Dai Le (Fowler, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Protecting Worker Entitlements) Bill 2023. As a refugee who settled in south-west Sydney in the 1970s, at a time when migrant worker exploitation was rife and far more the norm than it is today, I'm glad to see more awareness for newly arrived migrants. In the past year, we have seen continued commitments to improving the employment law space specifically in reference to the enactment of the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Act 2022. These legislative amendments have brought about a paradigm change across the area of workplace bargaining and the approval processes involved therein. The protecting worker entitlements bill seeks to address a range of areas: migrant workers, unpaid parental leave, superannuation contributions, workplace determinations, employer authorised deductions and the coalmining long service leave scheme.

As you are aware, Fowler is a diverse electorate, with 52 per cent of the community having been born overseas. Australia will welcome a further 650,000 migrants this financial year, with conversations that Fowler will likely be the majority's place of settlement. This expected migration boom naturally leads to questions of vacancy, lack of infrastructure, living costs and employment, which our Fairfield City Council has previously raised. I raise these figures due to their correlation with the proposed amendments put forward by the government.

It's my understanding that this bill seeks to achieve three major things on a policy level: (1) relieve the fear of uncertainty for migrants seeking employment or in employment on where they stand in the Australian employment law system, (2) reduce the exploitation of migrant workers and (3) result in a positive impact for migrant workers. According to the explanatory memorandum, irrespective of their immigration status, migrant workers would be entitled to access the benefits enshrined in the Fair Work Act. I perceive this as a significant and positive outcome for migrant workers within Fowler, and I welcome this development.

For those who have gained the right to work, you can appreciate that there may be difficulty in navigating a new culture and understanding their rights and obligations, particularly what exploitation could look like. The sad reality is that migrant workers may not recognise workplace exploitation when faced with such experiences, as everything in a new country would feel foreign to them. Exploitation could be in the form of underpayment of wages, working ridiculous hours, unsafe working environments and discrimination, bullying and harassment. It would not be obvious to migrant workers what workplace practices are legally acceptable or unacceptable.

In the Migrant Justice Institute's submission on this bill, they note that their 2016 survey of over 4,000 temporary visa holders found that at least a third were earning less than $12 an hour. An ABC report published today revealed the disturbing data within a report by the Grattan Institute that between five per cent and 16 per cent of employed recently arrived migrants are paid below the national minimum wage of $21.38. The Grattan Institute report published on 7 May 2023 further revealed that young migrant workers between 20 and 30 years old are more than six times more likely than 30- to 40-year-olds to be underpaid by more than $3 per hour vis-a-vis the minimum wage. To put this into perspective, these individuals could be your son, daughter, brother or sister who are being underpaid. This is literally wage theft. How are these acceptable employment standards in Australia? If Australia is opening its doors to migrant workers, we have a duty to ensure there are adequate facilities, infrastructure and measures for the protection of their rights.

A case that received media coverage in 2021 surrounded a cheesecake business chain with a shop located in the Fowler electorate. The owners were accused of human trafficking and slavery, with alleged threats of exploitation made to an employee being detained to work illegally. It was reported that the individual, who worked at the cake shop between 2015 and 2017, was unpaid. When this story was released, it was a major shock to our electorate that such an atrocity could occur within our neighbourhood in this day and age. This begs the question: how could Australian laws have protected him better? Now, this is an isolated and sensationalised case; I understand that. But often, like I said before, enough data about migrant workers' exploitation will not be readily available. That is why it's scary to think about.

A further concern is this: what about migrants without appropriate working rights and their risk of getting exploited in the workplace? I'm talking about individual asylum seekers in Australia holding short-term bridging visas, pending an outcome, such as those who are on temporary protection visas. Today, migrant workers within the Fowler electorate include individuals holding temporary protection visas who are of diverse linguistic backgrounds.

The Albanese government has since introduced a subclass 851 resolution-of-status visa to convert a temporary protection visa to one for permanent residency. There are also migrant workers on skilled visas. While the government has sought to amend this, as flagged by the Western Sydney Migrant Resource Centre it's not a guarantee that all TPV holders will definitely be accepted into this new stream. Acting CEO Mohan Gunasekara told our office that there are still inconsistencies on the ground with the TPV visa, with not all its holders having working rights. He said that it depends on the circumstances, and the circumstances are not clear.

While these migrants live in limbo they are at greater risk of exploitation. This is because their visa does not give them working rights. These individuals may feel pressure to work undocumented to have a means of income. This practice would push them to the edge for employment that is not 'on the books'. We've had a number of constituents call into our office to seek assistance on whether their bridging visas will allow them to work. Time and time again, they were disappointed that they do not have a lawful right to work. Of course, I could not be of any further assistance to them in this regard. As you can imagine, these individuals' hands are tied until they have been processed by the Australian government.

Fowler is and always will be a settlement city, and we are always welcoming of migrants. Our roots began post World War II, with German and Italian communities settling here. We then had the Southeast Asian wave in the seventies and eighties, followed by the Latino and eastern European communities in the 1990s and 2000s, and today we welcome those from Africa and the Middle East. We are a multicultural melting pot.

Naturally, I'm concerned with the adequacy of the legislative measure to address potential workplace exploitation. I iterate that if more migrant workers are to settle in Australia, particularly within the Fowler electorate, it is our duty to ensure that they are properly protected. Whilst I've raised concerns on the exploitation of migrant workers, I acknowledge that the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Protecting Worker Entitlements) Bill 2023 is a step forward. This legislative amendment sends a strong message. Migrant workers are to be treated as normal Australians with parallel working rights. Exploitation is not acceptable, and things must change. But we can do so much more.

I invite the government to consider the broader implications to best protect migrant workers. One, does this bill address the blurred lines of migrants without working rights and their risk of exploitation? Where do they stand in this interplay of the Fair Work Act and the Migration Act? Two, will there be a correlating amendment to the Migration Act 1958 to address these issues? The government should consider a legislative amendment within the Migration Act 1958 to clearly stipulate that a migrant worker's visa will not be in jeopardy of being cancelled if they are exploited by their employer to work unlawful hours beyond their working rights. Three, will there be greater resources, like employment opportunities and infrastructure, to support the influx of migrant workers? Four, in cases where migrant workers have appropriate working rights, will there be amendments to accompanying labour law frameworks outside the Fair Work Act to protect them? This was specifically raised in the submission by the Migrant Justice Institute. Five, are we doing the absolute most we can to set up our migrants for success, such as offering social services, English classes and trauma counselling for those who have fled war or humanitarian crises? It is an absolute necessity to ensure we nurture and help them in settling into their new life in Australia.

I acknowledge that the above suggestions will be part of an ongoing commitment and look forward to the government's response to them. This will not be an overnight job. However, I propose that greater certainty be provided in the proposed provision to bring the objective of allowing migrant workers to enjoy the benefits of the Fair Work Act to fruition. Accordingly, I propose that an additional statement be inserted at the end of subsection 40B, becoming subsection 40B(2). To avoid doubt, this subsection would ensure that a breach under the Migration Act 1958 or an instrument made under it does not affect the validity of a contract of employment for a migrant worker under the Fair Work Act 2009 and that the migrant worker will be entitled to the rights governed by the Fair Work Act.

I trust that the amendment proposed above will more greatly serve the mission of protecting migrant workers in Australia and open new doors for people like them—like me.

Sitting suspended from 12:59 to 16:0 1

See this speech in context