Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you. Anyway, it is continuing a trend where government members are loath to actually come and speak on their bill but come and read out random explanatory memoranda. Anyway, thank you.

I'd say at the outset that we support the Migration and Other Legislation Amendment (Enhanced Integrity) Bill 2017. Indeed, it would be hard not to. It's a fairly sensible, if slowly baked and overdue, change to improve the integrity of the migration system. To enable the Department of Home Affairs or whatever it's called this week to collect tax file numbers, as has been outlined, is a pretty sensible effort at streamlining and ensuring more targeted and effective compliance. It can help, if done properly, to ensure the department will be able to check with employers that they're paying correctly and that workers on visas are complying with conditions: that they're working in an appropriate position with an employer in accordance with their visa requirements; that they're being paid the correct salary, particularly where those salaries have been nominated as part of the migration process; that they're paying tax; and, importantly, that they're being paid appropriately. Currently, as has been outlined, it is true that, with the temporary skilled migration system, there has been difficulty for the department in verifying that those things have been occurring. So in that context it's a sensible, practical measure, if somewhat modest. You wouldn't exactly say this is scintillating structural reform, but it is a constructive change nevertheless.

I want to make some remarks, though, on the context in which this measure has been introduced. First, I will just reflect on a little mystery for many of us, which is why this has taken so long to get here. It does need to be remarked upon. If you believe all the sensible things that we've heard from the minister, from opposition speakers and from the previous speaker, this is a sensible change, but it was in February 2014, four years ago, that the Abbott government—remember them?—commissioned a review of the 457 visa program. So off they go in February, and then in September 2014 they got the report. I think John Azarias, if I remember correctly, chaired it. There were 22 recommendations. So the government kind of chewed on that over summer, which is sort of a stately time frame. You wouldn't say it was accelerated or quick, but it was faster than a lot of things this government seems to do. In March 2015 the government's response came out, and I think they accepted all but a couple of the recommendations in full or in part. So, 12 months after they kicked off this review, they said, 'Okay, here's what we're going to do.' That was March 2015. So we're about to hit the third anniversary of the government saying, 'Here's a bunch of changes we're going to make to the temporary skilled migration system.' If these changes are so important, why has it taken three years to get what should be a pretty straightforward piece of legislation into this parliament so we can all agree on it and, as you say, improve the integrity of the temporary skilled migration system?

So, after three years, the government finally gets around to implementing just two of those recommendations—the tax file numbers, to allow these things to happen, and the 'name and shame'—to use a colloquial term—sanctions on sponsors who breach the visa conditions.

I note that, when the government introduced the bill some time last year, they trumpeted, they said very clearly, it was all going to be in place—and the immigration department or Home Affairs, or whatever it's called next week, would be collecting tax file numbers—by 31 December. That was the government's clear commitment. This system was going to be introduced by 31 December. As we know, they cancelled the last week of parliament, running scared, saying that there wasn't anything to do but the marriage bill. But the Notice Paper was full of sensible, somewhat important changes like this that we could have turned up to work for last year and voted on, and we could have had this in place. So let's be clear. This delay of three years and then stuffing around, diddling around, last year—who knows what they were doing—has meant that this pretty sensible change is still not in place.

You could speculate multiple-choice-wise, as the member for Bass and I often do, why this took so long. It could be incompetence. Incompetence is a theme. The Prime Minister got promoted for stuffing up the NBN, and we've seen a new Deputy Prime Minister promoted this week. So incompetence is a theme. It's a legitimate question about the delay of this measure by the government. I think it's just relevant. Are they confused? The government often confuses being in government with actually governing. It means you get recommendations, you move them through, you introduce legislation, you run a program and you vote on them. Or it could be that they're just fighting each other. We have seen a bit of that. I was hoping O'Dowd would come out on top to be Deputy Prime Minister! If they'd stop fighting they could go back to governing—debating legislation. Or indeed it could be that the government just does not see protecting vulnerable migrant workers as a priority. It's a very legitimate and important point.

Let's dwell on that last option. The truth is that at every step the government has had to be dragged kicking and dreaming to do anything meaningful to protect vulnerable migrant workers, despite being publicly shamed in many cases by endless scandals with 7-Elevens, kickbacks and underpayments—supposedly, some of the things this bill may go some small way towards preventing.

But I will be very clear to the House that the most vulnerable, exploited workers in Australia are those here on temporary visas. They are uniquely vulnerable to exploitation. Every hour of every day we have had evidence for years from across Australia that these people with little or no bargaining power in the workplace are being exploited by unscrupulous employers. That comes in many forms, as has been documented before in debates in this place, numerous times in the media and, indeed, in Senate inquiries that the government has done basically nothing with: underpayment, payment below the award or the minimum wage; theft of superannuation; being forced to work unpaid overtime; illegal kickbacks to employers for visa fees, tools, uniforms and so on. In that context, these tax file number changes and a bit of naming and shaming may help improve the system's integrity for some workers, and address a small amount of the underpayments—theoretically. But it is manifestly insufficient. This bill is not enough, not in anyone's universe, to address the pattern we have seen.

It's like the fair work amendment bill. You might remember that one, the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Vulnerable Workers) Bill—a misnomer if ever there was one, as it didn't actually do anything much to protect vulnerable workers—that we had to debate last year. For this government, 'something is better than nothing' in this space seems to be its motto. Despite the numerous issues raised repeatedly in the parliament in recent years, they have still not addressed them.

I'll just repeat a pub test moment, and I think it is relevant—three propositions that I reckon past the pub test. The first point is that employers should pay their workers what they're owed and must act in accordance with the law. The second point, pretty non-controversial, is that the law should be enforced by a strong, well-resourced regulator. This bill does nothing in that regard to address the serious issues that are out there. The third point is that, where there are gaps in the law or regulatory regime, the government and parliament must act quickly to fix them. With something as modest as this change, really, 'quickly' does not mean that, three years after you said you'd do it, you're finally getting around to scheduling it on the legislative program.

See this speech in context