genuine skills gaps in our country, and I think what the government is trying to do is actually create a fund to help train people to fill those gaps. However, they cannot be trusted in that commitment, given the funding cuts that they've already made to skills, education, TAFE and vocational education; the way in which they've really failed to prioritise, within their own procurement policy, such things as apprenticeships; and the way in which they have forced casual jobs upon the Public Service as opposed to creating good, secure full-time jobs.

I know that in my part of the world we do struggle to attract chefs. I personally think we've got to do better at promoting ourselves. We have some fantastic foodie restaurants that people can work in. We aren't that far from Melbourne, we have affordable housing and we have a great lifestyle, but we have struggled to attract qualified chefs to our region. This isn't just Bendigo; this is throughout regional Victoria—in fact, throughout Australia. There is a disconnect there, however, when the same enterprises try to sit down with TAFE and talk about the need for training chefs. They struggle. When they try to raise this issue with the federal government or federal MPs on the government side of the House, they struggle to get them to understand.

There are other industries where we have skills gaps that from time to time need to be filled by temporary skilled migration. As a personal position, I prefer permanent skilled migration, giving that person and their family the opportunity to choose to settle here, over temporary skilled migration. We are Australia. We've been built on a proud history of migration. My parents migrated here, and there are so many Australians who have migrated here or whose parents or family migrated here. It was never temporary. They got to choose to move here and bring their families with them.

There are real problems with our temporary skilled migration program. It is being gamed and manipulated by some employers and some sectors. Rather than investing and training and skilling up Australians, they are choosing this alternative. Corporate Australia and big businesses have really broken the social compact that we had for a long time in this country with the current generation of young people. They are no longer doing what they did a generation ago, which was to take on people at an entry level and train them up, giving them that same opportunity. Instead, they are going overseas and looking for workers who have skills and experience. I have a real issue with that. I want to see corporate Australia and our businesses do better. The role of the federal government is to engage with them and to encourage them to put a system in place that sees them once again give young Australians a go, and they're not.

I should say that it's not all companies. We have a mine in Bendigo. We've discovered gold again, and the mine is doing well. Over the last 12 months they've increased their workforce by at least 25 per cent. They've employed an extra 100 people. They are entry-level jobs. Hopefully, those people will now have a career in mining. They are learning skills on the job. We want to encourage and bring back that culture, that style of system which used to happen in Australian workplaces. Unfortunately, the scrappy way in which this bill has been put together is a demonstration that the government doesn't understand that. They haven't engaged with and put it to big business and corporate Australia to give the next generation a go.

I spoke briefly last night about our problem that people who have skills and qualifications are not able to get a start—for example, young nurses. The nurses' union has raised on several occasions that young graduates are not able to get a start in our health system, because of 457 visas. I know that, within the aged-care sector, recently arrived nurses, unaware of their conditions, are quite often working in very crowded, unsafe situations, because they're here as guest workers and feel pressure about raising workplace issues.

This is not isolated to nursing. A report released by the Fair Work Ombudsman not that long ago, which the government hasn't properly acted on, found that one in five people who are here on a temporary skilled migration visa—back then 457 visas—were being underpaid or not working in the role in which they were recruited. The government hasn't put forward a comprehensive plan on how to stop that exploitation. Whether they be 457 visas, backpackers or international students, the exploitation of temporary and migrant workers in this country is ongoing. The Ombudsman continues to release report after report that people are having their visa held over them as leverage, that they are not being paid and that they are literally taking jobs away from locals. That's a practice that has to stop.

In this legislation the government is also putting forward their attempt to take money from the employers of people entering this country on a 457 visa and put it into a training fund. However, as others on this side of the House have highlighted, their numbers don't stack up. There's no commitment in this funding to TAFE. The public vocational education sector around the country has been gutted by conservative governments at state and federal levels, particularly in regional Australia, where we have some of the skills shortages I just referred to. There's no commitment whatsoever in this bill that funding will go towards rebuilding our TAFEs. The Abbott-Turnbull government have ripped $2.8 billion out of TAFE skills and training over the past five years alone, including $637 million in the last budget, yet they're hoping that taking money when people enter the country will help bridge that gap. It will not.

The other thing that the government has failed to do is properly engage with the sector and re-establish the tripartisan way in which we used to approach skills shortages. We have heard from our pilots and our pilots' union that we have a shortage of pilots in this country. It's too hard to train people. Australians aren't going to stop flying. We are an island nation. This is one of the industries and jobs that we can attract young people into—encourage them to become pilots—but, as the pilots' association says repeatedly, it's too hard in this country to train young pilots. There has been no commitment by the government to engage unions collaboratively in how we can help fix our country's skills shortage.

This legislation that has been put together by the government lacks any decent understanding of how we can create the good, secure jobs of the future. It doesn't really offer, in a meaningful way, real jobs for Australian workers. Their continued attack on unions, their continued attack on workers, just demonstrates how so many of their ideas are driven by their own political agenda. We saw in this place, not yesterday but the day before, the minister who would be responsible for labour market testing attack a group of workers because of a logo that they had on their T-shirts. This is clearly not somebody who's thinking logically or realistically or inclusively about how we can bring workers and employers and industry together.

It is true that our economy is going through transition; however, a lot of the jobs that we have today will still exist in the future. We need to work together, through reforms in the IR system and partnerships, to make sure that these are good, secure jobs going forward. This is why we've moved an amendment and why we're referring this bill to a Senate inquiry: because we really need to test out how committed they are to labour market testing. You know, it's a fundamental belief of Australians that you give local jobs to locals first—and they're right. You should be made, as an employer, to look locally. Our job agencies, another area with real problems in our community, must be made to work with employers to match people.

I've had an unusual experience in my electorate. We have a Karen community that have moved in. They've chosen Bendigo to settle in. They're a big part of our community, the Karen Australians. There is such a disconnect going on with the job agencies in my part of the world that I was the one who introduced the Karen community to our local meatworks, which wants to move away from 457 visas and backpackers and wants to employ locals. We've become a matchmaking service between people who are looking for work and employers who want to take them on. These are more of the entry-level jobs that I was talking about. It shouldn't have to be about an MP's personal relationship; this should just be what the government, government contractors, government agencies and government funded services do.

The government, when it comes to labour market testing, cannot be trusted. The minister that they want to put in charge of labour market testing cannot be trusted. That is why Labor will refer the contents of this bill to a Senate inquiry, so it can be properly scrutinised to make sure that, if there is a local job in this country, it is offered to a local first. We must really put it on corporate Australia to step back up to the plate and recreate entry-level jobs. (Time expired)

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