Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on the Migration Amendment (Strengthening Employer Compliance) Bill 2023. If ever there was an example of an issue which demonstrates the importance of the role of the trade union movement, it is this one. I want to pay tribute to a number of trade unions who have been at the forefront of advocacy for this type of legislation and bringing to the public's attention the shocking and egregious exploitation of migrant workers. The SDA, the TWU, the AWU, the AMWU and other unions have been at the forefront of the campaign for better working conditions for migrant workers, urging the previous government to take action in relation to the egregious exploitation of those workers. When I was the shadow minister for immigration and border protection, I visited places of work and held forums in places like my home town of Ipswich, where metal workers were being exploited. I spoke with hospitality workers in Melbourne and farm workers in Bendigo. I want to pay tribute to the member for Bendigo, who has been at the forefront of the campaign on this issue for such a long time.

This legislation is long overdue. Those opposite have had 1,100 days in office yet have done nothing meaningful for migrant workers. Between 7 March 2019 and 10 April 2022, 1,100 days passed, during which the Morrison government did nothing meaningful for migrant workers. Why are those dates important? On 7 March 2019, not only was the Migrant Workers' Taskforce report released but also the government's response was released. The Morrison government responded glibly, without giving the report the respect it deserved, and then failed to implement its recommendations.

On 10 April 2022 happens to be the day the then Prime Minister, the member for Cook, paraded off down to the Governor-General—not to give himself yet another ministry, I might add—to call the federal election. So 1,100 days passed with nothing meaningful done. To demonstrate the abject dithering and delay of the former government, do you know who tabled the government's response to the Migrant Workers' Taskforce report? It was the former member for Higgins, Kelly O'Dwyer. That was a couple of members for Higgins ago. Not only did a whole parliamentary term go by while the Morrison government did nothing meaningful, but two members for Higgins came and went. The irony is that the current Labor member for Higgins came into this place by way of a skilled migration program. As such, I know she recognises the struggles of migrant workers to make their way in Australia. Having arrived in Australia in 1984 with her parents from the UK via Zambia, the current member for Higgins's father qualified for skilled migration to this country as an accountant.

There has been dithering and delay, and that is why this legislation is absolutely important. The member for Moreton aptly gave figures from the Grattan Institute and from other reports, including from Unions NSW, of the shocking exploitation of migrant workers, and this shames this country. It shames Australia internationally when people who come to this country get exploited. There is sexual exploitation, wage theft—workplace conditions that none of us would find acceptable. It shames our country, and it was ignored by the previous government. There was so much in migration that we needed to do.

I want to pay tribute to Professor Allan Fels AO and Dr David Cousins AM. They were the co-chairs of the Migrant Workers' Taskforce and they put it best:

Wage exploitation of temporary migrants offends our national values of fairness. It harms not only the employees involved, but also the businesses which do the right thing.

It means that businesses who do the right thing by their workers get punished and they themselves get exploited. Workers get exploited in their workplace and the businesses who do the right thing get exploited. It puts at risk the workers who work for good bosses and puts good employers at risk as well. Don't forget that the Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold, the TSMIT, which was the basis on which someone had to come to this country and not be paid less than nearly $54,000, had not changed from 2013 onwards. The previous government didn't change it.

We got in—we increased it to $75,000 per year. The reason for that was the previous government had a deliberate design feature—an aspect of their core belief was to drive down wages. So, unintentionally, unwittingly, I think, they were helping the exploitation, weirdly enough. I don't believe they genuinely meant it; I really don't. But by their policies they were inadvertently aiding and abetting what was happening in exploitation, and that is not good enough. I don't believe those opposite have those views generally—I do not believe it. But their failure to take action meant that the exploitation continued, whether it was in Bendigo or Melbourne or Ipswich, and that is what happened. It is simply not good enough.

There were many stakeholders who came to that report for the Migrant Workers Taskforce—the ACTU, Chamber of Commerce and Industry, recruitment and consulting services, the National Roundtable on Human Trafficking and Slavery, the National Farmers Federation and the Australian Industry Group. There is a 140 page report—I've read it. It's a comprehensive report. The previous government did three pages of response, barely acknowledging, tokenistic and patronising in many respects. There was more than two years of painstaking evidence gathering on the exploitation of vulnerable workers. I think Professor Fels and Dr Cousins would have great grounds to feel dismayed and disappointed. It's very clear there was systemic exploitation in our labour market, and it was hiding in plain sight. There were many companies—and I won't name them all—that Australians deal with each and every day who have attracted adverse media attention for their employment arrangements. Those are companies that people might go and get a coffee or a donut at, they might be getting their petrol from them, and they are exploiting workers. These are well-known brands throughout Australia. It's simply not good enough. We need to do everything we can to prevent the exploitation of workers through the entire value chain.

Recently, another case came up before the Federal Court on behalf of four migrant workers in the SDA—the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association—alleging that a franchisee had failed to pay for the all time they worked, failed to pay overtime and correct penalty rates, operated a cashback system, misclassified workers, denied pay entitlement, and breached payslip and recordkeeping requirements. This resulted in workers not being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars. Effectively, in the end, when they did all the calculations, it totalled $1 million in underpayments. They sought penalties against the franchisee and the franchiser for breaching the Fair Work Act. That stuff is all too common.

We had the Retail Supply Chain Alliance, comprising the SDA, the TWU and the AWU, making recommendations to the Senate inquiry, and there will be many inquiries in this place—in this House and elsewhere. It's not just the Fels and Cousins inquiry—the Senate inquiry recommended important changes as well. The Retail Supply Chain Alliance, consisting of the SDA, TWU and AWU, made a very good submission to the Senate inquiry about the unlawful underpayment of employees' remuneration to ward off ongoing exploitation. There were many recommendations about making sure there was a visa system works, and we are taking action here. One of the most important things we did was to slash the visa backlog processing times, improving it with 500 extra workers, having a national labour hire regulatory scheme, better licensing arrangements and more funding. These are some of the things we had taken up.

This bill in particular is very important because it makes it a criminal offence to coerce someone into breaching their visa conditions—a key recommendation from Fels and Cousins. Why was it so difficult for the previous government to do that? There was no excuse. It's not like they had a huge legislative agenda that we were dealing with every single time we came to this place. We had 1,100 days and two members for Higgins, and they still couldn't bring themselves to bring it in. They brought it into the chamber but did not debate or pass it—Labor would have supported it, there's no doubt about that whatsoever—but they wouldn't do it. We need to make sure that we do it, and that's why this legislation is picking up those recommendations. The forms of exploitation the taskforce found were many, and I commend people who might be listening to look at it: unfair dismissal, unpaid training, working conditions that are unsafe, upfront payment deposit, pressure of working beyond the restrictions of a visa. There were many things that were egregious and appalling.

Under this legislation it will be an offence to use a workers' visa status or a future work related visa requirement to coerce or unduly pressure a person into accepting an exploitative work arrangement. This was an election commitment we made to help remove barriers that stopped exploited temporary migrant workers from speaking out and seeking support. We're keeping our word, to deliver outcomes for migrant workers, and through them to improve wages and conditions for all workers. That's why we increased the TSMIT.

This bill includes further important measures such as: where an employer has been convicted for underpaying migrant workers, that employer will be unable to employ migrant workers for a specified period of time, closing a loophole in our migration system. This prohibition is necessary to protect workers from employers who engage in serious, deliberate or repeated noncompliance with their obligations. We're publishing information about this. That's important for transparency so that workers actually know who the good bosses and bad bosses are. Everyone working in this country is entitled to protection from exploitation, including those on temporary visas. We're committed to making sure that wages and conditions improve for everyone, by stopping exploitation by unscrupulous employers. We're committed to the principles of natural justice, or procedural fairness, and decision-making based on factual evidence—a long-established approach to responsible government which seems to have eluded those opposite when it came to this issue for most of the last decade.

The bill provides that an employer can be declared prohibited—that is, the decision-maker must give the employer a written notice, and that notice must state the decision-maker proposes to make a declaration and provide the reasons for doing so. The notice must invite the employer to make a written submission setting out reasons why the decision should be made—procedural fairness; natural justice. The employer will have the opportunity to set out extenuating circumstances, which must be considered in decision-making.

For penalties to act as a deterrent, they must be set at a level that actually deters people from offending. The bill does just that, by increasing the penalties for unscrupulous employers misusing migration programs. This reflects the significant damage that employers who've done the wrong thing can do to public confidence in our migration system and to our national prestige and honour.

A key element of this bill is to repeal the offence currently set out in section 235 of the Migration Act 1958. That section makes it a criminal offence for a visa holder to work in breach of a work related visa condition or for an unlawful noncitizen to work at all. This offence has undermined the ability of workers on temporary visas to have recourse to their rights under certain workplace laws, such as workers compensation laws, and we've removed that barrier to justice.

Migrant workers should have the confidence to speak out and seek help without fear of visa cancellation, and the measures in this bill support those aims. Specifically, the commitment between the Department of Home Affairs and of the Fair Work Ombudsman known as the insurance protocol will be reformed. The protocol encompasses that a worker who holds a temporary visa will not have their visa cancelled for breaching a work-related visa condition if certain criteria are met. Stakeholders have told the government that the protocol is too secretive to instil the necessary trust and confidence. They don't trust it, because it's not transparent and it's not legislated. The bill will allow the government to make regulations to legislate the protections that are currently only available under government policy.

This government will work alongside industry and community groups, unions, civil societies, lawyers, researchers and other experts to examine protections available to workers on temporary visas and encourage them to speak out when they face exploitation at work. This government recognises the important role of the Australian Border Force in compliance and enforcement. For those employers who choose to do the wrong thing, beware: the ABF, and the law, will catch up with you. In the recent budget, this government increased funding for immigration compliance. Those who misbehave, do the wrong thing or exploit workers will be penalised.

The Albanese Labor government will continue to work together with the community and industry groups across the country towards eliminating the exploitation of migrant workers. In turn, this will improve wages and conditions for all workers. That's something that any Labor government can be proud of. It's something that every government in this country should always be proud of. Even a coalition government should learn their lessons from the last nine years. I commend the bill to the House.

See this speech in context