Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

During parliament this week, in fact in most question times, and during a number of debates that the government has had and many of their speakers have had, there has been all of this talk and the excitement about the free-trade agreements with China, Japan and Korea. There has been talk of the billions of dollars that it will create for the Australian economy and for Australian businesses, particularly in agriculture. There has been talk about the jobs that it will create.

But this debate is quite hollow and this rhetoric—I believe it is rhetoric—is not really exposing or answering the questions that many in the community have, including in my own community. There is concern about the jobs that have been created by these free-trade agreements: who will work them? That is because within these free-trade agreements, there is the ability for people to come over here on 457 visas and for people to come over here on holiday work visas to work in this country. What we are learning every day through investigations with Fair Work Australia and what I am learning every day when I go out to workplaces is that people who are on these temporary visas here in Australia tend to be exploited. They are an underclass of workers who are being exploited in our workplaces. Our Fair Work system is struggling to handle this issue.

John Cobb (Calare, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is rubbish.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A few people in the chamber are sniggering and saying that this cannot be true. Well, it is. This includes in the CBD in Melbourne. Cleaners who are international students actually stopped work to demonstrate the exploitative conditions that they are in. They are here as international students. Their intention in coming here was to study and they wanted a part-time job, which we encourage them to do. Yet the company that they work for said, 'If you want to work for us, you have to get ABN. You have to become an Australian small business to be a cleaner.' When they did the math and got their first pay cheque, they were being paid less than the Australian workers or the permanent migrants who were working next to them.

There is a problem with our visa work system here in this country. On all the talk that our free-trade agreements are going to create jobs, my question to the government is: what kind of jobs are you creating and who will work these jobs? The Australian newspaper is not usually a newspaper that I quote from, because it is not normally a newspaper that I like to read. But it actually stated this last week, after the release and the great news about the China free trade agreement:

Under the free-trade agreement with China, Chinese companies will be able to bring in workers on 457 visas to install and maintain equipment on projects for up to three months.

The paper also stated:

The Abbott government has also agreed to allow up to 1800 chefs, martial-arts coaches, Mandarin language tutors and traditional Chinese medicine practitioners to apply for 457 visas. Five thousand Chinese visitors a year will also be given the right to work…

I am not opposed to skilled migration. My parents are both skilled migrants. My mum came here as a 10-pound Pom and my dad came here as a skilled mechanic. But what they had when they came here was the opportunity to be treated like everybody else in the workplace. They were not employed on a temporary visa. They were not subject to the position of the employer where if they stood up and said, 'I don't like what is going on in my workplace,' they could be sacked and sent home.

The potential exploitation of people on 457 visas, on student visas and work holiday visas is actually happening. We are learning every day—whether it is in Fair Work Australia or in other forums—about the exploitation that is occurring. We need to ensure that if people come to Australia on work visas then they do have workplace protections, we need to ensure that their conditions are maintained and we need to ensure that in any visa system that we have they have the same rights and protections as other Australia workers. There is a division within our workplaces and these free-trade agreements are not doing anything to address that. I call on the government to do the right thing by these workers.