Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

The Migration Amendment (Strengthening Employer Compliance) Bill 2023 will amend the Migration Act 1958 to strengthen employer compliance measures in relation to protecting temporary migrant workers from exploitation, including through implementing recommendations 19 and 20 of the 2019 Report of the Migrant Workers' Taskforce. The Migrant Workers Taskforce was established in 2016 by the coalition to identify proposals for improvements in law and in law enforcement and investigation and other practical measures to identify and rectify cases of migrant worker exploitation. The task force was chaired by Professor Allan Fels and included members from a wide variety of government agencies. The report was presented to the government in February 2019 and was released publicly on 7 March 2019 along with the government's response.

The report made 22 recommendations and the then coalition government accepted in principle all 22 recommendations. The coalition then developed legislation to implement recommendations 19 and 20 of the Report of the Migrant Workers' Taskforce. That was the Migration Amendment (Protecting Migrant Workers) Bill 2021, which was introduced on 24 November 2021. The 2021 bill was referred to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee on 25 November 2025. The committee report was tabled on 18 March 2022. The 2021 bill lapsed at dissolution prior to the 2022 election.

The majority of the measures in the bill we are debating today are a cut and paste of the coalition government bill; therefore, in principle, we support this bill. Although, through a Senate inquiry, we do want to check that what the government has added hasn't added a huge regulatory burden and that they have it right, especially when it comes to the implementation, but, in principle, we support what the bill is trying to do.

The coalition's bill was examined by the Senate committee and the Labor members of that committee, led by Senator Kim Carr—now retired—made 10 pages of comments in the report of things that were wrong with the bill. Yet today's bill does not pick up on any of that. It is fortunate that it doesn't, because it was basically just pure political pointscoring. It's good that we are able to look at something that is all about the facts and make sure we deal with migrant exploitation while, at the same time, ensure that employers in this nation are not overburdened by red tape and regulatory burden.

The current bill also includes additional areas in the repeal of section 235 of the Migration Act, which currently provides that a temporary visa holder who breaches any condition of their visa that restricts the work they may do or an unlawful non-citizen who undertakes any work at all commits an offence. The government is seeking to repeal this. The fact that this particular criminal offence hasn't been used in, it's my understanding, about 25 years does point to it maybe not being effective. So we're happy to look at this as part of the Senate inquiry process. Obviously, if the rationale is a good one, it's something we will support.

I've received a briefing on the bill from officials in Home Affairs and the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations. I thank the minister for arranging that, and I thank those officials. We had a good, open and frank discussion for about an hour on all the various parts of the bill. That proved to be incredibly useful in me being able to brief shadow cabinet and the party room on this bill.

As I said earlier, there are some concerns. If an employer makes a minor mistake when dealing with a migrant worker—for example, asking them to undertake a task that does not fall under their visa class—we want to make sure the employer wouldn't be sanctioned by burdensome rules and red tape. This is important, especially when it comes to small business. For instance, say you were employing a chef and your waiting staff didn't turn up. In the heat of the moment, you're under pressure, so you ask that chef whether he could help serve tables. That becomes an inadvertent breach. We want to make sure there is a proper-balanced and proper-scaled approach to a matter like that. That chef might have worked in the kitchen for two years, and it might have been the first time that something like that had happened. It happened because of the pressure the small-business owner was under, not them willingly or wanting to force someone to work outside their visa conditions. We just want to make sure that there is the appropriate flexibility and the appropriate scale as to what types of misdemeanours we might be talking about. As we demonstrated in putting this bill in place before there was a change of government, where there is serious exploitation, obviously we do want to deal with that. We need to ensure that, while we protect migrant workers' rights, we don't create a legal minefield for small businesses that make a minor mistake.

I have consulted widely on this bill with a broad range of groups. They all, in principle, support the bill, but they also want to ensure that the red tape burden isn't going to make it very difficult for small business, in particular. There are concerns that the bill may have an effect beyond its stated purpose of establishing protections in employer/employee circumstances and may disproportionately affect, for example, farmers and horticulturists using migrant workers to deal with workforce shortages. One of the things that has been suggested to us is that the government should consider introducing education or guidance programs to ensure that employers fully understand their obligations under this legislation if it passes the parliament, as I assume it will. One of the things we do have to make sure is that people understand what these new rules and regulations entail and that they understand that there are scaled penalties for a misdemeanour or an offence which is established under this bill.

One of the reasons we're happy to give in-principle support to this bill and just check the details with the Senate inquiry is that we on this side understand that we need to help and support the government when it comes to immigration because they're making a complete mess of it. We know there are 1.5 million people heading our way. We know that there's no plan for how they're going to be housed; what it's going to do to the rental crisis; what it's going to do to congestion; how it will impact on our health sector, which is already under enormous pressure; and what impact it will have on the environment. We've just seen today, in relation to the pandemic visa, that there were more pandemic visas issued after the borders were opened than there were when the borders were closed. This pandemic visa seems to be just another way that the Labor Party can add to their 'big Australia' agenda—by issuing the pandemic visa like it's going out of fashion.

My hope is that the minister will find another way to deal with the skills shortage rather than using the pandemic visa. We are hearing, since all the publicity today, that this is just another measure in Labor's 'big Australia' approach, and that the minister will move now to end the pandemic visa. We will wait and see. We've got the data up until March, and we'll continue to look at that data to see how the pandemic visa is being used by Labor for their 'big Australia' approach. There's also the issue of the 102,000 people who have sought asylum here in Australia and have failed to get that asylum. When Labor were in opposition, they made a big song and dance about this and said that something needed to be done about it. As we understand it, in the Nixon report, there are some suggested solutions to how the Labor Party might be able to deal with this issue in government, and they're sitting on that report. They haven't released the Nixon report. Having made a big song and dance especially about those people who are coming by plane, seeking asylum once they're here and being unsuccessful in seeking asylum, we now find out that the government is sitting on the solution that has been given to them.

There are lots of problems with Labor's 'big Australia' approach. That's why, when it comes to small issues like this, we're happy to support the government. They've put legislation in place which builds on legislation that we developed. We just need to check the red-tape elements of it, but, in principle, we support it. I commend the bill, as long as we get proper Senate scrutiny of it and, potentially, have the ability to make changes to ensure it doesn't bring a huge red-tape burden to employers.

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