Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I want to place a few brief remarks on the record about the Migration Amendment (Strengthening Sponsorship and Nomination Processes) Bill 2024, about the Greens position on this bill. Further contributions will be taken up by our portfolio holders, when the bill comes to the Senate.

We view this bill as a modest but positive step towards protecting some of the most vulnerable workers in Australia. It is something that the Greens have had some concerns about for some time and have made the point very clearly that, when you have the interaction between migration and employment laws that allow huge holes to be opened up in the protections that are meant to apply, it not only hurts vulnerable workers but local workers as well. That's because, if you end up with a race to the bottom on things like wages, then you not only end up with massive exploitation of people who've really just come here seeking a better life, in the way that would happen for many of us, for our families and for so many in this country, as a previous member said, but you also contribute to a driving down of wages and conditions across the board, generally.

In a previous parliament, we pushed hard against the former government's approach to that, and in this parliament as well, we have proudly joined in passing legislation that goes some way to restoring a strong floor for everyone who is in this country—because that's it what it needs to be. There can't be gaps in it. If there are gaps in it, we know that everyone suffers.

However, there are some aspects of the bill that remain unclear, and we do think more needs to be done to protect people who come to Australia to contribute to the community. We support the passage of this bill in the House and reserve our Senate position, based on some of the matters that I'll outline here and that will be further pursued in the Senate.

For too long, as I said, workers from other countries have been subjected to exploitation and denied rights by a visa sponsorship program that provides disproportionate power to employers. This bill goes some of the way to addressing this imbalance. One of our concerns is that, in its proposed form, the specialist skills pathway does not wholly address all the concerns with the sponsorship visa program, raised in the migration review, and it does not deliver a skilled sponsorship program that properly responds to the domestic labour market.

That pathway is meant to focus on niche, specialist skills that fall outside of current definitions, but the proposed pathway only has a monetary threshold. The unintended consequence of not having a clear definition for this pathway could mean that the oversight provided by Jobs and Skills Australia over the core skills pathway is circumvented. Clarifying the definition would prevent this and prevent the need for ad hoc carve outs for selected occupations. Furthermore, workers on the essential skills pathway can be making as little as $51,222.

By allowing for workers to be paid less than the core skills threshold, this potentially denies them the ability to live full lives here. As the Immigration Advice and Rights Centre, in its submission, noted:

Migrants in the Essential Skills Pathway are more vulnerable and liable to workplace exploitation because of these lower pay rates.

Allowing workers on the essential skills pathway to apply for secondary employment could correct this and protect workers. Workers cannot be held by their employer in employment that does not give them the tools to live a full life.

Finally, the bill would also introduce a public register of approved sponsors. But, as the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the ACTU, noted:

The register proposed in this bill is an important step, but must be expanded to require approved employer sponsors to also disclose how many other temporary migrant workers they engage by visa type, and in which occupations and postcodes, to enable improved oversight. The public register must also be expanded to cover employers that engage other temporary migrant workers, requiring them to disclose the same information required of approved employer sponsors, by visa type, as a measure to improve transparency and address worker exploitation.

Australia should be a safe place for all workers, and people who come here to contribute to the community should be protected. This bill will strengthen the rights of workers and migrants. However, much more needs to be done to create a fair immigration system. There are many workers in Australia who came here to contribute but have been denied basic rights, so this bill needs to be the start, not the end. I look forward to having discussions with the government about the amendments that we are proposing.

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