Damian Drum (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

When you listen to the Labor Party talk on labour and regional skilled visas, it is incredibly scary. There are a whole raft of underlying tones that are perpetrated in the speeches of the Labor Party where they refuse to acknowledge the fact that in regional Australia around five per cent equals full employment, when you see the range and the types of employment that are available and how hard our businesses, our Australian businesses, in regional Australia have to advertise for their workers and how hard it is to get workers into many of our areas of trade, agriculture and also hospitality. To see the Labor Party continually focus on the exploitation of workers as a reason why they want to semi-oppose this—they'll probably end up supporting the bill, but they'll raise a whole range of issues. If there are issues of worker exploitation, those labour firms need to have the book thrown at them. They have got unions out there keeping an eye on things. They have got the Ombudsman and the Fair Work Commission. There are a whole raft of policemen out there who are prepared to act very quickly and diligently if there are areas of worker exploitation.

The fact is, these so-called cuts are to higher education and to the TAFE system—the TAFE system is run by the state government. If you want to start criticising the Daniel Andrews Labor government in Victoria, knock yourself out. But don't throw that criticism at the federal government. All we are trying to do here, with the New Skilled Regional Visas (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2019, is ensure that these Australian businesses bracing themselves for a very busy time ahead in the harvest season have an adequate workforce that will enable them to get the crops sorted and packed in the packing sheds and shipped off to market. Having the workers and the legal labour force to do that is the most crucial thing. The Victorian, New South Wales and South Australian governments have recently moved legislation to actually increase the penalties of labour hire firms that are not registered. This, in itself, is seen as a way of making it even harder for our farmers to be able to access the labour that they need.

The coalition is delivering on its commitment to support rural and regional Australia. In my electorate of Nicholls we regularly meet with farmers, food processors, manufacturers, health providers and small business owners—and all of them are struggling to find both skilled and unskilled workers. Only last week I met with Richard Buchner, Managing Director at MATelec Australia—a high-technology switchboard manufacturer based in Shepparton that employs around 50 people. It's a dynamic business looking to grow, but its biggest challenge is finding skilled workers. These shortages are holding back his business, and similar skills shortages are holding back other like businesses throughout the Goulburn Valley—holding back our whole economy.

These aren't fictional facts that we are bringing up; these are the facts that we see by going out on the street and meeting with our businesses and asking them, 'How are you going sourcing the skilled workers that you need?' I continually stand in this place and talk about the struggle with finding fitters and turners, mechanics, diesel mechanics, sheet metal workers, food processors and even food technicians, who need a university degree, and how it's very difficult for all the food manufacturers in the Goulburn Valley to be able to access the food technicians they need to run their businesses.

More than seven million people have migrated to Australia since the Second World War, and they have added incredibly to our nation. They have stimulated stronger growth and they have created more jobs for our economy. The immigration system has historically had a strong view on how many people should come to Australia in any given year, but we have never actually determined where they should go; we've always left it up to them. We know that Sydney and Melbourne experienced strong population growth, of 18 per cent and 25 per cent respectively, between 2006 and 2016. A disproportionate amount of migrants have tended to settle in two major cities, leading to congestion and pressures on infrastructure. Elsewhere in Australia, like in my electorate of Nicholls and also out to the west of Victoria and up to the north of Victoria, we are crying out for skilled migration. There are around 60,000 job opportunities in regional Australia where locals are not available or willing to fill the roles. Workforce attraction and retention are the key challenges for our regional employers. Of course, our first priority is always to try and fill these jobs with Australian workers. When that isn't possible, migrants present an opportunity that doesn't otherwise exist.

This bill will give effect to government policy whereby holders of the new provisional skilled regional visas, which come into effect on 16 November, will have access to government services consistent with skilled permanent visa holders. The new provisional skilled regional visas are the subclass 491 skilled work regional provisional visa, for skilled workers who are nominated by a state or territory government and sponsored by an eligible family member to live and work in regional Australia; and the subclass 494 skilled employer-sponsored regional provisional visa, which will enable an Australian business to sponsor skilled workers to work in their business in regional Australia. These new visas are part of the coalition's plan for Australia's future population to ease the pressure on the big capitals while supporting the growth in smaller regional cities.

The plan includes reducing the annual migration ceiling from 190,000 down to 160,000 and setting aside 23,000 places for these new regional visas. It's a new feature of visa requirements for regional migrants to live and work in regional areas for up to three years before being eligible for permanent residency. This will encourage visa holders to remain in regional Australia, which will in turn support the local communities and enhance the economies of regional parts of Australia. The amendments in the bill will ensure that holders of the new visas have access to government services in line with current arrangements for permanent visa holders.

Since the Howard era, our immigration has emphasised skilled migration. In the 1997-98 program year, skilled migration represented more than 50 per cent of the migration program for the first time in our history. This figure has now risen to 70 per cent under the coalition government. Our skilled migration, which has generally very high participation rates in the workforce, increases the number of people paying taxes. Migration offsets the impact of an ageing population and helps enable us to pay for the essential services that we all need.

There have also been some changes to the working holiday-maker program. This is an essential part of Australia's agriculture and tourism industries. It's a crucial part of our labour force in the Goulburn Valley, the GMID and certainly the entire electorate of Nicholls. The GMID, the Goulburn Murray Irrigation District, is arguably the most productive fruit-growing region in Australia, with apples, pears and stone fruits for domestic and export markets. Without the working holiday-maker program, it would be impossible to bring that harvest from the trees and into our economy each and every year. Working holiday-makers are critical to filling the short-term workforce shortage that we have in rural and regional Australia, and they also inject over $3 billion into our national economy.

A range of new working holiday-maker arrangements come into effect on 1 July this year. This will include an increase in the number of places available to Malaysian nationals but also to nationals of some other countries as well. We are also going to see an extension in the working holiday-maker program that will enable visas for those that work for the same employer to be extended up to 12 months. There will be an increase in the number of places available in the 462 program for travellers from Malaysia from 100 up to 1,100, for Argentina from 1,500 up to 2,450, for Singapore from 500 up to 2,500, and for Portugal from 200 up to 500. For Greece we have 500 places available for their young working holiday-makers, and for Ecuador there are 100. It was interesting that only last week I shared the opportunity to go to Greece with some of the members in the chamber. We talked to the Hellenic Parliament, and they were very excited about the fact that many of their young workers are going to be heading to Australia. Many of them are looking forward to working on orchards owned by Greek families that have been here for three generations. So it's great that we are able to be part of this incredible program, a program that's going to help not only young Greek working holiday-makers but also many of our families and our farmers.

I build on the work from the previous speakers who have spoken about the Regional Australia Institute, which has been a very strong promoter of smaller communities that have been able to get behind skilled migrants and even unskilled migrants with a view to housing them, putting services around them and giving them the employment they need in many of these places such as Nhill, Pyramid Hill and a whole range of other small communities that have worked very hard to make themselves attractive to workers from overseas countries who are looking for a better way of life. Rupanyup also comes to mind. There are lots of programs that are going to make their economies much, much stronger because of this bill. Those 23,000 places we have set aside for regional skilled migrants from 2019-20 are going to direct migrants who are going to help these communities that are crying out for more people.

In the short time I have available, I need to acknowledge the Shepparton City Council, the Campaspe shire and the Moira shire, who are combining together to work with the government and its departments to introduce a DAMA. We have DAMAs currently working across other parts of Australia, making it easier for these regions to bring in skilled migrants to assist with businesses that are very heavily in need of new migrants.

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