Michael Hatton (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to his answer during question time yesterday when he said:

... if you have a skills shortage ... it stands to reason that you have to close the gap ... by bringing in people from overseas.

Prime Minister, isn’t it a fact that the number of 457 visas being approved below the minimum skill requirement has more than doubled compared with a similar period two years ago? If, as the Prime Minister asserts, this program is supposed to be helping the skills shortage, why are workers with lower skills being brought into Australia in ever increasing numbers?

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Where there are particular allegations that the system is being abused, they are investigated. I have had raised in the House in the last almost two weeks and prior to that a number of examples. Some of them are still under investigation. The celebrated one involving Teys Bros in Naracoorte in South Australia was investigated and the allegation was found to be incorrect. I say to the member for Blaxland that the member for Oxley raised a particular query with me yesterday. I have responded to him, indicating that that matter is being investigated. I do not pretend for a moment that everybody involved in business in Australia is lilywhite, and I would not rule out the possibility that some people do not do the right thing, but you do not damn a whole program on the basis of that. Where you have specific allegations, you raise them and you have them investigated.