Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You really have to go out of your way to come up with a policy which disadvantages foreign workers and disadvantages Australian workers, but this government has found a way to do it. The 457 visa scheme has been changed by this government from a scheme which allowed a small number of justified and specific skilled migrants into this country into one which allows the wholesale importation of unskilled labour and drives down wages and conditions.

In 1996 the Howard government abolished certain safeguards, meaning that an employer could sponsor an unlimited number of skilled workers regardless of whether local workers were available. But worse was to come. In 2002 the government changed the scheme again. This time employers in designated areas were allowed to import so-called semiskilled labour as well. ‘Semiskilled labour’ is a euphemism for ‘barely skilled labour’, and the results are there to see. In 2000-01, 21,000 people came into Australia under this scheme. In 2005-06 that number will rise to 40,000.

But the human misery is not told by the figures. The human misery is told by the case study of Mr Jack Zhang, which the House heard about today. He came to Australia under a 457 visa. He had to pay $10,000 for the privilege. He was paid below award wages, and the $10,000 was taken out of his wages at $200 a week. As soon as the $10,000 was paid off, he got the sack. What is even more disturbing is that, when a journalist went to interview his employer and the employer confirmed that this was the case, the employer immediately left the interview and, after not only sacking Mr Zhang, he evicted him from his house. This is a telling point. Nick O’Malley wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald earlier this week:

Because workers are dependent on their employer not only for their wage but also for their visa, some - especially those who don’t speak English - are vulnerable to exploitation.

What does it mean? It is bad for foreign workers and it is bad for Australian workers. It brings a new edge to this government’s race to the bottom when it comes to wages.

But you need not take our word for it. Dr Bob Birrell, Centre Director of the Monash University’s Centre for Population and Urban Research, had this to say about this government’s scheme:

There is no question the goal is to restrain wages ...

Why do we have this preponderance of 457 visas? It is because of this government’s neglect of skills and training, and this visa policy will make it worse. Dr Phil Toner, the Senior Research Fellow at the University of Western Sydney’s Centre for Innovation and Industry Studies, said this scheme is:

... a disincentive for employers to spend money on training, exacerbating the existing skills shortage ...

There have been categories of skills shortages on the list under this government for 10 years, and this government has done very little. We have seen expenditure on tertiary education go down by eight per cent while in every other OECD nation it has increased by an average of over 30 per cent. We have seen the policy of Australian technical colleges, which duplicate the TAFE system, and we have seen a college in Queensland with just one employee.

But that is not good enough for the Minister for Vocational and Technical Education. He wants to duplicate the state system not only in Australia but in Africa as well. A couple of weeks ago in this chamber, I called Minister Hardgrave, the Minister for Vocational and Technical Education, the most incompetent minister in this government. He is not satisfied with that record; he wants to be the most incompetent minister in Africa as well. This is an outrageous scheme. I almost choked on my Weet-Bix this morning when I read the minister’s scheme; he said that he wants to open a college in Africa. Then today we have seen him running a million miles from it, despite the fact that he placed the story in the Australian yesterday, thinking it was a winner. He obviously had a call from Minister Bishop or from the Prime Minister’s office and was asked: ‘Have you been drinking? What’s the story with this outrageous story you’ve got in the Australian?’

In the time I have left available to me, I want to talk about the government’s $5,000 bonus scheme for people to move from areas of so-called high unemployment to low unemployment. In Western Sydney, we see high unemployment and we see a high vacancy rate. The unemployment rate in my electorate is still 10 per cent, but I have the biggest industrial estate in the Southern Hemisphere, and they are crying out for skilled employees. (Time expired)