Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to be able to rise in defence of Australian workers and Australian jobs. This government clearly has no commitment to Australian workers working in Australian jobs. Throughout this debate—in fact, throughout the last week in parliament—the subtext of this government has been all about lowering the costs of Australian workers' wages and lowering costs for business. It sees Australian workers, and paying Australian workers a decent wage, as an impediment to business growth. I reject that. I think Australian workers are worth every dollar that is invested in them, because it's Australian workers who provide the profits that employers make and the livelihoods that employers enjoy.

This debate is increasingly about those of us who believe that Australians should get first go at Australian jobs versus those opposite, who want to pave the way for cheap labour to come in from overseas. We acknowledge that there is a place for people coming from overseas to take on jobs when there are no Australians available to do those jobs. We acknowledge that, on occasion, we need people from overseas to take jobs. But there are hundreds of thousands of Australians available to take on jobs right now who are not getting jobs, because this government will not put in place the mechanisms that encourage employers to employ Australians.

What are we asking for here? We are simply asking this government to put in place a decent and workable labour-market testing instrument and then to show us what that instrument is. The government says: 'Trust us. Trust the minister. The minister will get this right. He's a good bloke.' Well, over the four or five years of this government, there's been nothing but broken promises. You've broken promises on education, not a dollar difference—broken. You've broken promises on health; you've cut the health budget—broken. Two years ago, the Prime Minister said: 'We've learnt our lesson. We know there's an issue with the Medicare rebate freeze. Maybe we should do something about that.' Two years later, it's still in place—no action. Debt has more than doubled under this government, when there was apparently a debt and deficit emergency just a few years ago. This government breaks every promise that it makes. It can't be trusted on labour-market testing and it can't be trusted to do what it says it will do.

It needs to be in the legislation, in black and white, that Australians get first dibs at Australian jobs and that jobs are advertised for four weeks. We don't want employers thinking: 'We'll just pretend to advertise or maybe make the conditions too hard. We'll write in a few extra conditions—you've got to be a brain surgeon in order to be a meatworker.' We don't employers advertising overseas and flooding the market with overseas workers. If you need a meatworker, what is wrong with advertising for four weeks in an Australian newspaper or on seek.com.au for an Australian meatworker with the required qualifications? A job shouldn't be just for a short-term five minutes. We need Australian workers in long-term jobs. If you're looking to invest in somebody, is it really too much to ask that you invest in four weeks of advertisements to get the right person—the right Australian—for the job? If, at the end of those four weeks, you haven't got the replies in, if nobody's presented themselves, then by all means you can put yourself forward for bringing in overseas employees. We are not asking for anything onerous here. We are simply asking this government to put Australian workers first for Australian jobs.

Part of the reason that we're here is that this government has defunded skills and education training in this country. TAFE has been gutted. Trades and training centres have been stopped. One of the first decisions this government made was to stop trade training centres. Trade training centres were a Howard government initiative, which Labor kept—we thought it was a good idea. This government came in in 2013 and necked it—all of that hospitality training and skills training out the window. All that Labor is asking for is for this government to show proper regard for labour market testing in this country, have four weeks of advertisements and make sure that Australians come first when it comes to Australian jobs.

See this speech in context