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

Today I rise to welcome the Senate's announcement yesterday that they will hold an inquiry into the temporary work visa programs that we have in this country. There are more than 1.1 million people here in this country on temporary work visa arrangements. That is not just the 417 visa system that we have heard repeatedly about, including concerns from workers that they are being exploited by the Australian employers; it also includes international students who are here to study and who have temporary work arrangements. It includes the backpacker visa: the 417 visa and the 462 visa. These are for people who are working here whilst backpacking and on holidays.

What has been discovered and exposed through recent media reports, as well as through work that our trade union movement is doing with industry and with senators, is that there is now an organised way in which some industries and some employers are bringing in cheap overseas labour to undercut current Australian workplace jobs and arrangements. That is simply not fair. It is not fair that Australians who want to work, say, in meatworks or in construction, are having their wages and conditions undercut by foreign workers who are being brought into this country and, in some cases, who are being exploited.

Constituents in my own electorate have raised this issue with me. One employer, KR Castlemaine, have not hid that they are using 417 visa workers in their establishment. Prior to Christmas, they announced they would have 100 Taiwanese backpackers working in their establishment. They were quite open and up-front about why they are having these visa holders work at KR Castlemaine. They say, purely and simply, they are cheaper. They work for an agency that pays them the award and that undercuts the wages and conditions that have been agreed to by KR Castlemaine and their workers through their collective agreement.

It is not fair that Australian workers can have their wages and conditions undercut in this way. I hope the Senate inquiry not only looks at the employment conditions but also looks at the living conditions that a number of these temporary workers are being forced to live under. Again, locally, at KR Castlemaine, some of the examples of living conditions are six people per room and quite a number of people being forced into a house to live in appalling living conditions. I welcome the Senate inquiry into this area and encourage people in my electorate, constituents and others, with concerns to raise these issues.