Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Migration Legislation Amendment (Worker Protection) Bill 2008 concerns the temporary migrant worker program, referred to as the section 457 visa system. Let me make it clear right from the outset that I am not a fan of this program. There have been at least seven problems with this program. First, the migrant workers have been paid much less than the rate which would be paid to a permanent Australian resident doing the same job. This means that not only are the migrant workers themselves exploited and underpaid but downward pressure is applied to the wages and conditions of Australian workers. Section 457 visa tradespersons, for example, on average are being paid more than $10,000 per year less than the average Australian tradesperson. Evidence given to the Deegan inquiry—which I will refer to later—points to 80 per cent of section 457 visa tradespersons being paid the minimum rate.

Second, the Howard government did away with labour market testing. That is to say, there is now no requirement to show that there is a shortage of Australians capable of doing the job that the section 457 visa entrant is being brought in to do. This means that people get brought in on a section 457 visa and end up being unemployed. It also means that Australians who might otherwise enter the workforce continue to remain outside it. Third, the skilled migration program in general and the section 457 visa program in particular have become a business, spawning migration agents and labour hire firms who make money—much of it out of the temporary workers—and who have little incentive to enforce the various rules surrounding the 457 visa program and plenty of incentive to rort the whole system. Fourth, the requirement that only employers who have a demonstrated track record of training Australians should be able to access the scheme has not been properly enforced or monitored and has broken down.

Fifth, there are clear weaknesses of the temporary worker scheme compared with permanent skilled migration. For starters, there is no testing or proper accreditation arrangement to ensure that temporary entry workers are properly qualified. In addition, they are not required to have English language skills. It means that such workers are often inadequately qualified and find themselves unemployed. English language skills are ultimately an essential requirement of Australian workplaces. There is no reason, in my view, that these differences between the permanent and temporary skilled migration scheme should continue.

Sixth, the scheme puts enormous power in the hands of employers and is open to abuse. The requirement for a 457 visa applicant to have an employer sponsor is accompanied by a provision that, if a worker loses their sponsor, they have 28 days to find another one or they will be required to leave the country. This enables employers to exploit and abuse migrant workers and to trample on their rights, through the all-too-simple device of threatening to withdraw their sponsorship.

Seventh, there has been a lack of transparency surrounding section 457 visas. The Howard government refused to release appropriate details about who is employing 457 visa holders, and what they are being paid. There are some clear reforms which would improve the integrity of the section 457 visa and address some of the rorts—for example, introduction of labour market testing, a system requiring the payment of market rates and greater transparency. I believe that employers who want governments to bring in cheap, vulnerable temporary migrant labour are trying to avoid basic responsibilities. One is to offer wages and conditions sufficient to attract workers to work for them, and the second is to contribute to an apprenticeship and training system which ensures that Australia has a skilled, modern workforce.

I commend to the House the statement by the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, the CFMEU and the Australian Nursing Federation concerning temporary migrant labour, which notes that the 457 temporary migrant worker program ‘has become notorious for the abuse and rip-off of migrant workers’ and that government data shows that 457 tradespersons earn much less than the average Australian tradesperson and are exploited through exorbitant fees and charges which further reduce wages.

The sign-on statement produced by these unions notes that, under the current 457 visa system, employers can pay less than the rate they would pay a permanent Australian resident in the same job, use 457 visa workers on weekends and shifts to avoid the penalty rates they would have to pay the rest of the workforce and threaten workers with the sack and deportation if they question the boss or seek work with another employer. I note that yesterday the Australian reported:

The number of warnings given and penalties levied on employers for breaching the controversial 457 visa program has exploded in the past three years ...

The report in the Australian notes that the number of formal warnings issued to employers for breaching aspects of the scheme leapt from 99 in the year 2005-06 to 1,353 in 2007-08 and that the number of employers who were actually sanctioned for violating the terms of the program also spiked, going from just three in the year 2005-06 to 19 in 2007-08. It is worth observing that the changing nature of the 457 program has contributed to a rise in abuses. The number of people in the high risk group for exploitation—that is, tradespeople and below—has exploded in the last three years, and compounding this effect is the fact that the program has increasingly drawn people from low-wage countries such as the Philippines, China and India. Mr Bob Kinnaird, who is an expert in this area, says that these two things are related. The increase in 457 visas for tradespeople and below has mainly been from low-wage countries. It is also noted in the report that the number of 457 applicants has been increasing very substantially. The number of 457 applicants jumped from around 46,000 in 2006-07 to 58,000 in 2007-08, an increase of 24 per cent, and a total of 110,000 temporary work visas were issued to workers and their dependents, a rise of 27 per cent. Clearly the 457 visa scheme has been skyrocketing.

I want to support the Migration Legislation Amendment (Worker Protection) Bill 2008 before the House, because it amends the Migration Act: to create a new sponsorship framework with heightened enforcement mechanisms that will give the department new and greater legislative authority for providing a better structure for sponsorship obligations for employers and other sponsors; to improve information-sharing across all levels of government; to expand powers to monitor and investigate possible non-compliance by sponsors, with punitive penalties for non-compliance; to introduce meaningful penalties for sponsors found in breach of their obligations; and to give the power to create significantly broader regulations to define the scope of the newly expanded sponsorship framework.

The bill maintains the sanctions of barring and cancelling where there is a breach of a sponsorship obligation while providing for two new sanctions: civil penalty proceedings and infringement notices in lieu of civil penalty proceedings. The bill provides that, if an approved sponsor fails to satisfy a sponsorship obligation, the minister may seek an order in the Federal Court or the Federal Magistrates Court that they pay a civil penalty of up to $6,600 for an individual or $33,000 for a body corporate. The department will retain the ability to cancel an employer’s approval as a sponsor or bar them from making applications for approval as a sponsor for a period of time. The bill introduces new inspector powers, which can be exercised for the purpose of monitoring compliance with sponsorship obligations and for other purposes prescribed in the regulations. The new laws will enable specially trained officers with investigative powers to monitor workplaces and conduct site visits to determine whether employers are complying with redefined sponsorship obligations.

There is also an amendment to the Taxation Administration Act, which will enable the disclosure of tax information to the department, allowing confirmation with the tax office to ensure the correct taxable salary is being paid to visa holders. The existing provisions for the disclosure of information have proved insufficient and ineffective in ensuring that overseas workers are being paid minimum salary levels and that Australian wages and conditions are not undermined. The bill provides that the regulations may prescribe obligations that an approved sponsor must satisfy. The prescribed obligations will clearly set out the period of time in which an obligation must be satisfied and the manner in which the obligation is to be satisfied. As a result, the obligations will for the first time be enforceable by law.

By establishing a new sponsorship framework, the bill will strengthen the integrity of temporary working visa arrangements. These arrangements have been eroded primarily due to a lack of compliance with the existing scheme. The integrity of the 457 visa framework has been undermined by its rapid growth and changing role, and it is time that these problems were addressed. The subclass 457 visa was set up with a particular set of economic conditions and labour demands in mind. It was originally designed to be used by a small number of highly skilled—professional—temporary migrants but over time the operation of the scheme has changed. The scheme has begun pulling in a larger proportion of people in trades level occupations as well as increasing numbers of workers from non-English-speaking countries, particularly the Philippines, China and India. It is absolutely clear that workers in occupations below the professional level, and particularly from non-English-speaking backgrounds, are at much higher risk of exploitation.

The Howard government aggressively promoted the subclass 457 visa as a response to Australia’s growing skills shortage, but this approach has been a failure. Between 2003-04 and 2006-07, the department’s 457 employer paper-based monitoring fell from 100 per cent to 65 per cent of employers, and site visits fell from 22 per cent to 14 per cent of employers. The former minister for immigration, Senator Vanstone, denied that problems with the subclass 457 visa existed at all and even defended the fact that her department did not have the powers to properly monitor visa holders. When questioned by Senator Evans in question time after a number of horror stories came to light about the abuse of subclass 457 visa holders, she claimed that the system was working. As the stories of exploitation grew in 2006, Senator Vanstone ordered the department to stop releasing information about the program to the public.

Meanwhile, high-profile media stories began to emerge of overseas workers being exploited. We started to hear about cases where local wages and conditions were being undermined by employers bringing in workers under the subclass 457 visa scheme. It is worth mentioning some of these stories to the House. They illustrate the vulnerability to exploitation of these workers and the imperative of legislative change to ensure workers are adequately protected. Mohammad Nayeem’s boss sacked him when he asked for overtime pay, threatening Mohammed that he would send him back to India. Mr Nayeem was working 50 hours for only 38 hours pay, with an additional deduction of $100 per week for ‘accommodation’ in an overcrowded two-bedroom office shared with five other workers.

Just as troubling is the case of Filipino born Rico Mavotas, who contracted chicken pox in September 2007 and was forced to return to work by his Darwin employer, Mawpump, despite his medical certificate stating he was unfit. Mr Mavotas was forced to work in extremely muddy conditions without any protective clothing, which led to him contracting a life-threatening case of meliodosis caused by bacteria present in tropical soils. At least nine migrants on the visa scheme have died in work related accidents in the past two years, almost double the workplace mortality rate of the general working population. Lian Ron Xia, a welder from China, died in September from a head injury sustained in an industrial accident at Byrne Trailers in Wagga Wagga. This occurred after two attempts by union officials before the accident to meet with him and other 457 visa workers employed by the company. Those union officials had been denied access to the work site.

The Director of the Centre for Population and Urban Research at Monash University, Bob Birrell, has commented that such deaths would appear to be the consequence of the changing nature of the program, where workers are drawn from developing nations. They often lack English skills and have debts to migration agents back home. Mr Birrell has said that migrants were also working for sponsors who were not mainstream corporate entities and in rural areas and higher risk industries such as construction. Bob Kinnaird, the migration analyst I mentioned before, has said many workers on 457 visas speak little English, are hired in high-risk industries and feel compelled to accept harsh conditions. He said:

These people are desperate for Australian wages. Even where wages are undercutting local wages, they’re much higher than they get back home.

He also said:

They’re over a barrel in the Australian workplace because if they complain, they would be on the plane home within 28 days.

No less an organisation than the International Labour Organisation has emphasised the increased vulnerability of migrant workers to occupational health and safety risks. In the paper from the ACTU responding to paper No. 2 of the Deegan inquiry, this was highlighted:

… in order to ensure OHS for workers on 457 visas, it is imperative that trade unions have access to workplaces at which these workers are employed.

                  …              …              …

Research demonstrates that unionised workplaces are safer ones. Australian Government research shows unionised workplaces in Australia are three times as likely to have a health and safety committee and twice as likely to have undergone a management occupational health and safety audit in the previous 12 months.

The safety of guest workers and locals is jeopardised due to exploitation, lack of skills and a failure to provide OHS induction. Looking forward, I think the government should consider facilitating easier access to work sites for unions, along with benchmarking wages and conditions to the relevant industry collective agreement, to ensure that local wages and conditions are not being undermined. The differential in wages, conditions and safety concerns reduces workplace cohesion. Being paid lower wages than domestic workers for the same work increases exploitation of overseas workers with temporary entry. These workers are also more vulnerable than domestic workers in relation to unfair dismissal or unilateral termination of their employment.

The available evidence, according to Bob Kinnaird, justifies the concern that a very substantial percentage of 457 visa holders are not being paid Australian market rates. In 2006-07, 40 per cent of all 457 sponsor sanctions were for breach of the minimum salary level. As an interim measure, the Labor government on 1 August this year indexed the minimum salary levels for 457 workers for the first time in two years. Furthermore, we applied that increase to existing visa holders. Since February 2008, labour agreements covering business visas have been subject to a more transparent consultation process. Employers seeking labour agreements are now required to consult with relevant industrial stakeholders, including peak bodies, professional associations and unions, about the proposed agreement and to forward their views to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. While no group has a veto right to block the approval of a labour agreement, the department now takes into account the views of stakeholders when considering the approval of a proposed agreement.

It is also worth noting that the 2008-09 budget allocated $19.6 million to improve the processing of and compliance with the temporary skilled migration program. In April this year the minister appointed an industrial relations commissioner, Barbara Deegan, to examine the integrity issues of the temporary skilled migration program. She has since been consulting with overseas workers, union and industry representatives, as well as the relevant Commonwealth, state and territory agencies, and has published three discussion papers. Her recommendations will inform the development of longer-term reforms to the 457 visa program, and the government has indicated that these reforms will be brought forward in the 2009 budget. Barbara Deegan’s work is informing the Skilled Migration Consultative Panel. That panel was appointed to advise the government on the development of a longer-term reform package to improve the transparency, accountability and integrity of the temporary skilled migration program.

The government is committed to ensuring the subclass 457 visa scheme operates as effectively as possible, and the Migration Legislation Amendment (Worker Protection) Bill 2008 is a step towards addressing the legitimate and important integrity concerns about the program. I commend the bill to the House.

Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Energy and Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to speak on the Migration Legislation Amendment (Worker Protection) Bill 2008. I rise to speak on this bill today because the making of changes to Australia’s popular non-citizen temporary workers scheme is something that I have a deep interest in. As the former chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration I have a strong interest in this field, and I have some personal experience with temporary working visas. While I was chair of the committee, I had declared an interest: my wife owns a bakery, and we employ temporary workers on the 457 visa scheme. We are very lucky that one of them is actually a baker from the Hanoi Hilton, and a magnificent baker he is. He has added very much to our business, and we are very proud of him.

Maxine McKew (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Early Childhood Education and Child Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms McKew interjecting

Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Energy and Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, they have their French way of doing croissants and cooking in Vietnam. So it can be an excellent scheme. As I said, I was the chair of the joint standing committee that did an inquiry into this. As a Western Australian member, I clearly see the importance and effectiveness of this scheme. We know that these visas have gone a long way to helping to fill skills shortages in Australia in recent years. For example, as we know, in Western Australia at the moment unemployment levels are at 2.2 per cent, which is below any level of unemployment—in fact, it is negative—and that is why we seek skilled employees through this scheme for a whole range of industries, from hairdressers to anaesthetists and other most professional people. Yet we still have shortages in all the ASCO codes in Western Australia—and, I suspect, in other states of Australia. Certainly New South Wales would not be in the same position. However, New South Wales is one of the biggest users of 457 visas. We know that the New South Wales government, particularly in the area of health, is the largest employer of 457 visa holders.

In February of this year there were 67,000 primary 457 visa holders, with 57,000 family members. There are currently nearly 19,000 employers using 457 visas. Western Australia is, as I said, second only to New South Wales in its use of 457 visas, with around 12,000 migrants on the 457 visa subclass. The coalition introduced this new visa category to allow employers to sponsor skilled workers on a temporary basis for between three months and four years to help ease the chronic labour shortages that I explained just a moment ago. After two years, a visa holder can generally make a permanent residency application, and around half of them do so. One reason we provided this visa in the form that we did was that we as a government believed that, unlike the situation with guest workers in places like Italy, there should be a migration outcome as part of the visa itself. We know that many people, as I said, apply to become permanent residents, and then after four years they have an opportunity to apply for citizenship. As I said, many of these people are making great citizens and adding to Australia’s colourful fabric and skilled workforce.

The bill amends the Migration Act 1958 to create a new sponsorship framework and to strengthen enforcement provisions and investigatory powers. It also amends the Taxation Administration Act to enable the sharing of information with the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. In September last year, the Joint Standing Committee on Migration—which, as I said, I chaired—tabled its report into the temporary business visas. The report was entitled Temporary visas … permanent benefits: ensuring the effectiveness, fairness and integrity of the temporary business visa program. Months of hearings revealed that there was overarching support for tougher compliance mechanisms to reduce exploitation of 457 visa holders as well as to ensure that the system continued to benefit employers and the broader community. I add that it was a unanimous bipartisan report. The members on the committee included the former member for Fremantle Carmen Lawrence, the member for Reid and the member for Fowler. So we had a number of people who were strident in their views on migration, and to come up with a unanimous report was something that I and, I think, all members of the committee were very proud of. The committee came up with some excellent recommendations. I have some reason to believe that Barbara Deegan might have had a sneaky little look at that report, because many of her recommendations are in line with those of that report as well.

As I and previous speakers have said, that was to guarantee the integrity of this subclass of visa and the migration system generally. There were some examples of exploitation. However, the committee found that DIAC lacked the enforcement provisions to fine sponsors for breaches of obligations and recover unpaid wages and that it had to refer certain matters to other agencies for investigation. The bottom line was that the department essentially lacked the power and resources for adequate monitoring. Much of this legislation before us was put forward by the coalition government. It was introduced into the House as the Migration Amendment (Sponsorship Obligations) Bill in June 2007 last year. However, it was not debated prior to the election last year. Many of the committee’s recommendations have been adopted in the legislation before us today.

Those before me have detailed the current legislation, so I will not dwell too much on the individual provisions. Suffice it to say that this bill details a new system of statutory regulations for sponsorship obligations, widens the sanctions for support breaches and includes new monitoring, compliance and information-sharing powers. The significant amendments include sponsors being required to satisfy sponsorship obligations automatically, as opposed to when the visa has been granted. In addition, DIAC can disclose personal information about the visa holder and the sponsor to both parties and other government departments without the need for written notice. Inspectors will have the power to compel document production. The introduction of new civil penalties may apply to sponsors for breaches, including fines of up to $6,600 for individuals and $33,000 for a body corporate. The primary difference between the bill being debated here today and its predecessor is that this bill does not seek to bring these obligations directly into the Migration Act. These all-important obligations will be made by regulations to be drawn up in the coming months, and the government can be sure that it will be carefully scrutinised by the coalition.

It is a bit disappointing that the coalition do not know the detail of this bill. In essence what the government and the minister are saying is, ‘Trust us, we will give you the detail later.’ It is a blank piece of paper, a blank cheque. They are saying, ‘Trust us, we’re politicians. We’ll make sure we get it right some time later on.’ We are very concerned that the regulations that are going to be in force are not available now so that they can be scrutinised as we talk to this bill before this House today.

This delay is for reasons of responsiveness and flexibility—or so the government tells us. It could be a reflection on the underresourced department, the lack of consultation with stakeholders and a government with its immigration credentials in tatters. Without a strongly regulated migration system, we have already seen Indonesian people smugglers back in business. The front page of the Australian today states that the ALP says that arrivals are not a result of its policy. Also, when referring to the integrity of the immigration system, the Australian exposes the fact that in Kabul in Afghanistan it appears that the Indonesian embassy is selling visas to Indonesia for a couple of thousand dollars so that people get to Indonesia and can use it as a springboard to reach Australia. It sends a very bad signal.

In Western Australia just the other day we had a shipload of people believed to be Tamils swimming ashore at Shark Bay. What is happening to the system now? There is a green light out there that says, ‘If you can get here, you can stay here.’ That is not the integrity that we want in our visa system. We have been very proud over the last number of years of sending strong signals to people smugglers that they should not arrive here unlawfully. There is another story in the Australian today of Kurds being stranded in Indonesia because their boat sank. Thank goodness they did not drown. That is the signal—the green-light signal—that a softening of the migration system sends to would-be people smugglers and those who see Australia as a green-light destination.

On 28 November the Financial Review reiterated the coalition’s concerns that not all of the obligations to be imposed on employers are spelt out in the legislation before us. It said:

Business is being told to use the 457 scheme without clarity on what precise obligations it will have to fulfil in a few months time. … In securing integrity, business should not be dissuaded from using the scheme to maintain growth in a time of economic uncertainty.

The department’s April discussion paper on business long stay subclass 457 and related temporary visa reforms leading to this bill has been met cautiously by employer sponsors and small businesses. The overwhelming majority of these people do the right thing by their skilled migrant employees.

It is vital that there be a balance between employees and employers. We cannot afford to deter businesses from using the system and we must protect employees from abuse. Some indication of the associated costs that employer sponsors will have to incur—which will, I understand, be in the regulations—can be drawn from DIAC’s discussion paper. They include education costs of minors accompanying the worker, medical costs through insurance or direct payment, migration agents’ fees, travel costs to Australia as well as from Australia, and licence and registration fees associated with employment.

As I said, because we are signing on to this blank piece of paper, there is great concern in the industry about whether this is to be retrospective. Will a line be drawn in the sand for those who arrive after this date? What proportion of the costs will be met by the migrant themselves or the sponsor when they transfer to another sponsor? What is the obligation on the next sponsor or the previous sponsor in terms of retrieving large amounts of money spent to get the 457 visa holder here? There are so many uncertainties in this that I am concerned about, and they do need to be clarified, but we are told ‘Wait, we’ll fix them up later.’ There is concern that these new obligations and costs could impose a much greater burden and result in greater red tape for employer sponsors to cut through.

The department’s 2006-07 annual report indicated that only 1.67 per cent of sponsors of temporary entrants were found to have breached their sponsorship obligations. This is what we found in our report in the previous parliament. There were only a very small number of people doing the wrong thing. Any percentage is too much. I agree with that and that is why there has to be greater support for compliance, monitoring and surveillance so that they can be dealt with expeditiously and with a strong message that this is not to happen.

The fact that so few employers have in the past breached their visa conditions, particularly in the light of the tremendous increase in the number of visas issued, indicates that much of the concern about the creation of an underclass of foreign workers has been exaggerated, particularly by the unions looking to their own personal interest. On this point—my previous committee members will reinforce this and the deputy chair, Senator Polley, would also, I am sure, reinforce this—the only people coming to give evidence to the inquiry that had a negative view of the 457 visas were the unions. I remember one case in Sydney where the visas were painted as being the most draconian thing. This smacked to me of the fact that the union movement wanted to control the flow of workers into jobs.

One of the concerns with this legislation is that it is going to be a de facto method for the unions to be the sponsor and the surveillant of these workers, and their track record is not too holy on this. The fact is that most 457 visa holders are not members of unions and they want to unionise those coming in. If they place the unions in charge of the workers on these sites—and it has already been mooted that they will get to vet any of the workers before they commence work—it really means the unionisation of the 457 visa scheme. We will be watching that very carefully in the regulations that come forward. I know there are certain people in this House that might applaud that. We know they have a vested interest. However in saying that, any exploitation is too much. It should be investigated and it does need action.

Small business and recruitment agencies for franchises in Australia are rightly concerned about the impact these changes will have on their ability to use the 457 visa program. On that note, I will mention that the discussion paper and the discussion in the media and from the minister generally is that market rates of pay should be looked at in terms of these visas. Our inquiry also endorsed market rates of pay as the ideal that we should move towards. It is wrong that somebody on a 457 visa should go into a workforce and be paid less than an Australian in the same job. However, there are a lot of issues surrounding market rates of pay, and an example I will use again is that of the bakery where the 457 visa holder was on more money than the Australian baker on the award. That actually did have a benefit for the Australian worker because, obviously, we had to bring him up to the same rate of pay as the 457 visa holder.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry submission suggests:

Far from increasing confidence in the 457 visa, it is ACCI’s concern that the proposed changes will in fact discourage a large number of Australian businesses from using the 457 visa at all. This will place increasing pressure on the (already over-stretched) resident skilled workforce, drive up wages (through artificial market interference), and ultimately reduce the ability of Australian businesses to compete in a global market.

Whilst additional monitoring and oversight measures would enhance the integrity of the visa program, the possible additional financial burden on sponsors may be too great for some businesses. Will Aldous of Targeted Staffing Solutions in Melbourne has raised these concerns both with me and with the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, as has one of his clients, Stainless Tube Mills. Mr Aldous noted that the changes could make it harder for their business to get staff rather than easier. Presently, Stainless has many skilled migrant workers and looks after them, including finding them accommodation, helping them learn English and providing them with transport. Both organisations echo the sentiments of many industry stakeholders that they are concerned about the compliance costs associated with the obligations set out in the paper. Mr Aldous says that the proposed additional costs are seen by many in the industry to be an additional penalty on those already under pressure because they cannot source local labour.

I asked to table a letter and have been told I may not—so I will not, the government member at the table may be happy to know. But I will raise the case to illustrate where abuse can sometimes get out of hand. This is the case of Mr Tony Cummins, who has written a 12-page letter to me. He was in Australia and applied for a 457 visa position. He has explained to me extensively the problems he was having with his sponsors. Mr Cummins is presently in Malaysia following the cancellation of his visa. A multitude of events which I do not have time to go into in full has led to the current situation, but Mr Cummins’s case is a classic example of one that has slipped through the cracks. On occasion Mr Cummins was not paid overtime after sometimes having worked more than 60 hours a week. As we know, you work 38 hours a week and then you are paid the hourly rate afterwards, but he was working 60 hours a week. He was generally treated poorly by his previous employer, who was quite ill-tempered and often violent and endeavoured to manipulate his salary in many different ways, which I intend to notify the Taxation Office about in my role as a member of parliament. He was forced to look for an alternative sponsor. His previous employer made allegations about Mr Cummins’s work ethic and essentially conducted a character assassination of him to the department. His migration agent failed to notify Mr Cummins that his visa was in jeopardy—he did not pass on the mail, in other words—and Mr Cummins did not realise his visa had been cancelled until his new application was lodged. He was paying this migration agent thousands of dollars, by the way, to do the work for him. Mr Cummins is a highly experienced horse trainer from Ireland. He now has an employer willing to sponsor him. He will be an asset to an industry, and I think he would be particularly needed in the Perth racing industry. I trust a decision will be made on his case very shortly.

The coalition supports the basis of this legislation because it does strengthen the integrity of the system. However, the failure of the government to produce the regulations leaves us in doubt about where this is going. I endorse the bill. (Time expired)

Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Procurement) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Migration Legislation Amendment (Worker Protection) Bill 2008 is an important piece of legislation that will strengthen the skilled migration system and increase the protection for temporary migrant workers. The issue of temporary skilled migration has received significant attention over the last three years, and the previous speaker referred to some cases. In my previous role before entering parliament I interfaced with this system quite frequently in representing working people. To make it clear in that context, I and the ACTU were always very strong supporters of the migrant worker system in order to meet the skill shortages and labour shortages that of course have been present in the economy for some time, but it was always apparent that there were deficiencies in the safety net available to those workers and that they were not afforded rights equal to Australian participants in the labour force. It also needs to be emphasised that the overwhelming majority of employers worked well with this system and treated people decently when they were here working under these visa arrangements, but of course there were some notorious cases of exploitation and abuse. That is what needs to be addressed and is being addressed with this legislation.

The flawed administration of the temporary migration system by the previous government was symptomatic of the short-sighted approach to skills development and productivity by that government, the Howard government, in general as well. Viewed in conjunction with, for example, the Work Choices legislation and a decade of neglect in investment in skills policy, it highlights the short-termism of the Howard government and its failure in these areas of regulation. Instead of looking at long-term policy solutions to increase skills formation and productivity, the Howard government was content fundamentally to ride on the commodities boom. The result, as we have seen, was stagnating productivity and significant deficits in infrastructure investment.

By contrast, the Rudd Labor government is committed to significant investment in education and skills formation and a strong emphasis on productivity growth. And it is in that context, too, that we should view the temporary migration system and the policy changes implemented to strengthen its integrity. Some industries undoubtedly need access to temporary skilled migrants while they increase their Australian skilled workforce. However, that access is only sustainable in the longer term if the community is confident that the section 457 visa arrangements are not able to be exploited or to be used to undermine prevailing pay and employment conditions in the Australian labour market. The changes contained in this bill will help improve the community’s confidence in the system of temporary skilled migration.

Other changes the government has announced to help alleviate the skills shortage include adding 6,000 places to the permanent skilled migration program, expanding the reciprocal working holiday visa program for young workers and expanding the provisions of the working holiday visa. Importantly, the government has also increased the minimum salary level by 3.8 per cent for 457 visa workers. The last government froze the minimum salary level for well over two years. I submit that was one of the elements that undermined public confidence in the system, as temporary skilled migrant workers’ wages were frozen at the same time as wages—especially in the skilled employment category—were rising. This gave weight to claims that some of the temporary skilled workers were potentially being used in a way that was discriminatory for wages generally in the sectors of the economy in which they worked.

Another important part of the increase in the minimum salary level is that the wage increase will apply not just to new 457 visa entrants but also to existing temporary skilled migrants. This will rectify the inequitable situation in the past when, on the rare occasions that the last government did increase the minimum salary level, you could have one migrant enjoying the new salary whereas another migrant doing exactly the same job, who happened to enter the country a week earlier, could be paid less.

Furthermore, in relation to the government’s action in this area, it is pleasing to see the appointment of Commissioner Barbara Deegan to conduct a review into the temporary skilled migration system. The review’s terms of reference include six measures: firstly, the strengthening of the integrity of the temporary skilled migration program; secondly, the employment conditions that apply to workers employed under the temporary skilled migration program; thirdly, the adequacy of measures to protect 457 visa holders from exploitation; fourthly, the health and safety protection and training requirements that apply in relation to temporary skilled workers; fifthly, the English language requirements for the granting of temporary skilled migration worker visas; and, finally, the opportunity for labour agreements to contribute to the integrity of the temporary skilled migration program. To support the review and to provide advice to the government, the minister established the Skilled Migration Consultative Panel. Membership of the consultative panel includes representatives from state governments, industry and the labour movement. It is in this context that the details of this bill need to be considered.

Between 2004 and 2007 we witnessed a series of cases of exploitation of people under the section 457 visa program. Those cases, which usually came to light through welfare organisations or trade unions, highlighted flaws in the system. In June 2007, in response to a significant decline in public confidence in the temporary migration system, the previous government introduced a bill that included provisions to—amongst other things—tighten the monitoring and sanction provisions that applied to 457 visa holders, allow for information sharing between the Department of Immigration and Citizenship and the Australian Taxation Office on 457 visa holders and their sponsors and clarify the obligations of 457 sponsors. Unfortunately, that bill was never debated and was not passed prior to the 2007 election, and therefore lapsed.

The Rudd Labor government, as part of its long-term commitment to education, training and productivity, has taken those elements of the bill and enhanced the scope of the protections. They are contained in and adopted by the Migration Amendment (Workers Protection) Bill 2008. Some of the additional provisions include that the bill now applies to all temporary worker visas—for example, occupation trainees—to stop employers from simply moving to other visa classes to avoid the bill’s provisions, and applies to visas issued under labour agreements, again to stop some employers from moving into labour agreements to avoid the bill’s provisions. The bill also contains important provisions which increase flexibility for employers. The bill adds two new sanctions where there is a breach of a sponsorship obligation. The new sanctions allow for fines of up to $33,000 for companies who fail to satisfy a sponsorship obligation.

The improvements in government oversight are, in my opinion, the most important provisions in the bill. The new powers are modelled on the workplace inspector powers in the Workplace Relations Act 1996, which will be carried over into the Fair Work Bill when it is enacted. These facilitate the carrying out of inspector functions by officers of the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. Under these provisions, inspectors will have the power to inspect the premises; interview any person; require the production of documents; and copy such documents. These are fundamental principles that the last government failed to implement—that is, temporary migrants should be granted the same level of protection from exploitation through adequate inspection powers as Australian workers. The previous government manifestly and deliberately failed to ensure that those inspection powers were available in relation to temporary migrants, who are often the most vulnerable people in workplaces and who apparently were considered as deserving of lesser rights than other workers. That attitude led to some notorious examples of abuse and exploitation.

As I mentioned, the bill also provides for improved flexibility for employers. Increasing the integrity of the temporary migration system is vital to continued confidence. Maximising the flexibility for employers who have a genuine temporary skills shortage is extremely important, and it is recognised in the legislation. The bill establishes a process to vary a sponsorship approval without going through the entire sponsorship approval process once more. This streamlining will create efficiencies for employers and for the department.

The changes contained in the bill will improve the operation of the temporary skilled migration system, which will help address short-term skill shortages. This is part of the Labor government’s wider skills agenda. The highest priority of the Rudd government is to equip our own workforce to meet the skills needs of the economy. That is why in the 2008 budget the Treasurer announced a $19.3 billion investment in education and training, with $1.9 billion of that to be spent to fund 630,000 new training places. This is a key initiative to address the long-term skill shortages. In addition, the Prime Minister announced this month that an additional 56,000 training places will be provided this year, and that represents the investment of a further $187 million.

It is important that, while the increased training of Australians takes place, industry has access to a functioning and effective temporary skilled migration scheme. To do this the community must have confidence in the system—most importantly, confidence that migrant workers are not being exploited and that their pay and employment conditions are equal to those of the employees with whom they are working in Australian workplaces. This bill will increase confidence in the system. It is on this basis that I commend it to the House.

Debate (on motion by Mr Price) adjourned.