Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. Will the minister update the House on action the government is taking to ensure Australia's migration program does not disadvantage hardworking Australians? What are the benefits of having an approach that does not minimise job opportunities for Australians and their families?

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member very much for his question and for his interest in making sure that he can get the best possible deal for workers in his electorate. It is incredibly important, and it is what the Turnbull is about—to make sure that we can provide support to workers. And we put Australian workers first. Our government are determined to put young Australians into work to make sure that we can create jobs through the migration program and through employment programs to make sure that we secure their future and the future of our country.

We have a 457 visa program that operates in this country and we are cleaning it up because Labor made a mess of this migration program when they were in government. That would come as no surprise to Australians, because people know that during the glory years of Rudd-Gillard-Rudd, during which the Leader of the Opposition was the employment minister, the number of 457 visa primary visa holders went from 68,000 to 110,000 people. Now, this was at the time that the Leader of the Opposition, the then employment minister, was saying to Australians that he was putting workers first, when, as we now know and as has been demonstrated by the Prime Minister in question time today, that was not the case. It was not the case when the Leader of the Opposition was a minister in the Rudd-Gillard government and it was also not the case when he was a union leader, because not only did this Leader of the Opposition disadvantage workers when he was in the parliament as a minister but he presided over arrangements which saw workers in enterprise bargaining agreements lose part of their weekend penalty rates.

This is what makes the Leader of the Opposition's position so hypocritical at the moment. When Australians have this hesitation about the Leader of the Opposition, when they think that he is not straight up and down, that he is not what he says he is, they need to look not at his words but at his actions—at his actions as a union leader where he entered into agreements where workers missed out but the union got extra payments.

If you look at all these union bosses who are occupying the opposition benches across the chamber here, they had not one word to say about these EBAs that were entered into and that were sanctioned by the unions, which provided workers with a worse-off position than what the Fair Work Commission has provided for in recent days. They had nothing to say about that at all. So they are hypocrites from start to finish when it comes to any of these employment programs or any of these arrangements for workers.

We know that unions have entered into 457 agreements in record numbers. In fact, United Voice alone have sponsored 26 457 visas in the last five years. They are telling us how bad some of these programs are. Interestingly enough, 19 of these were for the position of workplace relations adviser. All you can surmise from that is that the former workplace relations advisers, the union bosses sitting here, have so bitterly disappointed the union bosses of today that they are trying to bring in some new talent. (Time expired)