Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. How will the government's reform to skilled visas grow jobs in our economy?

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

I thank the honourable member for his question and the hard work he does in his electorate, supporting young people, in particular, into work. At the heart of every decision that this government makes, we want to support Australians into work. We want to make sure that we can help those young apprentices. We want to make sure that we can help people across society get a job, because that will provide a better future not only for them but also for their children, their families and our country.

We announced the abolition of the 457 visa program, which had ballooned under Labor. Labor's dodgy 457 visa program saw all sorts of rorts and rackets presided over by the Leader of the Opposition when he was the then employment minister in the Rudd and Gillard governments. At the same time he was pretending to be a friend of the Australian worker, he was bringing foreign workers into our country in the tens of thousands. That is what this Leader of the Opposition did.

Today we see another demonstration of the slippery approach of this Leader of the Opposition, who will seek to misrepresent any fact. That is what he did when he was a union leader as well. We know that his dodgy approach to the truth has not started just today. We know that this has been a lifetime of practice by this Leader of the Opposition, and it frustrates those people opposite, behind him. In particular it frustrates the member for Grayndler to a point where I think we need to watch the member for Grayndler over the coming few weeks. I think he has got his eye on this Leader of the Opposition. I think that is what is happening here. I think it is pretty obvious what is going on here. He realises that this dodgy Leader of the Opposition cannot be trusted by workers. The Leader of the Opposition demonstrated that when he ripped off workers through dodgy union agreements. He demonstrated that when he was employment minister, when he said to the Australian workers, 'I want to put you first.' At the same time he was doing deals with McDonald's and other employers to bring foreign workers into those jobs which should have been filled by Australian workers. We saw it time and time again in question time, as we saw demonstrated today.

This budget is about getting more jobs and supporting Australian businesses to employ more Australian workers. We support small business through tax cuts because we want them to employ more workers. We want them to be profitable, to set up more businesses around the country and to provide support to local communities. That is what this government has done, and no words misconstrued by this Leader of the Opposition will change that outcome. The Australian public, just as workers and just as Labor members opposite have quickly worked out, know what this Leader of the Opposition is about—and I predict this: he will not change his spots.