Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

You liked that one, Member for Gippsland? The impact of fewer backpackers working in Australia has dire consequences for our horticulture growers. I know this because the Brisbane Markets, where a lot of this produce ends up, are in my electorate, and I've had feedback from several growers about some of the concerns they have, as I also had on my visit to the Lockyer Valley and Bundaberg. Growers face the prospect of seeing their fruit rot on their trees if they don't have anyone to pick it. The uncertainty that the Turnbull government continues to create has caused unnecessary stress for farmers, whose very livelihoods are at stake, especially—I am informed by my colleagues—in Tasmania but also in the north-west of Western Australia and some of the more remote parts of Queensland and no doubt everywhere in between.

Sadly, the Turnbull government, and particularly dumped former Deputy Prime Minister Joyce, handled this issue very badly. He is not a great negotiator. He failed to fully consult with stakeholders or to do any modelling when he put forward proposals to tax backpackers. When this went on, we saw that the Nationals—that once-great party of the bush and the home town I grew up in—completely ignored their constituents, the growers. The premise of any proposals completely ignored the fact that backpackers who come to Australia to work, usually then spend the money they earn in Australia and—guess what—often spend it in the bush. If you're out in St George picking grapes, you stay in St George and spend it in the pubs there and in accommodation there. It is Australian businesses that benefit from these backpackers' holidays, and all the goods and services sold to them—the holiday products, the alcohol, the food, the tourist experiences—attract GST, support a lot of small businesses and are good for our economy.

While I mention the GST, I again appeal to Prime Minister Turnbull and to all of the Queensland Liberal National Party MPs and senators to drop any plans to slash Queensland's fair share of the GST, which is flagged as making our state's economy $1.5 billion worse off. That would be the equivalent of losing 5,000 teachers, 5,000 nurses, 3,000 police officers and 1,135 firefighters. It's clear that Prime Minister Turnbull and the LNP government don't care about frontline services in the Sunshine State.

Before us today, we have the Liberal government and their very muted National Party coalition partners revisiting this backpacker tax policy area. In 2016-17, a total of 211,011 subclass 417 and subclass 462 working holiday-maker visas were granted. That's a 1.7 per cent reduction compared to 2015-16, which in itself saw a 5.4 per cent reduction from the preceding year. So there was a one per cent reduction in first working holiday visa grants, subclass 417, to 157,858, and a six per cent reduction in the second holiday working visa grants, down to 34,097—red flags for any minister, surely, whether it be the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources or the Minister for Home Affairs.

In 2016-17, the top five countries for first working holiday visa grants were: the UK, down 4.5 per cent; Germany, down 0.9 per cent; France, actually, up 5.5 per cent; South Korea, up 3.8 per cent; and Taiwan, down 3.3 per cent. In 2016-17, the top five countries for that second working holiday visa were: the UK, down 3.3 per cent; Taiwan down 0.3 per cent; South Korea, down 6.8 per cent; France, down 6.1 per cent; and Japan, down 1.9 per cent. Not a good tale at all. To apply for a working holiday visa, you must have a valid passport from a country that's involved in the working holiday program. Not every country that we have diplomatic relations with is able to access this scheme.

Much of Australia's large Taiwanese diaspora lives in my electorate of Moreton, which also has a significant Korean population. As I just mentioned, Taiwan is one of the top five sources of working holiday visas, both first and second. A few years ago, due to the stories I was hearing about the Taiwanese using this visa scheme being exploited, I travelled north to Bundaberg with Ken Lai, who was the then director general of Brisbane's Taipei Economic and Cultural Office. We also visited the Lockyer Valley and caught up with many of the backpackers working and picking on farms. We went out to the farms, mainly Bundaberg and the area's tomato farms, but also a few other crops down in the Lockyer Valley. We met the young backpackers, we went out for dinner with them and we chatted to them about the hourly rates and the potential for exploitation in this industry—particularly, when being paid piecemeal rates under the horticultural award. Sadly, the evidence I heard made me realise that there are unscrupulous operators, and that—and I'll say this to support the member for Hinkler—often it's actually a middle person rather than the grower who's actually doing the exploiting. Sometimes it is a fellow countryman of the Taiwanese and Koreans, and they take advantage of these optimistic, fun-loving, usually young backpackers.

The Fair Work Ombudsman recently released a report into the wages and conditions of people working under the working holiday visa program, and they'd received nearly 2,000 requests for assistance from visa holders in 2016 and recovered $3 million owed to these visa holders—so about $1,500 each. When this program was expanded a decade ago, it introduced an option for young visa holders to extend their stay. If they did it in regional Australia, they got an extra 88 days. That made them more open to being abused, particularly people from Asian countries like Korea and Taiwan. They didn't understand the workplace rights of Australia and so there was more likelihood that they could be duped or abused. That is not what the program was set up for. Unfortunately, it's sometimes hard to get information about workplace rights into the hands of working holiday-backpackers in their language. Sadly, sometimes they go straight from the airport, into the middleman's van and then off to the agricultural areas. It's hard to get them the information.

We know the facts. We've had review after review. We can't just hope for the best; we need to have tighter scrutiny and increased transparency. Prime Minister Abbott's 2015 budget package allowed the date of effect of an employer's registration to be made publicly available on the Australian Businesses Register so at least visa holders could check that public register to see if a business was registered. Sadly, this bill removes the requirement for the public listing of the business on the Australian Business Register, which was a bit of transparency that would help catch the rogues. As we know, you have to enforce it for the cowboys, not for those that want to do good. This bill will remove the ability of working holiday-makers to look up those details. It erodes the ability for greater protection. As I mentioned here today, it's an industry rife with significant cases of exploitation and, as such, Labor opposes this bill.

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