Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The Migration Amendment (Strengthening Sponsorship and Nomination Processes) Bill 2024 amends theMigration Act 1958 to establish the legislative framework for a new temporary skilled worker visa, the skills in demand visa.

This legislation creates the income thresholds and indexation for the proposed streams of that visa, as well as streamlining labour market testing requirements.

This bill is a necessary, important step to introduce a better targeted, temporary skilled work visa as part of the Albanese Labor government's Migration Strategy.

The Migration Strategy is a set of commitments to address a decade of neglect in Australia's visa system. It's about a more prosperous, fair and secure Australian labour market.

If you are a worker, whether local or migrant, the Migration Strategy means stronger protections of your wages and conditions.

For businesses, it means getting the workers and skills you need to grow and be more productive.

The amendments in this bill are an important step in delivering a better-planned migration system, meeting Australia's skills needs, and laying a strong foundation for the future.

The provision of legislated minimum income thresholds in the Migration Act for the streams in the skills in demand visa will ensure that people working on these visas are less vulnerable to exploitation. This bill ensures workers receive fair remuneration through indexed salary thresholds.

The amendments in this bill will guarantee that migrant wages will increase alongside Australian wages, reducing the likelihood of exploitation of skilled migrants. This is good for all workers, regardless of where they are from.

The specialist skills stream will attract highly-skilled specialists to ensure businesses can quickly and easily recruit top talent. Eligibility criteria would, among other things, require an applicant to be earning at least $135,000 per year.

The specialist skills stream will recognise these workers meet a national need that is beyond filling a narrowly defined gap in the labour market. Highly skilled migrants bring significant economic benefits. They are more likely to bring productivity enhancing knowledge and ideas and create jobs for locals.

Most temporary skilled migrants will come through the core skills stream. This stream is designed to bring in the skilled employees Australia needs, now and in the future, to ensure we are able to provide ourselves with the goods and services we need to support our way of life.

Eligibility criteria would, among other things, require an applicant to be earning at least $73,150 per year.

These thresholds, to be implemented under the new skills in demand visa, replace the current temporary skilled migration income threshold.

Placing such a threshold in the act, and making it subject to annual indexation—instead of continuing to specify it in a legislative instrument made by the minister—provides greater certainty for both sponsors and workers going forward, whilst providing greater strength to restore integrity to the migration system.

Labor has long called for indexation of these important salary thresholds and this bill ensures this will happen into the future.

For too long, these salaries were not indexed and the temporary skilled migration income threshold remained at $53,900 from 1 July 2013 to 30 June 2023.

This bill also delivers on another commitment in the government's Migration Strategy, by establishing a legislative framework to underpin a public register of approved work sponsors.

This register will provide greater protections and oversight mechanisms, helping to tackle migrant worker exploitation and misuse of the visa system.

Importantly, this register will provide a resource to check that a sponsoring employer is legitimate.

The development of a public register that includes the name of the approved sponsor, their business postcode, the number of sponsored workers and their occupations will encourage transparency, monitoring and oversight.

This managed approach to Australia's visa system ensures a stronger workforce, which in turn strengthens the Australian community.

This bill will help ensure we have the skills we need for the future and, ultimately, make sure the system is working in the interests of all Australians.

Migrants make a valuable contribution not only to Australia's prosperity but also to our communities, our national identity, and our connections across the world.

This bill is an important step towards implementing the Albanese Labor government's Migration Strategy.

I commend this bill to the chamber.

Debate adjourned.

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