Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

We know that Australia has had a long history—a long and proud history and in some cases a not-so-proud history—on migration. The first migrants were the ancestors of our Aboriginal Australians, first arriving in Australia around 80,000 years ago. We then had the first European settlements in 1788: the British established a colony of New South Wales—a penal colony, in fact—marking the beginning of a permanent European settlement. We then had periods like the gold rush: the discovery of gold in 1851 triggered a massive flow of migrants into Australia. Nearly 600,000 people came into Australia over that period, and most came from the UK, Britain, et cetera but many also came from Asia—China and around that area—and from the US and other countries. We had Afghans that we encouraged to migrate to Australia in the 1800s as cavaliers to go to the centre of Australia.

We can see that Australia's migration policies have always morphed into what Australia needed, whether that be its economic situation, its workforce or just to populate Australia. A blemish—a big blemish—on our migration policy was the White Australia policy. From 1901 Australia maintained the White Australia policy, which required migrants to pass a dictation test in a European language to be able to come here. This policy was abolished after World War II—we had an intake of migrants from all over Europe from 1948 onwards and that was the postwar era. After World War II Australia promoted immigration to the nation with the slogan 'populate or perish', which was very famous. We brought in the Assisted Passage Migration scheme for many thousands of Brits, and then opened up to southern Europeans, who were seen as not quite Europeans up until 1948 but passed the mark because they were a bit whiter in colour et cetera.

These are some of the blemishes and some of the positives of our migration acts over the years. I am a product of southern European migrants who migrated to Australia after World War II. We've heard other speakers speak about migrants from all over the world, from every single corner of the world, who have made their homes here in Australia and have become great Australians. We know that Australia has had to tinker with its immigration policies, whether in a big way or a small way, to assist our particular needs of the time, and this piece of legislation is part of that history that we've had in migration for years, trying to ensure that we adjust our migration policies to assist what we require today from migrants and the future of Australia.

Back in 1948 there was a really interesting debate prior to bringing in Arthur Calwell's Assisted Passage Migration scheme to Australia for southern Europeans. There was a really interesting debate that took place in this House. There was one side of politics that debated and wanted to ensure that these migrants that were coming in would be paid at lesser wages—that was the wish of the conservative side of politics. On the Labor side, in those days very dominated by unions, they knew that would be the spiralling effect to the bottom when it came to equity and wages, and they argued strongly against any difference in wages. Thank God, this side of the House prevailed, and we've always had a very equitable wage system regardless of who you are and regardless of where you come from. Could you imagine the type of nation we would be today had the other side of politics prevailed? Could you imagine where we would be today? Some of the things in this particular bill want to ensure that we don't have what I just spoke about creep in, and that's why we have brought many of these points in this particular bill. We want to ensure fairness of wages for everyone in Australia regardless of where you come from, why you're here et cetera. We also know that this will help businesses who are looking at migrants to fill positions. It will also ensure that we fix the bits and pieces that we see are broken in our migration system.

The bill legislates the indexation of the minimum income thresholds for migrants in the government's new skills in demand visa in line with the wages of local workers. Again that is ensuring that equity in wages will remain into the future regardless of where you've come from and why you're here. Indexing these income thresholds is important to maintain system integrity over time and to ensure the temporary skilled migration program remains targeted towards the skilled workers Australia needs. This is about making sure the skilled migration system does what it says on the label. This will help us maintain that social licence for our skilled migration program. Indexing these thresholds is absolutely critical to protecting wages and conditions for local workers and ensuring that migrant workers are not vulnerable to exploitation. We want to ensure that that spiralling effect to the bottom doesn't happen. It can easily happen if we don't deal with some of these things and we allow them to creep in naturally, as may have been the case. We want to make sure that wages are equitable for everyone.

The bill also supports greater transparency in the skilled migration system and supports the government's commitment to enabling mobility for migrant workers. This is about setting up a public register of sponsors so that migrant workers that have come here on temporary skilled migration visas can apply for another job if there is one which fits their skills and is also registered. It allows that movement of workers in the workforce. The register will assist with mobility, helping temporary skilled migrant workers find a new sponsor if they wish to change jobs and also giving them the ability to choose if they're not happy where they are. All of us here and people anywhere in Australia can pick and choose if we want to leave where we're working and go and apply somewhere else. It's giving that same equity, the same ability, to migrant workers as well. By including postcodes registered with approved sponsors, it will enable migrants searching for mobility to identify employers nearby and increase the practicality of the register.

The register will encourage transparency and is also a resource for temporary skilled migrant workers to check that a sponsoring employer is legitimate. We've heard many stories where there have been issues with migrant workers. There are very few overall, but they're pretty horrific when you do hear them. We want to make sure that they have another mechanism which checks the box that the sponsor is a legit sponsor. It will also help to reduce temporary skilled migrant workers' susceptibility to exploitation. Streamlining labour market testing is another big issue in this bill. The bill will also make amendments to the Migration Act that mean labour market testing will be valid for six months, increasing it from four months. This will make it much easier for businesses to meet their skills needs, providing more flexibility for businesses to meet their labour market testing requirements.

As I said at the beginning, Australia has a long history of migration. The majority of it has been a successful history, with migrants from every corner of the world coming to this place, including the member for Bennelong, who's here next to me, whose parents migrated here. All you have to do is scratch the surface a bit when you're speaking to anyone, apart from our First Nations people, who have been here for 80,000 years. The rest of us have all come from somewhere, whether it be your parents, your grandparents or relatives five, six, seven or eight generations ago. The idea of migration here in Australia is something that is very special. It is very special to me to think that I live in a country where people come from all over the world and we live in peace and harmony. It is one of the greatest things that we have as an asset.

Migration will continue in this nation. It will continue for many years to come. Our job, as members of parliament, as governments, is to ensure that we make it as equitable as possible both for the migrants and the people who are already established here.

One of the things that I said earlier is that we had a debate in this place in 1948. Can you imagine, had the conservative side of politics won that debate back then, where we would be as a nation today? That's why it is important to ensure that, when we are dealing with legislation, with migration, that we look at wage fairness and ensure we do everything that we can to protect people's wages—for those that are established already here and those that are coming to our nation.

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