James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As indicated by the lead coalition speaker, the member for Wannon, we are supporting the Migration Amendment (Strengthening Employer Compliance) Bill 2023 through this chamber. We will take the opportunity through Senate debate to look at some of the regulatory impacts of this legislation that only a committee consideration can uncover. Assuming that nothing significant changes there, no doubt we will support the bill through the Senate. Frankly, this bill emanates from the work of our government, the previous government, which established the Migrant Workers Taskforce. We introduced into the last parliament a piece of legislation that responded to those recommendations, but the calling of the election meant that that legislation lapsed. Most of that legislation is in the bill we are debating now.

There are a lot of businesses in my electorate that employ workers through the migration system. and they are all exemplary employers. My experiences with them are that some employ people locally, while others have their headquarters in my electorate but they might be a rural or regional business where their operations are outside my electorate. I have the opportunity, as a local member, to meet and interact with those businesses. Of course, at times they will also come to me as their local federal member to raise with me and seek assistance for matters to do with the migration system and a visa that an employee might have.

The businesses that I interact with in my electorate are absolutely all doing the right thing. I want to start by thanking them for the fact that they're employing people. In fact, they're businesses that in some ways are so successful that they need to seek additional labour through the migration system. The economy has been so strong in the last few years, and the employment market has been so tight, that the migration system has been a very important avenue for them to access new employees so they can continue to grow their business. That means, of course, paying more tax to people like us, in the federal government, to fund the society that we live in. We're very lucky to have these employers, and I don't think the tenor of this debate should be some kind of assumption that every employer is seeking to exploit someone in their workforce, particularly those that are coming through the migration system.

I fully acknowledge that there are a small proportion of employers that are doing the wrong thing, and this is legislation that appropriately strengthens and tightens the framework so that employers who are doing the wrong thing are properly held to account. We want everyone in the workforce, whether they're an Australian citizen or working under a visa, to be working in an environment and under a framework that we legislate. Wherever there are examples of opportunities to make that system more robust, we should take them, and that opportunity exists in this legislation.

The businesses that I work with and interact with in my electorate that are employing people are absolutely doing the right thing. In fact, they are bending over backwards to help the staff that they take on, particularly through the employer sponsored visa system, to not only earn an income but also benefit from the innovative programs these businesses have that support new migrants. The businesses do what they can to provide additional support well beyond the remuneration that the employees are provided by virtue of working in that business.

One challenge in my home state of South Australia that I have spoken about repetitively in this chamber since I was first elected is that, in essence, we have a national migration scheme that is very much one size fits all. There's not a lot of flexibility in it. We're setting policy that is trying to balance burgeoning major metropolises, like Sydney, Melbourne or even South-East Queensland, and regional and remote areas in my home state of South Australia and other states, which have quite different population problems and challenges. In the cities, the population has been growing far too rapidly and putting an enormous burden on the creaking infrastructure of those cities, and infrastructure investment has not kept pace with population growth. But we've got some communities in our country that have been depopulating for many decades and, indeed, have excess capacity in parts of their infrastructure because the population has been reducing. That's the case particularly in agricultural communities, where efficiencies in agriculture have meant the unit labour required per hectare of farmed land has dramatically changed over the decades. That's a good thing for productivity, but it has also demonstrated not only a challenge but an opportunity that our migration system hasn't properly taken advantage of.

There are other jurisdictions—for example, Canada—where they have a much more differentiated approach to migration, which is very much geographic. The issue in this country is that even the schemes we've established, like the regional skilled migration scheme, have not been strictly required. People can apply to get a visa that purports to ultimately have them come and work and live in South Australia, and the South Australian state government might sponsor them through that regional skilled program, but, invariably, more often than not, that human capital ends up in the big cities like Sydney and Melbourne, so the principle of the scheme hasn't been strict enough and robust enough to ensure that the outcomes or the principles of the policy are being achieved in practical terms.

The government has indicated that it's undertaking this broad review of the migration system. Well, that's great. Although, having reviews of the migration system is a very common drumbeat across both sides of politics. It is really up to the government as to whether or not they want to look deeply and seriously at this population workforce imbalance and challenge that we have. It's not just geographic; it's obviously in categories of work as well.

It was very disappointing that the Labor Party were so opposed to our agriculture visa. We know that the union movement was very, very engaged in ensuring that that was the position of the now government. That was really disappointing because that was a huge opportunity for regional Australia in particular to have a dedicated visa channel for them to address the significant Labor shortages in regional areas and in particular industries in original areas. Unfortunately, the union movement went from embassy to embassy in the lead up to the election, telling those nations that were seeking to engage in bilateral agreements under that visa program not to dare consider signing up to that. That was a great loss to our economy and to regional businesses out there succeeding so much and trying to employ more people, grow their businesses and pay more taxes. That allows us to do a whole lot more for our society, as the federal and state governments benefit from it, too.

But, regrettably, we have a situation where the union movement has been undermining those efforts, and that's a great shame. The union movement makes these claims, but I have certainly never met a business that has a preference to employ people through a sponsored migration scheme in lieu of an Australian. That's just nonsensical. There's obviously a much higher cost and a higher risk to a business to seek to employ someone by sponsoring their visa and meeting all that risk and cost if they could employ an Australian. The reality is that they're attempting to but simply cannot find the workers in this country to take up those employment opportunities that those businesses have. If they don't avail themselves of the migration system, then the businesses will either not grow or, in some cases, shrink or shut down, because they cannot operate if they don't have a reliable, stable workforce. Then there are businesses growing their workforces or wanting to grow their workforces, and the migration system is obviously there to help them do that.

We are a very proud migrant nation. Almost everyone in this chamber has a story or a connection to migration in some way, shape or form. Although, they would have addressed that before getting here under section 44 of the Constitution. Nonetheless, we all know that our migrant communities are thriving across this nation. As members of parliament, we love to engage in our multicultural communities. Migration has been a vitally important part of the Australian story, but, better still, it is going to be forevermore. We will always be a nation that has a level of migration. We are now, and we'll always be a great multicultural society into the future.

But having an efficient migration system that is also making sure that the economic needs of our future workforce planning are met is going to be vitally important as well. We know, through all the projections, that if we don't have a migration system that is structured towards addressing those identified future pressures, let alone current pressures, we simply won't have the workforce that we need for the economy and the society that we want to have into the future.

We support this bill through this chamber and obviously have no concern whatsoever in making sure that a stronger framework is in place to make sure that migrant workers are protected and given the protections that they rightly deserve: to be employed in conditions that follow the law of the land and that are the same conditions that anyone in this country should be employed under. We recognise that there is a uniqueness around the risk of exploitation of migrant workers, and so we welcome that as well.

I conclude by reconfirming my comments at the beginning of this contribution, which are that that should not send a message that the vast majority of employers are doing anything short of the right thing by their workforce. Every business that I've ever been involved in, and the businesses that I engage with in my electorate, see their workforce as their most important asset. Particularly in recent years, with such a tight employment market, businesses have been, more than ever before, doing so much in addition to the minimum to make sure that their workforce are well remunerated, satisfied and will have longevity in that business. When they're employing people through the migration scheme, that has certainly also been my experience in my electorate.

I welcome legislation that will crack down on bad actors and bad participants in this space but also commend the vast majority of businesses that are doing the right thing. I commend them for employing migrants, who add such richness to both our economy and our society. I look forward to supporting their future needs through a reformed migration system that is going to more appropriately fit those challenges that our economy is going to have into the future.

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