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

I love business. I come from a business background. I was my own sole trader for some time, and before that I worked in private enterprise for many years. I love business. But I understand that business will always do what it can to minimise its costs and maximise its profits. That's its role. If you own a company, you want to maximise your profits. You're in a competitive world. You're trying to outcompete your rivals and make as much as you can. Indeed, corporations are required to act in the best interests of their shareholders. They're not required to look after the interests of the community. They are required to look after the interests of the shareholders. So, whenever they can, they'll pay wages as low as they can. We see this overseas. We see it in the United States with Walmart, which pays wages so low that even full-time workers can't survive without food stamps from the federal government. We see it in factories in developing countries that pay cents on the hour, and these factories are owned by some of the wealthiest corporations in the world.

This happens because government regulation is not as strong as it needs to be to protect those workers. All that stands between Australian workers and scraping the bottom of the barrel is Australian government regulation. This is where labour market testing comes in. Without proper labour market testing, Australian workers can have no confidence that this government will look after their best interests when it comes to foreign workers coming into Australia when they're not required. We've said previously—and we stand by the fact—that we know there is a place for foreign workers when Australian workers are not available for that work. What we need is an instrument and a mechanism—a legislative promise that Australian workers will be guaranteed work in Australia first and foremost.

But we have no confidence that this government is doing that. It's refusing to show the parliament, refusing to show the Australian public, the instrument by which it makes this promise. How can we trust it? We've said previously that we know that on past performance this government cannot be trusted at its word. We need to see the detail.

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