Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Migration Amendment (Strengthening Employer Compliance) Bill 2023 will amend the Migration Act 1958 to strengthen employer compliance measures in relation to protecting temporary migrant workers from exploitation, including through implementing recommendations 19 and 20 of the 2019 Report of the Migrant Workers' Taskforce. The Migrant Workers Taskforce was established in 2016 by the coalition to identify proposals for improvements in law and in law enforcement and investigation and other practical measures to identify and rectify cases of migrant worker exploitation. The task force was chaired by Professor Allan Fels and included members from a wide variety of government agencies. The report was presented to the government in February 2019 and was released publicly on 7 March 2019 along with the government's response.

The report made 22 recommendations and the then coalition government accepted in principle all 22 recommendations. The coalition then developed legislation to implement recommendations 19 and 20 of the Report of the Migrant Workers' Taskforce. That was the Migration Amendment (Protecting Migrant Workers) Bill 2021, which was introduced on 24 November 2021. The 2021 bill was referred to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee on 25 November 2025. The committee report was tabled on 18 March 2022. The 2021 bill lapsed at dissolution prior to the 2022 election.

The majority of the measures in the bill we are debating today are a cut and paste of the coalition government bill; therefore, in principle, we support this bill. Although, through a Senate inquiry, we do want to check that what the government has added hasn't added a huge regulatory burden and that they have it right, especially when it comes to the implementation, but, in principle, we support what the bill is trying to do.

The coalition's bill was examined by the Senate committee and the Labor members of that committee, led by Senator Kim Carr—now retired—made 10 pages of comments in the report of things that were wrong with the bill. Yet today's bill does not pick up on any of that. It is fortunate that it doesn't, because it was basically just pure political pointscoring. It's good that we are able to look at something that is all about the facts and make sure we deal with migrant exploitation while, at the same time, ensure that employers in this nation are not overburdened by red tape and regulatory burden.

The current bill also includes additional areas in the repeal of section 235 of the Migration Act, which currently provides that a temporary visa holder who breaches any condition of their visa that restricts the work they may do or an unlawful non-citizen who undertakes any work at all commits an offence. The government is seeking to repeal this. The fact that this particular criminal offence hasn't been used in, it's my understanding, about 25 years does point to it maybe not being effective. So we're happy to look at this as part of the Senate inquiry process. Obviously, if the rationale is a good one, it's something we will support.

I've received a briefing on the bill from officials in Home Affairs and the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations. I thank the minister for arranging that, and I thank those officials. We had a good, open and frank discussion for about an hour on all the various parts of the bill. That proved to be incredibly useful in me being able to brief shadow cabinet and the party room on this bill.

As I said earlier, there are some concerns. If an employer makes a minor mistake when dealing with a migrant worker—for example, asking them to undertake a task that does not fall under their visa class—we want to make sure the employer wouldn't be sanctioned by burdensome rules and red tape. This is important, especially when it comes to small business. For instance, say you were employing a chef and your waiting staff didn't turn up. In the heat of the moment, you're under pressure, so you ask that chef whether he could help serve tables. That becomes an inadvertent breach. We want to make sure there is a proper-balanced and proper-scaled approach to a matter like that. That chef might have worked in the kitchen for two years, and it might have been the first time that something like that had happened. It happened because of the pressure the small-business owner was under, not them willingly or wanting to force someone to work outside their visa conditions. We just want to make sure that there is the appropriate flexibility and the appropriate scale as to what types of misdemeanours we might be talking about. As we demonstrated in putting this bill in place before there was a change of government, where there is serious exploitation, obviously we do want to deal with that. We need to ensure that, while we protect migrant workers' rights, we don't create a legal minefield for small businesses that make a minor mistake.

I have consulted widely on this bill with a broad range of groups. They all, in principle, support the bill, but they also want to ensure that the red tape burden isn't going to make it very difficult for small business, in particular. There are concerns that the bill may have an effect beyond its stated purpose of establishing protections in employer/employee circumstances and may disproportionately affect, for example, farmers and horticulturists using migrant workers to deal with workforce shortages. One of the things that has been suggested to us is that the government should consider introducing education or guidance programs to ensure that employers fully understand their obligations under this legislation if it passes the parliament, as I assume it will. One of the things we do have to make sure is that people understand what these new rules and regulations entail and that they understand that there are scaled penalties for a misdemeanour or an offence which is established under this bill.

One of the reasons we're happy to give in-principle support to this bill and just check the details with the Senate inquiry is that we on this side understand that we need to help and support the government when it comes to immigration because they're making a complete mess of it. We know there are 1.5 million people heading our way. We know that there's no plan for how they're going to be housed; what it's going to do to the rental crisis; what it's going to do to congestion; how it will impact on our health sector, which is already under enormous pressure; and what impact it will have on the environment. We've just seen today, in relation to the pandemic visa, that there were more pandemic visas issued after the borders were opened than there were when the borders were closed. This pandemic visa seems to be just another way that the Labor Party can add to their 'big Australia' agenda—by issuing the pandemic visa like it's going out of fashion.

My hope is that the minister will find another way to deal with the skills shortage rather than using the pandemic visa. We are hearing, since all the publicity today, that this is just another measure in Labor's 'big Australia' approach, and that the minister will move now to end the pandemic visa. We will wait and see. We've got the data up until March, and we'll continue to look at that data to see how the pandemic visa is being used by Labor for their 'big Australia' approach. There's also the issue of the 102,000 people who have sought asylum here in Australia and have failed to get that asylum. When Labor were in opposition, they made a big song and dance about this and said that something needed to be done about it. As we understand it, in the Nixon report, there are some suggested solutions to how the Labor Party might be able to deal with this issue in government, and they're sitting on that report. They haven't released the Nixon report. Having made a big song and dance especially about those people who are coming by plane, seeking asylum once they're here and being unsuccessful in seeking asylum, we now find out that the government is sitting on the solution that has been given to them.

There are lots of problems with Labor's 'big Australia' approach. That's why, when it comes to small issues like this, we're happy to support the government. They've put legislation in place which builds on legislation that we developed. We just need to check the red-tape elements of it, but, in principle, we support it. I commend the bill, as long as we get proper Senate scrutiny of it and, potentially, have the ability to make changes to ensure it doesn't bring a huge red-tape burden to employers.

Carina Garland (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a very important piece of legislation before us today, the Migration Amendment (Strengthening Employer Compliance) Bill 2023. At the outset, in making my remarks in support of the bill, I want to acknowledge the many workers over many years who have advocated for change so that migrant workers would not be exploited in a country like Australia. I acknowledge the Migrant Workers Centre, the Victorian Trades Hall Council, the United Workers Union and so many other organisations who have spoken out over many years, particularly workers who, despite risk and fear in speaking out about their own exploitation, have courageously come forward about what has been an absolute injustice in this country, with coercion, wage theft and exploitation taking place. The reason that these workers so bravely spoke out was to bring about change—the kind of change our government is implementing through this bill—to make sure that no other migrant workers experience what they went through. This is about real justice, at last. It comes from over a decade of work by so many brave people determined to see change. I'm really proud to stand here as a member of a Labor government that is making this change.

In my work before coming to this place, I heard many stories. I heard from people right across the country about their experiences. For a moment, let's imagine the farm worker in regional Victoria. They have been employed to pick vegetables, cash in hand, in a regional community. They are underpaid, sometimes earning as little as $5 an hour. They are forced to live in a dilapidated shack with eight others. The employer insists on deducting money from their pay, at a cost of $200 a week, for this shabby accommodation. One of the workers is sexually assaulted by a supervisor and is not taken seriously when they come forward and speak to the police about it. Having come forward, they are scared about what will happen. Will they be able to stay in Australia? Will their visas be signed off by their employer? This is a terrible story, but, unfortunately, it is one that too many people in our country have experienced. Imagine you're working in a poultry boning shed. You live in the western suburbs of Melbourne, and every day you're transported in a white van to your employer—again, paid cash in hand. You're bullied, harassed, injured at work and too afraid to speak out, lest you be punished for doing so. Australia is a better country than these stories suggest, and I'm really pleased that we're taking the exploitation of migrant workers so seriously through this bill.

This package of reforms is designed to confront head-on some of the problems that I've described. One in six recent migrants to Australia are paid less than the minimum wage. This exploitation hurts us all. Of course it hurts the individual worker, but it also drives down wages and conditions for every worker. We see exploitation all around us, and, where others have failed, our government is committed to addressing it. This bill will implement key recommendations from Professor Allan Fels's Report of the Migrant Workers' Taskforce, the recommendations of which were not taken seriously by the previous government. It is now up to us to implement the recommendations in full to protect workers as much as we can.

There are new criminal offences for using a person's migration status to exploit them in the workplace—this is recommendation 19 from the taskforce. There is a new tool to prohibit employers engaged in exploitative practices from hiring workers on temporary visas for a period of time—this is recommendation 20 from the taskforce. And the bill will go further. There will be high penalties for those who do the wrong thing.

The ABF will receive new compliance tools, which is really important because, while it is obviously very important that we have laws in place to prevent the exploitation of workers, we need to make sure that these are implemented properly through effective compliance. We are repealing the part of the Migration Act that makes it a criminal penalty for workers to breach their visa conditions—effectively criminalising speaking up. That is a key part of the change we're making today, which is to shift the onus, to shift who needs to be responsible for the terrible things that we are seeing in workplaces across our country, and to really be part of ensuring that justice is truly able to be pursued where it needs to be.

We have been taking the work of the Migrant Workers Taskforce and the work of a range of other organisations really seriously for many years. We know that recent migrants are 40 per cent more likely to be underpaid than long-term residents with the same skills and experiences who work in the same job. We know that temporary visa holders make up four per cent of the workforce, but in 2021-22 they made up 26 per cent of all litigation initiated for breaching the Fair Work Act, so we can clearly see that the exploitation of migrant workers is a considerable problem in our community.

The new criminal employer sanctions that we're introducing in this bill will mean that coercing people to work in breach of their visa conditions will become a new criminal and civil offence, and the penalty for doing so will be up to two years in prison or 360 penalty units. This is a really important deterrent to employers who might be considering exploiting workers due to visa conditions. We know that for many workers one of the barriers to coming forward and speaking out about things like underpayment and unsafe workplaces is that they're really worried that it will affect their visa conditions. So we should also expect to see more people having the courage to come forward and stand up for their rights.

We will be prohibiting employers and individuals who have done the wrong thing in the past from hiring future workers on temporary visas. The triggers for prohibition will include court orders and noncompliance with migration and employment law. Where visuals are subject to prohibition notices, the minister will be publish the relevant details on the department's website. This is a really important step, as there is currently no ability to prevent employers who have been sanctioned under the Migration Act from hiring international students or backpackers despite the vulnerabilities these workers face. We'll see some unscrupulous employers be unable to continue exploit very vulnerable people.

We're going to align and increase penalties for work-related breaches with the maximum penalties available under the Migration Act. This will see penalties increase from 60 units to 240 units, sending a really important deterrence message. We will also be able to make sure that enforceable undertakings for work-related breaches are possible, seeking to use similar provisions under the Migration Act for the Australian Border Force, providing them with additional tools in their enforcement approach. As I mentioned before, it's all well and good for us to have the laws in place, but we need to be able to ensure that they are being effectively enforced.

There are a range of other amendments that we are making here, and there are a range of other things that our government is doing to ensure that we finally do what's required to implement the key recommendations of the Migrant Workers Taskforce report. We have seen over the last decade an absolute crisis of exploitation in workplaces across the country.

So I mentioned a couple of examples at the beginning of my contribution here today, but there are others that people may be well familiar with, like the 7-Eleven scandal, which began a lot of the work that led to the Migrant Workers Taskforce. We've seen, through the Four Corners episode slaving away from 2015—quite some time ago—brave horticulture workers share their stories about what their experiences were, and yet we are now, in 2023, finally seeing the effective action being taken by our government.

The task force reported to the Morrison government in 2019, and, unfortunately, not much had progressed from that point. Clearly, this was not a priority for the previous government. It was not taken seriously. Our government takes tackling exploitation really seriously. One of the big issues that we saw as well over the last 10 years was a preference from the previous government for temporary visas rather than permanent visas. What that effectively does for a lot of people is that it makes it easy for unscrupulous employers to target vulnerable workers because they know that they can use the temporary visa status to coerce people and make them feel vulnerable and insecure in this country. Those opposite also created a backlog of almost one million visa applications. So, clearly, they were not taking their responsibility in relation to migration very seriously, neglecting basic administrative tasks and looking the other way.

This is despite the fact that so many different organisations, advocacy groups and individuals gave advice that we have a severe problem with exploitation in this country and that action needs to be taken. Of course, that includes Professor Allan Fels, who was the chair of the Migrant Workers Taskforce. It includes the Migrant Justice Institute and Human Rights Law Centre. It also includes the Australian Fresh Produce Alliance, the peak industry body in horticulture. Those members represent half the industry turnover of Australian fresh produce. They've said that this bill supports the integrity of visa programs and contributes to whole-of-government initiatives to combat migrant worker exploitation. The Grattan Institute have supported this. Of course, as I mentioned at the beginning of this, the work of the Migrant Workers Centre and the Victorian Trades Hall Council, as well as the Australian Council of Trade Unions, spoke out early on about these issues, which must be noted and commended.

There is a lot of work to be done to make sure that everyone in our country in a workplace is treated with respect and is safe. Of course, the implementation of all the recommendations from the Respect@Work report that our government implemented is also really significant to provide that positive duty to employers to ensure that workplaces are free from sexual harassment and discrimination. That is something that, of course, does affect migrant workers too, and I have seen firsthand the terrible impacts of that in workplaces where there are a lot of migrant workers employed.

All in all, our government is taking the issue of improving the migration and visa system really seriously. We're taking issues of workplace safety really seriously, and we're making sure that we're correctly looking at who needs to be punished for instances where there have been breaches of visas, where people have been coerced to do so because of the vulnerability to being exploited by unscrupulous employers.

I'm pleased that, at last—after decades of work from lots of people right around the country and, of course, after many brave workers have spoken out about their experiences to finally get justice and change in this world—our government is taking the steps that need to be taken to make sure that everyone is safe at work and is not punished for speaking out by having their visa status threatened in this country. We're so much better than that.

Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Migration is central to the story of Australia. As the daughter of a migrant, I know firsthand the contribution that migrants make to our wonderful and diverse society and the opportunities that Australia can provide for those who come to our shores to work, study and live. When migrants come to Australia, they expect to be treated fairly, particularly in the workplace. But the truth is that by some estimates up to one in six migrants who've recently arrived in Australia have experienced exploitation at their place of work—for example, through wage theft, having their passports withheld, threats of visa cancellation, bullying, and harassment.

The problem of migrant worker exploitation was highlighted by the 2019 Migrant Workers' Task Force, by the recent independent review of the migration system, by submissions to the Joint Standing Committee on Migration and by people who have contacted my office. A few months ago I was contacted by a temporary migrant on a sponsored training visa. She'd been working for an accounting firm but after six months had still not received the wages that were owed to her. When she raised the matter with the company, a senior executive threatened to cancel her visa and demanded money from her. She soon discovered that other trainees had had a similar terrible experience. This kind of exploitation is devastating for those affected. But it doesn't just harm the migrants themselves. It also harms the vast majority of Australian businesses who are doing the right thing, and it harms Australia's reputation as a destination for people across the world who are looking for a great place to work, study and live.

For too long we've failed to get our migration system right. In 2019 the Migrant Workers' Taskforce presented 22 recommendations for tackling temporary migrant worker exploitation. This bill implements several of them and so is a step in the right direction. The Migration Amendment (Strengthening Employer Compliance) Bill 2023 targets unscrupulous employers with harsher penalties and bans on employing migrants as well as the expansion of the Australian Border Force 's enforcement powers. Importantly, it also provides better protections for workers to pursue claims via the Assurance Protocol, and I'm glad to see the government also committing to creating a workplace justice visa for those affected by exploitation. If implemented well, these measures would be good for migrants and good for the vast majority of businesses who are doing the right thing.

But this bill will be effective only if it is accompanied by stronger action on enforcement, measures to prevent the conditions for exploitation to occur and, importantly, proper support for businesses to implement these changes. Firstly, enforcement: there is no use having good laws if nobody is there to enforce them. That's why I ask the government, as recommended by the Grattan Institute, to ensure that the home affairs department and the Australian Border Force have the right resources, culture, policies and prioritisation to enforce these changes and transparently measure and report on their effectiveness. The Fair Work Ombudsman must also play a role in ensuring that all workers in Australia are protected, regardless of their work visa status. But their record in identifying and acting on illegal employment practices is poor, and they need to be properly resourced to do their job.

Secondly, it's about preventing the conditions for exploitation to occur. As the independent review of the migration system recently identified, visa conditions are one of the three main factors that create conditions for worker exploitation. I know the government is considering measures to reduce this vulnerability, including the form of a workplace justice visa, and I look forward to seeing this work as it progresses.

Finally, support for business: the vast majority of businesses in Australia want to do the right thing by the migrant workers, and they do so. But many find navigating the complex array of government rules and regulations difficult. This is certainly what businesses in Wentworth have told me. I therefore ask the government to work with businesses to minimise the burden associated with the additional regulation and to ensure that employers have easy access to the right information and support to ensure compliance. As part of this, I ask the government to consider a transition period for these reforms to give businesses the opportunity to revise their processes, bring in new procedures and train their staff without the immediate threat of penalties for noncompliance. I note that the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has raised this point with the minister, and I ask him to consider it seriously. I also ask the minister to, as part of broader reforms to the migration system, consult closely with business about how the broader visa system works and to work out how we can make it easier for businesses who are trying to support and include migrant workers in their workplaces to do that in a way that is simple, is cost-effective and allows them to bring the best workers to Australia to contribute to their businesses as well as to the broader Australian economy.

Having a system that works for business and is simple, efficient and effective to employ is absolutely critical if we are going to raise productivity and get the best people into the country. Australia should be the best place to work in the world for a migrant, but right now too many migrant workers are subject to exploitation. While most businesses want to do the right thing, a few bad apples are holding us back. This bill is a step in the right direction but must be accompanied by additional measures if it is to have the desired effect.

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to commend this bill, the Migration Amendment (Strengthening Employer Compliance) Bill 2023, and I do so because action in this space is important. It's also overdue, and it is overdue because, following a decade of neglect from the former Liberal government, it's now up to the Albanese government to take much-needed action to implement the key recommendations in the Migrant Workers' Taskforce report. This report came about after our nation saw a crisis of exploitation occurring in a number of workplaces, and despite national debate and the uproar caused, the former Liberal government chose to take no initiative. We know, because it was brought to our attention and it was brought to the nation's attention, what was happening to many migrant workers. There was rampant exploitation going on, which led to the Migrant Workers' Taskforce, who made recommendations that the former government failed to bring on after two years. That report went to the Morrison government in 2019. Two years on, a bill was introduced but, as per the common poor standards of the former government, the bill was never brought forward for debate.

As always, there was lots of talk. There was an inquiry. There was a report. There was even legislation drafted. But the actual final steps to make those laws were not taken by the former government, and when you hear and remember those words, that low wages were a deliberate feature of the former government's economic plan, you can make your own assumptions about how those low wages were created. But we know worker exploitation was part of driving down wages because it undermined other businesses who were behaving appropriately. Businesses who were paying award wages to migrant workers, businesses who were doing the right thing, were actively being undermined, creating a false economy, by people who were doing the wrong thing. The lack of action from the former government is not surprising, but it took a devastating toll on our country's valued residents. Electorates like mine felt the brunt of this, and small businesses in electorates like mine felt the pressure to comply with what was irregular rather than what was regular, because those exploiting workers got a competitive edge and got a better bottom line.

Introducing this bill fulfilling the report's recommendations is a priority for this government. When I say vulnerable workers were exploited, they were targeted by some companies giving preference to temporary visas as opposed to permanent visas. A backlog of almost a million visa applications was created. Basic administrative tasks that are crucial to a seamless operation were neglected. It's time appropriate action is taken to protect those who contribute their skills for this nation's benefit. We've done a lot of work in our first year of office around migration and the visa system. During our time in government we've already made significant changes to the migration and visa system. Tackling exploitation is only possible through the establishment of a functional and well-administered visa system. Extended waiting times for visas and poor service to clients create additional vulnerabilities and problems for workers in our nation. With regard to visas, we have significantly slashed the backlog created by the former government by employing over 500 new staff. There are now fewer than 600,000 visa applications at hand. Now that we're in government, temporary skills shortage visas for health and education workers are being assessed and finalised in a matter of just a few days.

Since we took government the backlog for citizenship has been reduced to fewer than 80,000 people, which is the lowest it has been in six years. Up to 90 per cent of people are now waiting less than six months for a citizenship ceremony. In my electorate, that has been critical. My local government has worked tirelessly across these first 12 months to get a backlog of citizenship applications actually through citizenship ceremonies, because we know how important citizenship is to people. For many in our communities who come into the country on refugee or humanitarian visas it will be the first time they have citizenship. I hear it all of the time at citizenship ceremonies.

Other people may have come on a student visa and then gone on to employment and, working through the system, getting their permanent residency. In my electorate the waiting time to go from permanent residency to citizenship had blown out, so I am pleased to be a part of the government whose intent to shorten these time frames has seen action occur in my local government, where they now understand how important it is for people who are seeking citizenship to do so as quickly and conveniently as possible.

We have made significant efforts towards establishing safe and fair working conditions. Despite this, one in six people who have recently migrated to Australia are being paid less than the minimum wage, and consequently this drives down wages and worsens conditions for other workers in Australia. This government is committed to addressing any and all kinds of exploitation, and we are taking action now. This bill will take key recommendations from Professor Allan Fels's Migrant Workers' Taskforce report and implement them to create a much more appropriate standard for those employing migrant workers.

As per recommendation 19 from the task force, new criminal offences will come into effect for those who use someone's migration status to exploit them in the workplace. A new tool will also be engaged in prohibiting employers that have engaged in exploitative work practices from being able to hire workers on temporary visas for a period, as per recommendation 20 from the task force. There will be an aligning and an increasing of penalties for work related breaches, with an increase from 60 units to 240 units. This will act as an important deterrent. Compliance notices for work related breaches, which consist of a formal notice for employers who are in breach of relevant Migration Act and migration regulations, will be enforced. This will allow for the promotion of compliance with the Fair Work Act. There will be consideration of worker exploitation as a potential mitigating factor should a visa cancellation be under consideration.

The Albanese Labor government is committed to doing more than just the bare minimum. This bill will go further. Higher penalties will be implemented for transgressors. The Australian Border Force will receive new compliance tools. A part of the Migration Act that makes it a criminal penalty for workers to breach their visa conditions, which criminalises speaking up, will be repealed by this government. Through the implementation of appropriate protections from visa cancellations, workers will be encouraged to speak up and report exploitation. I have heard stories in my electorate about threats of visa cancellations and how they are used to exploit workers and get them to work for below minimum wages.

We should not be surprised that those opposite failed to act, because since we have come to government those opposite have refused to back in changes that this government is making to ensure workers are getting paid award wages. They oppose a regulation that would make it illegal to advertise a position for below the minimum wage. They oppose it. It makes good sense to everybody else in the country. It makes good sense to people in my community that you shouldn't be able to advertise a position when you're not prepared to pay the remuneration that the position is entitled to. That seems fair to me. They are the same kinds of practices against which this bill will put in place deterrents and fines, so as to ensure that workers are not exploited and to ensure that the legislation carries public awareness around what's going on here.

The Australian Border Force will receive new compliance tools. The part of the Migration Act that makes it a criminal offence for workers to breach their visa conditions, which criminalises speaking up, will be repealed. We encourage workers to speak up and report exploitation by putting in place appropriate protections from visa cancellations. In turn, this will protect businesses doing the right thing. It will protect all of our workers from having their conditions and their remuneration undermined.

The government provided $50 million over four years to the Australian Border Force in the 2023-24 budget. The ABF oversaw a month of action in July and used its resources to target employers who were suspected of doing the wrong thing. The government is raising awareness of employer obligations and taking action to get out and visit businesses in a substantive way for the first time in a very long time. This work would not have come to fruition had there not been an increase in funding or the prioritisation taken by this government to tackle worker exploitation. As Minister O'Neil made clear, this indifference will stop with our government.

We will be a positive change for those who have chosen to call Australia their home and who are being exploited. This is a matter demanding a response. The former government's lack of competence and value on this matter will not continue to be reflected in the current government's actions. Our government has been engaging in an intensive co-design process with industry, unions and civil society to assist in informing the design of further safeguards within the visa system. We want it to be safe for those who are being exploited in their workplace to speak up and to do so in the confidence that our government is backing them. We want to explore the potential for a new visa for workplace justice to ensure this exploitation ends.

We are aware that there are gaps in what workers understand. There may also be gaps in what employers understand. Many people are unsure of who to turn to or where to go should something go wrong. Our migration system needs to work for everyone. It needs to work for the workers and it needs to work for business. Part of that is creating public awareness of these changes, but also ensuring that we have in place policies and a government that will take action where people ignore the rules, where people seek to avoid the rules and where people seek to undermine wages and conditions in this country and undermine other businesses while doing so. I commend this bill to the House.

James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As indicated by the lead coalition speaker, the member for Wannon, we are supporting the Migration Amendment (Strengthening Employer Compliance) Bill 2023 through this chamber. We will take the opportunity through Senate debate to look at some of the regulatory impacts of this legislation that only a committee consideration can uncover. Assuming that nothing significant changes there, no doubt we will support the bill through the Senate. Frankly, this bill emanates from the work of our government, the previous government, which established the Migrant Workers Taskforce. We introduced into the last parliament a piece of legislation that responded to those recommendations, but the calling of the election meant that that legislation lapsed. Most of that legislation is in the bill we are debating now.

There are a lot of businesses in my electorate that employ workers through the migration system. and they are all exemplary employers. My experiences with them are that some employ people locally, while others have their headquarters in my electorate but they might be a rural or regional business where their operations are outside my electorate. I have the opportunity, as a local member, to meet and interact with those businesses. Of course, at times they will also come to me as their local federal member to raise with me and seek assistance for matters to do with the migration system and a visa that an employee might have.

The businesses that I interact with in my electorate are absolutely all doing the right thing. I want to start by thanking them for the fact that they're employing people. In fact, they're businesses that in some ways are so successful that they need to seek additional labour through the migration system. The economy has been so strong in the last few years, and the employment market has been so tight, that the migration system has been a very important avenue for them to access new employees so they can continue to grow their business. That means, of course, paying more tax to people like us, in the federal government, to fund the society that we live in. We're very lucky to have these employers, and I don't think the tenor of this debate should be some kind of assumption that every employer is seeking to exploit someone in their workforce, particularly those that are coming through the migration system.

I fully acknowledge that there are a small proportion of employers that are doing the wrong thing, and this is legislation that appropriately strengthens and tightens the framework so that employers who are doing the wrong thing are properly held to account. We want everyone in the workforce, whether they're an Australian citizen or working under a visa, to be working in an environment and under a framework that we legislate. Wherever there are examples of opportunities to make that system more robust, we should take them, and that opportunity exists in this legislation.

The businesses that I work with and interact with in my electorate that are employing people are absolutely doing the right thing. In fact, they are bending over backwards to help the staff that they take on, particularly through the employer sponsored visa system, to not only earn an income but also benefit from the innovative programs these businesses have that support new migrants. The businesses do what they can to provide additional support well beyond the remuneration that the employees are provided by virtue of working in that business.

One challenge in my home state of South Australia that I have spoken about repetitively in this chamber since I was first elected is that, in essence, we have a national migration scheme that is very much one size fits all. There's not a lot of flexibility in it. We're setting policy that is trying to balance burgeoning major metropolises, like Sydney, Melbourne or even South-East Queensland, and regional and remote areas in my home state of South Australia and other states, which have quite different population problems and challenges. In the cities, the population has been growing far too rapidly and putting an enormous burden on the creaking infrastructure of those cities, and infrastructure investment has not kept pace with population growth. But we've got some communities in our country that have been depopulating for many decades and, indeed, have excess capacity in parts of their infrastructure because the population has been reducing. That's the case particularly in agricultural communities, where efficiencies in agriculture have meant the unit labour required per hectare of farmed land has dramatically changed over the decades. That's a good thing for productivity, but it has also demonstrated not only a challenge but an opportunity that our migration system hasn't properly taken advantage of.

There are other jurisdictions—for example, Canada—where they have a much more differentiated approach to migration, which is very much geographic. The issue in this country is that even the schemes we've established, like the regional skilled migration scheme, have not been strictly required. People can apply to get a visa that purports to ultimately have them come and work and live in South Australia, and the South Australian state government might sponsor them through that regional skilled program, but, invariably, more often than not, that human capital ends up in the big cities like Sydney and Melbourne, so the principle of the scheme hasn't been strict enough and robust enough to ensure that the outcomes or the principles of the policy are being achieved in practical terms.

The government has indicated that it's undertaking this broad review of the migration system. Well, that's great. Although, having reviews of the migration system is a very common drumbeat across both sides of politics. It is really up to the government as to whether or not they want to look deeply and seriously at this population workforce imbalance and challenge that we have. It's not just geographic; it's obviously in categories of work as well.

It was very disappointing that the Labor Party were so opposed to our agriculture visa. We know that the union movement was very, very engaged in ensuring that that was the position of the now government. That was really disappointing because that was a huge opportunity for regional Australia in particular to have a dedicated visa channel for them to address the significant Labor shortages in regional areas and in particular industries in original areas. Unfortunately, the union movement went from embassy to embassy in the lead up to the election, telling those nations that were seeking to engage in bilateral agreements under that visa program not to dare consider signing up to that. That was a great loss to our economy and to regional businesses out there succeeding so much and trying to employ more people, grow their businesses and pay more taxes. That allows us to do a whole lot more for our society, as the federal and state governments benefit from it, too.

But, regrettably, we have a situation where the union movement has been undermining those efforts, and that's a great shame. The union movement makes these claims, but I have certainly never met a business that has a preference to employ people through a sponsored migration scheme in lieu of an Australian. That's just nonsensical. There's obviously a much higher cost and a higher risk to a business to seek to employ someone by sponsoring their visa and meeting all that risk and cost if they could employ an Australian. The reality is that they're attempting to but simply cannot find the workers in this country to take up those employment opportunities that those businesses have. If they don't avail themselves of the migration system, then the businesses will either not grow or, in some cases, shrink or shut down, because they cannot operate if they don't have a reliable, stable workforce. Then there are businesses growing their workforces or wanting to grow their workforces, and the migration system is obviously there to help them do that.

We are a very proud migrant nation. Almost everyone in this chamber has a story or a connection to migration in some way, shape or form. Although, they would have addressed that before getting here under section 44 of the Constitution. Nonetheless, we all know that our migrant communities are thriving across this nation. As members of parliament, we love to engage in our multicultural communities. Migration has been a vitally important part of the Australian story, but, better still, it is going to be forevermore. We will always be a nation that has a level of migration. We are now, and we'll always be a great multicultural society into the future.

But having an efficient migration system that is also making sure that the economic needs of our future workforce planning are met is going to be vitally important as well. We know, through all the projections, that if we don't have a migration system that is structured towards addressing those identified future pressures, let alone current pressures, we simply won't have the workforce that we need for the economy and the society that we want to have into the future.

We support this bill through this chamber and obviously have no concern whatsoever in making sure that a stronger framework is in place to make sure that migrant workers are protected and given the protections that they rightly deserve: to be employed in conditions that follow the law of the land and that are the same conditions that anyone in this country should be employed under. We recognise that there is a uniqueness around the risk of exploitation of migrant workers, and so we welcome that as well.

I conclude by reconfirming my comments at the beginning of this contribution, which are that that should not send a message that the vast majority of employers are doing anything short of the right thing by their workforce. Every business that I've ever been involved in, and the businesses that I engage with in my electorate, see their workforce as their most important asset. Particularly in recent years, with such a tight employment market, businesses have been, more than ever before, doing so much in addition to the minimum to make sure that their workforce are well remunerated, satisfied and will have longevity in that business. When they're employing people through the migration scheme, that has certainly also been my experience in my electorate.

I welcome legislation that will crack down on bad actors and bad participants in this space but also commend the vast majority of businesses that are doing the right thing. I commend them for employing migrants, who add such richness to both our economy and our society. I look forward to supporting their future needs through a reformed migration system that is going to more appropriately fit those challenges that our economy is going to have into the future.

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

There are a few facts in this debate on the Migration Amendment (Strengthening Employer Compliance) Bill that I think are really important. The vast majority of employers are doing the right thing, unless of course you are a temporary migrant worker. Recently arrived migrant workers are 40 per cent more likely to be underpaid than long-term residents with the same skills or experiences. That's what a recent Grattan report said. One in six recently arrived migrant workers are paid less than the legal minimum wage. Temporary visa holders make up four per cent of the workforce but in 2021-22 made up 26 per cent of all litigation initiated for breaches of the Fair Work Act. That's what our own Fair Work Ombudsman Commission said—and they're just the ones who came forward. That's just the work that the government is doing. Let's not forget about the case of blueberry workers being paid about $3 an hour to pick blueberries because of piece rates that were ripping them off. Union after union, worker after worker, task force after task force has told this parliament and previous governments that not enough was being done to protect migrant workers.

Let's just for a moment touch base on what has happened in the past decade, if not longer. First, those opposite, in government, said there wasn't a problem, that it was a few cases. Then, as more media reports came out, they accused the workers and the unions of causing trouble. It was only after their own task force started to expose the true underbelly and extent of the problem that they finally acknowledged that there was a problem. But, rather than meet it with action, what we saw from those opposite when they were in government was just more task forces and more committees to tell us what everybody else had been telling them for so long, that we had a problem: recently arrived migrants, regardless of what visa they were brought here on, were being exploited. It happens in the Seasonal Worker Program, where it explicitly says in that program that these workers must be paid the award rates. We are seeing workers being paid less. It's not just in agriculture that we have these problems. It's happening in hospitality, in the hotel industry, in retail work and in accountancy. It's happening in a whole bunch of industries, and that is why reform is so necessary. It took the election of a Labor government for real reform and progress to be made on this issue.

The Albanese Labor government is progressing a package of reforms to tackle the exploitation of all workers, including migrant workers, and the bills that are before us right now seek to implement the key recommendation from Professor Allan Fels's Migrant Workers Taskforce report. I feel like I've stood in this parliament and spoken about this report time and time again, so I am so proud and relieved to be able to stand here and say that we finally have a bill before us that addresses and implements key recommendations from Professor Allan Fels's Migrant Workers Taskforce report. There are new criminal offences for using a person's migration status to exploit them in the workplace. This is recommendation No. 19 from the task force's report. There is a new tool to prohibit employers engaging exploitative practices to be able to hire workers on temporary visas for a period of time. This is recommendation No. 20 from the task force's report. This bill in fact goes further than the report's recommendations. There are higher penalties for those who do the wrong thing. The ABF will be receiving new compliance tools. We will repeal the part of the Migration Act that imposes a criminal penalty on workers who breach their visa conditions—effectively, criminalising them for speaking up. Can you believe it is actually a part of the Migration Act, currently, to criminalise people for speaking up about breaching their conditions when, in many cases, these workers were being forced to breach their own visa conditions?

This bill is one part of the Albanese Labor government's plan to protect workers. In the 2023-24 budget, the government provided $50 million to Australian Border Force over four years to help address and tackle the challenges that we're seeing. For the first time in a long time, the government is raising awareness about employer obligations and actually getting out and visiting the businesses in a substantive way to talk to them about their obligations. There are some employers who engaged labour hire who say they didn't know. Now they will know, and now they will have a responsibility. It became part of the business model that was supersized under the previous government: you use a labour hire company to outsource your obligations to these workers. We heard shocking stories—and, unfortunately, we continue to hear them today—about workers who get paid but then have deducted from their pay exorbitant fees for transport, accommodation and uniforms. In some cases, people had money deducted for things that they hadn't actually received. All of these methods were being used by unscrupulous employers, quite often labour hire companies, to exploit temporary migrant workers. We should thank temporary migrant workers. We are privileged to have them come to this country. We all know about the labour shortages in the industries that I have raised and others. We should be grateful and thankful that these workers choose to come to Australia to work, when they could work in so many other places, because we simply don't have the local workers to actually do the job. Yet, rather than thanking them, supporting them and paying them what they're worth, companies have exploited them.

One of the industries that has had lots of issues is the meatworks industry. We have seen labour hire companies recruit workers—international students and people who are here as backpackers—and pay them less than other workers. There is other legislation that this parliament may consider in the future which will look at the 'same job, same pay' legislation and which will look at saying that labour hire workers should be paid the same or equal rates as other workers. Whilst that addresses another loophole, what this legislation does is look at the loophole and the challenges where migrant workers are paid much less—another example of why.

The United Workers Union, which represents quite a number of farm workers, recently surveyed about a thousand workers in the lead-up to a submission that they had to the National Agricultural Workforce Strategy. Their findings reflect what we've been continually hearing for the past decade. They found that 32 per cent of workers surveyed experience dangerous and unsafe workloads. Twenty-seven per cent reported that they did not have access to toilets or efficient drinking water. They found that 32 per cent of workers were threatened by a contractor for making a complaint about wages and conditions. Sixty-three per cent of workers said that they were being underpaid. Forty-four per cent reported that they were being paid in cash. The fact that we still have workers being paid in cash demonstrates just how big the problem is.

Another survey that was undertaken by the union in 2019 found that the average hourly rate for horticultural workers that were surveyed was $14.80 before tax. That's well below the casual minimum wage and well below the full-time minimum wage. This is what is going on and this is why we need action to address it. Piece rates, subcontracting, the ridiculous rates that they're being charged for accommodation and the extra costs that are imposed on them for transport are all ways in which these migrant workers are being exploited, on our watch here in parliament.

That is why I'm so proud to be part of a government that is doing something about it, that isn't just setting up another task force blaming somebody else. Quite often what was happening under the previous government with these cases was the blaming of the very people being exploited for speaking up. I want to take a moment to acknowledge the bravery of those migrant workers, many of whom are here on temporary arrangements, for speaking up, as well as their unions—the AWU, the former NWU, now the UWU, and the SDA—for the way in which they've spoken up. It's a big thing for a worker to speak up about being exploited in the workplace. It's an even bigger thing for a migrant worker, who risks losing their visa, to speak up.

Some of the specifics in this bill are that a new criminal employer sanction will be introduced. Prohibiting employers and individuals from hiring future workers on temporary visas will be introduced. Aligning and increasing penalties for work-related breaches are part of this bill. Part 4 is enforcing an undertaking for work-related breaches. There are compliance notices for work-related breaches and a number of other amendments that will ensure that people working here on temporary visas are given a fair go and treated with respect.

It's disappointing that it's taken a Labor government for this to be enacted. Treating people with respect in the workplace should be core business for all of us. Making sure that all workers, regardless of visa status, are paid the minimum wage should be the responsibility of all of us, not just because of the election of a Labor government. It is disappointing that it has taken so long—over a decade—for there to be real action. At the same time, I'm really proud to be part of a government that is acting on behalf of temporary migrant workers who've come here to earn a decent living and to help us with some of our challenges that we have with our workforce—that it is our government that is doing the work.

I would also like to acknowledge the Migrant Workers Centre in Melbourne that's part of the Trades Hall that has long advocated for change to the awful situation that migrant workers are in, because their visa status is quite often held over them. I would also like to mention the work that the Migrant Resource Centre have done in this place, and all the other civil society and community organisations that have supported migrant workers when they find themselves in situations of horrible exploitation. This is a horrible stain that we have on Australian workplace history, and it is good to see action finally happening.

As previous speakers on this side have mentioned, not only will we tackle the exploitation of migrant workers and ensure they get paid the same as other workers; we'll also help other workers to ensure their wages and conditions are not undercut. If you have the exploitation of migrant workers as part of your business model and you are able to pay them so much less than other workers who are either Australian citizens or permanent residents, then it puts pressure on everybody. It means their labour, because it is cheaper, becomes the labour of choice, and that's what we need to avoid. I encourage all of those in this place to consider this bill and to vote for it. It is long overdue, it is action that's required, it implements key recommendations from Professor Allan Fels' Migrant Workers' Taskforce report and it is great to see it finally happening.

Jenny Ware (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Migration Amendment (Strengthening Employer Compliance) Bill 2023, and I do support this bill in principle. The bill seeks to amend the Migration Act 1958 to strengthen employer compliance measures in relation to protecting temporary migrant workers from exploitation. The latest figures available reveal that on average there around 1.6 million temporary visa holders with a full or partial right to work in Australia each year. Obviously many of us speak in this place regularly about the importance of immigrants and migrants into Australia not just for economic reasons but also because they have built our society and will continue to do so. Our economy, our businesses and our country rely heavily upon temporary migrant workers to fill shortages within our existing labour market and increase the overall productivity of Australia. Our industrial relations system should be flexible, it should be diverse and it should definitely protect all workers, including temporary migrant workers.

Although this is not the driving purpose of the temporary work regime, many temporary migrant workers decide to pursue full Australian citizenship through legitimate means available to them through immigration policies. When I attend ceremonies at my local councils, Liverpool city and Sutherland shire, it is always a pleasure to meet and welcome many of our newest Australians from all around our globe, many of whom started their Australian journey as temporary migrant workers. The work performed by temporary migrants is important. It is valued by employers and Australians overall. Temporary migrant workers have predominantly worked in the areas of agriculture, food production and meat processing, but they've also been required, when our economy has needed it and individual employers have needed it, in a full range of various goods and services across our economy.

Employers value employees as a rule. However, no system is perfect, and temporary migrant workers can be at risk of exploitation. This bill seeks to implement recommendations of the former coalition government's 2019 report of the Migrant Workers' Taskforce, and I think it's important to remember the task force was established in 2016 under a coalition government to identify proposals for improvements in the law, law enforcement and investigation and other practical measures to identify and rectify cases of migrant worker exploitation. The task force was chaired by Professor Allan Fels and included members from a wide variety of government agencies. The report made 22 recommendations in total, and the coalition while still in government accepted in principle all 22 recommendations. The stated purpose of this bill is to implement particularly recommendations 19 and 20 of the task force's report. This bill includes some measures contained in the Migration Amendment (Protecting Migrant Workers) Bill 2021. So this was work which was commenced under the former coalition government.

In particular the bill introduces criminal offences for employers who coerce temporary migrant workers into working in breach of their visa conditions and establishes a mechanism to prevent such employers from employing additional migrant workers for a period of time. These protections are appropriate. I do support these protections. I support this bill. However, this does not in any way mean that I am saying that the vast majority of employers, or indeed a very large minority of employers, exploit their temporary workers. The bill also provides measures to deter employers from exploiting temporary migrant workers, including mechanisms to encourage voluntary compliance and increase penalties for breaches of relevant workplace laws. There are also amendments introduced to remove some of the disincentives for temporary migrant workers to report exploitation where currently they may fear that their visa status would be in jeopardy if they did so. These all are appropriate measures.

Temporary migrant workers form a very important part of our national economy and workforce. Overall, they are valued and supported by their employers. It is appropriate that these workers are afforded the full legal protections to guard against some opportunities that may exist for exploitation. Migrants, including temporary migrants, have helped to build our country and will continue to do so into the future. Our industrial relations system should be flexible and diverse and include protections for all of our employees, including temporary migrant workers. Temporary migrant workers and having a viable and diverse workplace allow businesses to adjust their individual workforces when needed to meet the inevitable ebbs and flows in demand for goods and services across the country. We live in a global society. We operate in a global commercial world. Most of our employers are honourable and really do look after all their workers, but it is appropriate that safeguards are put in place, particularly for temporary migrant workers. And for those reasons, I commend this bill to the House.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Too often in the media we see stories of migrants being exploited in workplaces right around Australia. There are tales of unscrupulous employers misusing a visa condition to coerce a migrant worker into not complaining about either their working conditions or, even worse, underpayment or other things. Moreton has significant Filipino, Taiwanese, Pasifika and Korean communities. Many of these young people end up working in the agricultural sector or the hospitality sector while they're in Australia. Most have fun and make some money. Some are exploited. A few years ago, I travelled with diplomatic representatives from these countries up to Bundaberg and then west to Lockyer Valley, and we interviewed some of these fun-loving farm workers from these countries to see how they were being treated. Sadly, both then and now, there are numerous cases of workers not being paid what they're legally entitled to be paid. Often, it is a subcontractor and middle people who are doing the exploitation. Unfortunately, the ne'er-do-wells often speak the same language as the person they're exploiting. We even hear of migrant workers being silenced after being sexually assaulted.

All sensible members on both sides of the chamber would agree that such behaviour must stop, and I note the contributions from those on the other side prior to my addressing this bill. This is where the Migration Amendment (Strengthening Employer Compliance) Bill 2023 before the chamber will make a difference. The Albanese Labor government is taking action through addressing the recommendations made in the report of the Migrant Workers' Taskforce led by Professor Allan Fels, which was handed down in 2019. No-one would be surprised that, even though the coalition government accepted in principle the recommendations of the task force—you guessed it—there was no follow-through. There was no implementation of any of the recommendations. It is another example of how the LNP is all about the announcement but hopeless when it comes to follow-through, unable or unwilling to put in the hard work needed to deliver something.

There is clear evidence of the systemic nature of exploitation in Australia's labour market. Unscrupulous employers and facilitators have misused visa rules to exploit workers. According to a recent report by the Grattan Institute, up to one in six recent migrants are paid below the minimum wage. Another report, from Unions NSW, found that more than one in five workers are paid a lower salary because of their visa status or nationality. So it's not just a bad apple or two. Remember: if 20 per cent of the market is undercutting good employers, they set the tone for a race to the bottom. Those good farmers intent on doing the right thing are punished by those down the road doing the wrong thing.

The Albanese government is particularly concerned about the vulnerability of people who hold temporary visas. We have heard of wage theft, sham contracting, threats of a phone call to Australian Border Force, empty promises of permanent residency, and stories of people having their passports locked away or being sexually harassed and sexually assaulted. Obviously, this behaviour needs to stop. These actions don't just harm migrant workers; they also damage our international reputation. These workers go back, normally, and become 'ambassadors of bad'. They tell everyone of their exploitation and damage our international standing.

For those industries that require a migrant workforce—especially seasonal picking, where you've got to get to work when things are on the vine and ready to go—it means that those jobs won't get filled; migrants simply won't come to Australia, because of the horrors that they've heard from those 'ambassadors of bad'. Again, this has effects on not only those migrant workers but the broader Australian economy. As the saying goes, one drop of lemon juice can spoil gallons of milk. Therefore, these bad actors need to be stopped.

Our government is amending the Migration Act 1958 to (1) establish new criminal offences and associated civil penalties to deter employers from using a visa condition or status to coerce, unduly influence or unduly pressure someone in the workplace, (2) establish a new mechanism to prohibit an employer from hiring any additional people on temporary visas for a period of time, (3) increase the maximum criminal and civil penalties for all current and proposed work related offences and provisions in the Migration Act, (4) create additional tools for the Australian Border Force to address employer compliance, (5) repeal section 235 of the Migration Act, which makes it a criminal offence to breach a work related visa condition, and (6) revise the regulation-making power in the Migration Act to ensure worker exploitation must be taken into consideration for all visa cancellation decisions.

Through the amendments in this bill, the government is delivering on its response to two key recommendations made in the report of the Migrant Workers Taskforce. Recommendation 19 reads:

It is recommended that the Government consider developing legislation so that a person who knowingly unduly influences, pressures or coerces a temporary migrant worker to breach a condition of their visa is guilty of an offence.

That's a good warning. Recommendation 20 reads:

It is recommended that the Government explore mechanisms to exclude employers who have been convicted by a court of underpaying temporary migrant workers from employing new temporary visa holders for a specific period.

Establishing these criminal penalties will help deter those employers seeking to exploit vulnerable workers. There needs to be serious criminal consequences for this poor behaviour. A simple financial penalty on its own isn't a big enough deterrent. The perpetrators will balance a fine against the benefits that come from the suppression of wages and conditions in their workplaces through exploitation, so there needs to be criminal repercussions and also bans. The crooks shouldn't be able to access the workforce they've been found guilty of exploiting. This will help change behaviour and make the rogues think twice before going down that road.

We'll also remove section 235, which is the tool used to threaten migrant workers to exploit and coerce them under the Migration Act. This section makes it a criminal offence to break a work related visa condition, which deters workers from speaking up about their exploitative work environment for fear of criminal sanctions.

Some of those opposite will bleat about how this is a weakening of the Migration Act. I haven't heard any yet; hopefully I'll be disappointed. Obviously I'm talking about a party who are happy to jump in front of a camera or to post on social media about how they're horrified by the treatment of migrant workers, but when it came to actually doing anything to stop it they sat on their hands and effectively did nothing. Why should we be surprised, when this is the party who had suppression of wages at the core of their economic policies? Do you remember their spokesperson detailing that? At the core of their economic policies was the suppression of wages. So why would they want to stop unscrupulous employers from helping them achieve their stated economic goal? They talked the talk but didn't walk the walk.

The media have reported lots of transgressions, but, sadly, no convictions have been recorded against this part of the Migration Act, or for any serious breaches of a migrant visa. Visa cancellation powers still remain. So the bill carefully extends the new prohibition power to include breaches of the Fair Work Act and the Migration Act. This will ensure that workplace relations law and migration law are working together to protect workers and penalise those employers who do not abide by the law. This includes breaches of compliance notices and enforceable undertakings. Triggers will include remuneration-related noncompliance, but they also extend to other forms of exploitation, recognising the corrosive behaviour of some unscrupulous employers. And it will be a criminal offence where prohibited employers have been found to have employed an additional worker on a temporary visa whilst prohibited.

We need to make sure that the new provisions of prohibiting employers from employing migrant workers are enforced and that actions taken in breaking the law will also lead to a criminal offence. The decision to prohibit will be a decision for the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs or the Minister for Home Affairs, or obviously it can be delegated to a relevant decision-maker. I understand that Minister Giles is consulting and collaborating on how the Fair Work Ombudsman can play a constructive role in this process. This will include considering extenuating circumstances outlined by an employer, such as the impact the prohibition would have on the ongoing viability of the business and how that might impact on existing workers and the broader community.

This is a significant measure. In industries where exploitation is particularly widespread, such as accommodation, food services, cleaning and construction, this is a necessary step to show that we can tackle exploitation where it is most prevalent. This bill will see additional powers given to Australian Border Force and an increase in penalties under the Migration Act. Maximum penalties for work-related breaches will be almost triple, with civil penalties of up to $99,000 for individuals and $495,000 for bodies corporate. In addition, Australian Border Force will gain a new compliance notice and enforceable undertaking powers.

These measures are designed to drive employer compliance under the Migration Act, which, sadly, has been deprioritised over the past decade. To assist the Australian Border Force in doing that, they will receive $50 million over the next four years to improve employer compliance as well as other immigration compliance priorities. We're also looking at measures outside of this bill to tackle the exploitation of people on temporary visas. The Albanese government is engaging with civil society, unions, industry and others on complementing measures to help people speak up about any exploitation that occurs in their workforce. This includes exploring what a whistleblower visa could look like and how the government can implement a firewall between the employment regulator and the Department of Home Affairs. We don't want to see our reputation as a leader in workplace rights and conditions continue to be tarnished by unscrupulous employers or their middle operators—the people who deliberately take advantage of migrant workers. As I pointed out, often they speak the same language as the person they're exploiting.

The Albanese government is making sure that we stop these poor behaviours. We want these people to face serious criminal consequences, and some of the tools they use to coerce and exploit will be removed. I commend this legislation to the House.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on the Migration Amendment (Strengthening Employer Compliance) Bill 2023. If ever there was an example of an issue which demonstrates the importance of the role of the trade union movement, it is this one. I want to pay tribute to a number of trade unions who have been at the forefront of advocacy for this type of legislation and bringing to the public's attention the shocking and egregious exploitation of migrant workers. The SDA, the TWU, the AWU, the AMWU and other unions have been at the forefront of the campaign for better working conditions for migrant workers, urging the previous government to take action in relation to the egregious exploitation of those workers. When I was the shadow minister for immigration and border protection, I visited places of work and held forums in places like my home town of Ipswich, where metal workers were being exploited. I spoke with hospitality workers in Melbourne and farm workers in Bendigo. I want to pay tribute to the member for Bendigo, who has been at the forefront of the campaign on this issue for such a long time.

This legislation is long overdue. Those opposite have had 1,100 days in office yet have done nothing meaningful for migrant workers. Between 7 March 2019 and 10 April 2022, 1,100 days passed, during which the Morrison government did nothing meaningful for migrant workers. Why are those dates important? On 7 March 2019, not only was the Migrant Workers' Taskforce report released but also the government's response was released. The Morrison government responded glibly, without giving the report the respect it deserved, and then failed to implement its recommendations.

On 10 April 2022 happens to be the day the then Prime Minister, the member for Cook, paraded off down to the Governor-General—not to give himself yet another ministry, I might add—to call the federal election. So 1,100 days passed with nothing meaningful done. To demonstrate the abject dithering and delay of the former government, do you know who tabled the government's response to the Migrant Workers' Taskforce report? It was the former member for Higgins, Kelly O'Dwyer. That was a couple of members for Higgins ago. Not only did a whole parliamentary term go by while the Morrison government did nothing meaningful, but two members for Higgins came and went. The irony is that the current Labor member for Higgins came into this place by way of a skilled migration program. As such, I know she recognises the struggles of migrant workers to make their way in Australia. Having arrived in Australia in 1984 with her parents from the UK via Zambia, the current member for Higgins's father qualified for skilled migration to this country as an accountant.

There has been dithering and delay, and that is why this legislation is absolutely important. The member for Moreton aptly gave figures from the Grattan Institute and from other reports, including from Unions NSW, of the shocking exploitation of migrant workers, and this shames this country. It shames Australia internationally when people who come to this country get exploited. There is sexual exploitation, wage theft—workplace conditions that none of us would find acceptable. It shames our country, and it was ignored by the previous government. There was so much in migration that we needed to do.

I want to pay tribute to Professor Allan Fels AO and Dr David Cousins AM. They were the co-chairs of the Migrant Workers' Taskforce and they put it best:

Wage exploitation of temporary migrants offends our national values of fairness. It harms not only the employees involved, but also the businesses which do the right thing.

It means that businesses who do the right thing by their workers get punished and they themselves get exploited. Workers get exploited in their workplace and the businesses who do the right thing get exploited. It puts at risk the workers who work for good bosses and puts good employers at risk as well. Don't forget that the Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold, the TSMIT, which was the basis on which someone had to come to this country and not be paid less than nearly $54,000, had not changed from 2013 onwards. The previous government didn't change it.

We got in—we increased it to $75,000 per year. The reason for that was the previous government had a deliberate design feature—an aspect of their core belief was to drive down wages. So, unintentionally, unwittingly, I think, they were helping the exploitation, weirdly enough. I don't believe they genuinely meant it; I really don't. But by their policies they were inadvertently aiding and abetting what was happening in exploitation, and that is not good enough. I don't believe those opposite have those views generally—I do not believe it. But their failure to take action meant that the exploitation continued, whether it was in Bendigo or Melbourne or Ipswich, and that is what happened. It is simply not good enough.

There were many stakeholders who came to that report for the Migrant Workers Taskforce—the ACTU, Chamber of Commerce and Industry, recruitment and consulting services, the National Roundtable on Human Trafficking and Slavery, the National Farmers Federation and the Australian Industry Group. There is a 140 page report—I've read it. It's a comprehensive report. The previous government did three pages of response, barely acknowledging, tokenistic and patronising in many respects. There was more than two years of painstaking evidence gathering on the exploitation of vulnerable workers. I think Professor Fels and Dr Cousins would have great grounds to feel dismayed and disappointed. It's very clear there was systemic exploitation in our labour market, and it was hiding in plain sight. There were many companies—and I won't name them all—that Australians deal with each and every day who have attracted adverse media attention for their employment arrangements. Those are companies that people might go and get a coffee or a donut at, they might be getting their petrol from them, and they are exploiting workers. These are well-known brands throughout Australia. It's simply not good enough. We need to do everything we can to prevent the exploitation of workers through the entire value chain.

Recently, another case came up before the Federal Court on behalf of four migrant workers in the SDA—the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association—alleging that a franchisee had failed to pay for the all time they worked, failed to pay overtime and correct penalty rates, operated a cashback system, misclassified workers, denied pay entitlement, and breached payslip and recordkeeping requirements. This resulted in workers not being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars. Effectively, in the end, when they did all the calculations, it totalled $1 million in underpayments. They sought penalties against the franchisee and the franchiser for breaching the Fair Work Act. That stuff is all too common.

We had the Retail Supply Chain Alliance, comprising the SDA, the TWU and the AWU, making recommendations to the Senate inquiry, and there will be many inquiries in this place—in this House and elsewhere. It's not just the Fels and Cousins inquiry—the Senate inquiry recommended important changes as well. The Retail Supply Chain Alliance, consisting of the SDA, TWU and AWU, made a very good submission to the Senate inquiry about the unlawful underpayment of employees' remuneration to ward off ongoing exploitation. There were many recommendations about making sure there was a visa system works, and we are taking action here. One of the most important things we did was to slash the visa backlog processing times, improving it with 500 extra workers, having a national labour hire regulatory scheme, better licensing arrangements and more funding. These are some of the things we had taken up.

This bill in particular is very important because it makes it a criminal offence to coerce someone into breaching their visa conditions—a key recommendation from Fels and Cousins. Why was it so difficult for the previous government to do that? There was no excuse. It's not like they had a huge legislative agenda that we were dealing with every single time we came to this place. We had 1,100 days and two members for Higgins, and they still couldn't bring themselves to bring it in. They brought it into the chamber but did not debate or pass it—Labor would have supported it, there's no doubt about that whatsoever—but they wouldn't do it. We need to make sure that we do it, and that's why this legislation is picking up those recommendations. The forms of exploitation the taskforce found were many, and I commend people who might be listening to look at it: unfair dismissal, unpaid training, working conditions that are unsafe, upfront payment deposit, pressure of working beyond the restrictions of a visa. There were many things that were egregious and appalling.

Under this legislation it will be an offence to use a workers' visa status or a future work related visa requirement to coerce or unduly pressure a person into accepting an exploitative work arrangement. This was an election commitment we made to help remove barriers that stopped exploited temporary migrant workers from speaking out and seeking support. We're keeping our word, to deliver outcomes for migrant workers, and through them to improve wages and conditions for all workers. That's why we increased the TSMIT.

This bill includes further important measures such as: where an employer has been convicted for underpaying migrant workers, that employer will be unable to employ migrant workers for a specified period of time, closing a loophole in our migration system. This prohibition is necessary to protect workers from employers who engage in serious, deliberate or repeated noncompliance with their obligations. We're publishing information about this. That's important for transparency so that workers actually know who the good bosses and bad bosses are. Everyone working in this country is entitled to protection from exploitation, including those on temporary visas. We're committed to making sure that wages and conditions improve for everyone, by stopping exploitation by unscrupulous employers. We're committed to the principles of natural justice, or procedural fairness, and decision-making based on factual evidence—a long-established approach to responsible government which seems to have eluded those opposite when it came to this issue for most of the last decade.

The bill provides that an employer can be declared prohibited—that is, the decision-maker must give the employer a written notice, and that notice must state the decision-maker proposes to make a declaration and provide the reasons for doing so. The notice must invite the employer to make a written submission setting out reasons why the decision should be made—procedural fairness; natural justice. The employer will have the opportunity to set out extenuating circumstances, which must be considered in decision-making.

For penalties to act as a deterrent, they must be set at a level that actually deters people from offending. The bill does just that, by increasing the penalties for unscrupulous employers misusing migration programs. This reflects the significant damage that employers who've done the wrong thing can do to public confidence in our migration system and to our national prestige and honour.

A key element of this bill is to repeal the offence currently set out in section 235 of the Migration Act 1958. That section makes it a criminal offence for a visa holder to work in breach of a work related visa condition or for an unlawful noncitizen to work at all. This offence has undermined the ability of workers on temporary visas to have recourse to their rights under certain workplace laws, such as workers compensation laws, and we've removed that barrier to justice.

Migrant workers should have the confidence to speak out and seek help without fear of visa cancellation, and the measures in this bill support those aims. Specifically, the commitment between the Department of Home Affairs and of the Fair Work Ombudsman known as the insurance protocol will be reformed. The protocol encompasses that a worker who holds a temporary visa will not have their visa cancelled for breaching a work-related visa condition if certain criteria are met. Stakeholders have told the government that the protocol is too secretive to instil the necessary trust and confidence. They don't trust it, because it's not transparent and it's not legislated. The bill will allow the government to make regulations to legislate the protections that are currently only available under government policy.

This government will work alongside industry and community groups, unions, civil societies, lawyers, researchers and other experts to examine protections available to workers on temporary visas and encourage them to speak out when they face exploitation at work. This government recognises the important role of the Australian Border Force in compliance and enforcement. For those employers who choose to do the wrong thing, beware: the ABF, and the law, will catch up with you. In the recent budget, this government increased funding for immigration compliance. Those who misbehave, do the wrong thing or exploit workers will be penalised.

The Albanese Labor government will continue to work together with the community and industry groups across the country towards eliminating the exploitation of migrant workers. In turn, this will improve wages and conditions for all workers. That's something that any Labor government can be proud of. It's something that every government in this country should always be proud of. Even a coalition government should learn their lessons from the last nine years. I commend the bill to the House.

Cassandra Fernando (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on a matter of great importance, a piece of legislation that will shape the future of our nation, the Migration Amendment (Strengthening Employer Compliance) Bill 2023. As elected representatives of our communities, we have the responsibility to uphold the values that define Australia: a fair go for all, compassion for those in need and a commitment to social justice. This is exactly what this bill is about. It addresses some key recommendations from Professor Allan Fels's 2019 Migrant Workers' Taskforce report as well as further measures to tackle migrant worker exploitation.

I want to be clear from the outset that this bill is not about raising barriers or slamming shut the doors for opportunities for those seeking a better life in our country. It is about ensuring that our immigration system operates with dignity, fairness and transparency—values that we hold dear as Australians. Migration has long been an essential thread in the tapestry of our nation's history. It is the story of diverse cultures, of dreams realised, of aspirations achieved. Our society has been enriched immeasurably by the contribution of migrants who have chosen to call Australia home. They have brought with them knowledge, skills and traditions that have helped shape our country into what it is today: a vibrant, multicultural and dynamic nation. I know this because my family has been just one of many migrant families to call this land our home and to contribute to this community through work, volunteering and being law-abiding citizens.

I also know that one in six recent migrant workers is paid less than the minimum wage. The negative flow-on effects from this affect all of us. It ultimately drives down wages and conditions for all workers as businesses seek to compete under these conditions. In one of my very first jobs, I experienced attempted wage theft through unpaid super contributions I discovered. Whilst I was lucky enough to migrate to Australia as a child, I do not doubt that this employer sought to take advantage of my youth and background to try and pull the wool over my eyes.

I commend this bill for its commitment to strengthening employer compliance in our immigration system. The establishment of new criminal offences and relevant civil penalties is designed to deter employers from using a worker's visa status as a negotiating tactic to lower their wages and conditions. This bill will increase the maximum penalty under the Migration Act for work related breaches, with civil penalties of up to $99,000 for individuals and $495,000 for a body corporate. Further to this, the Australian Border Force will gain new compliance and enforceable undertaking powers; $50 million will be invested in the ABF over the next four years to assist their actions to improve employer compliance alongside several other immigration compliance priorities. In fact, the ABF just oversaw a month of action in July expertly targeting those employers who were suspected of doing the wrong thing.

For the first time in a long time, the shift in emphasis on ensuring employers are aware of their obligation is deliberate. It is Albanese Labor government policy. None of this vital work would have been possible without the increase in funding and the emphasis we are placing on tackling worker exploitation. Whether it is migrant or Australian worker exploitation, we strongly believe it should be eradicated across the board. It has no place in our great country. Going forward, the Albanese government is engaging in extensive discussion with civil society, industry and unions around methods to help inform and design further safeguards in the visa system.

We must make it as safe as possible for migrant workers to speak up when they or their colleagues have been exploited in the workplace. This government knows the anxiety and stress many migrant workers go through when faced with either working in terrible conditions or alerting authorities and subsequently risking losing their visa. That's why we've taken the steps in this bill to remove section 235 of the Migration Act, which currently makes it a criminal offence to breach a work related visa condition. Currently, this section of the act deters workers from speaking up about poor pay and conditions, because they then fear the larger problem of criminal sanctions. Perversely, some employers count on this deterrent so that they can exploit migrant workers. The removal of this section simply means that migrant workers who are being exploited through no fault of their own will be empowered to alert authorities to this so that it can be rectified.

Let me be clear: this does not weaken the act in any way. There have been no convictions recorded against this part of the Migration Act, and the government's extensive visa cancellation powers remain in place, as they should. The very fact that there have been no convictions recorded against this section of the act shows that its only current purpose is to deter migrant workers from raising their voices. Its removal will not weaken our migration framework, only make it more efficient.

The heart of this legislation lies in protecting the rights of migrant workers who journey to our shores seeking a fair go and a chance to build a better future. Let us not forget that these are individuals with families, hopes and dreams, just like any other Australian, yet regrettably we have witnessed instances of exploitation, wage theft and unfair working conditions faced by some migrant workers. This cannot be tolerated in a society that prides itself on compassion and the idea of a fair go for all. This bill sends a powerful message: Australia stands firmly against any form of exploitation and is committed to protecting the vulnerable. This legislation proposes empowering our immigration authorities to be proactive in holding employers accountable for their actions. Stricter penalties will act as a strong deterrent against those who would seek to take advantage of vulnerable workers while providing incentives for employers to embrace fair and ethical practices.

Critics may argue that these measures could discourage employers from hiring migrant workers, but this would only be the case if those employers were seeking to manipulate the conditions of migrant workers. For employers already doing the right thing, this bill will do nothing but help level the playing field so all employers do the right thing, unless they want to risk real penalties. Australian employers have always risen to the challenges presented to them, and they will continue to do so while recognising that their success lies in treating their workforce with respect and dignity.

Furthermore, let us not forget the importance of putting Australian workers first. The government's commitment to our citizens does not negate the recognition of the contribution of migrant workers to our society. By prioritising Australian workers for job opportunities we ensure that our people have access to meaningful employment and are not displaced in their homeland. Some may seek to misread our intentions, but the truth is we believe in maintaining a balanced approach to migration, one that safeguards the interests of both Australian workers and those who come to our shores seeking a better life.

Australia has always been a land of opportunity, and we must ensure that these opportunities are accessible to all, regardless of their background. To achieve this we must streamline the visa application process and facilitate cooperation between the Department of Home Affairs and the Fair Work Ombudsman. A collaborative approach between these agencies will ensure that the path to compliance is clear, straightforward and accessible to both workers and employers.

We must also address the question of exploitation that occurs within sectors that rely heavily on temporary migrant labour in agriculture, hospitality and other industries. Migrant workers often find themselves vulnerable to dishonest employers. This bill seeks to provide additional protections for those workers and ensures that their contributions are recognised, valued and rewarded fairly.

It is essential to remember that this legislation is not just about words on paper. It is about values we hold dear—the values that have shaped our great nation, like fairness, compassion and respect. This bill is a tangible manifestation of these values—a testament to our commitment to building a better, fairer and more prosperous Australia for all.

I call upon all members of this place to support this bill, to embrace the ideals that define us as a nation, to stand united against exploitation and unfairness and to show the world that Australia remains a beacon of hope and opportunity. Let us move forward, building a path that reflects the very essence of our identity as Australians—a diverse, compassionate and fair society that celebrates the richness that migration brings to our shores.

Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to rise to speak in favour of the Migration Amendment (Strengthening Employer Compliance) Bill 2023. I would like to acknowledge the fantastic contribution to this debate from my good friend just now, the member for Holt. Our parliament is so much richer for having you here. This is an important additional step that the Albanese Labor government is taking toward ensuring that all workers that work in Australia can be free from being exploited by unscrupulous employers—and they do exist out there.

Protecting the vulnerable and protecting workers is deeply embedded in the DNA of members of the Australian Labor Party. This is true of those within the parliamentary Labor Party and of the broader membership. The most eye-opening statistic amongst many worthy contenders is that up to one in six migrants are paid less than the minimum wage. This does not exist in isolation. Migrant workers being paid less than the minimum wage affects all workers. For, when employers think they've found a way to pay any kind of worker less than what is set at the base level and when left unchecked, it brings down the minimum standards for all of us, in not just wages but conditions too—unless mechanisms exist in law to deter and punish this kind of behaviour.

In fact, recent migrants are 40 per cent more likely to be underpaid than long-term residents who have the same level of skills and experience and who are doing the same job. Temporary visa holders comprise four per cent of our total workforce in Australia, but, within the 2021-22 year, migrant workers made up 26 per cent of all litigation initiated for breaching the Fair Work Act.

On the eve of the Australian Labor Party's National Conference in a few short weeks, I look back to our national platform that was endorsed back in 2021, where the section that is quite germane to this bill reads as follows:

Temporary overseas workers are vulnerable to exploitation and this exploitation affects those workers and all Australian workers by undermining their wages and conditions. Labor will ensure that migrant workers including temporary visa workers have access to adequate information on their workplace rights and how to join their union.

Another pertinent section reads:

Too often, temporary migrants end up exploited or underpaid with some employers abusing the system for cheap and disposable labour. Labor will always ensure that measures are implemented to protect all migrants from exploitation, including:

requiring temporary migrants to be paid in accordance with Australian awards or enterprise agreements and to have their wages paid into an Australian bank account;

ensuring temporary migrants are protected by Australian workplace law and are not exploited through sham contracting or unethical labour hire practices give them; and

offering them 'whistle-blower' status if they are providing evidence of exploitation.

This will be my first national conference as a member of this place and a member of the federal parliamentary Labor Party. There is a feeling of pride in making a contribution on legislation like this or any of the multitude of measures this government has introduced in this 47th Parliament that moves the dial closer to parity between employees and employers. In this instance, the pride I feel boils down to being part of supporting legislation in this place that accomplishes the parts of our platform that I mentioned earlier. And why might that be? Because, as I said earlier, it is in Labor's DNA to stand up for workers.

Further to this point, if one were to use private members' business as a litmus test for this theory and to seek the sheer extent of contrast from those opposite, I saw two motions last week. One was moved by the member for Holt on this exact issue, combating the exploitation of migrant workers in Australia. For the most part, it was an extremely gracious debate where we broke bread and agreed that a problem existed. Many anecdotes of exploitative practices that were aired were utterly reprehensible and observing of sanction, and we look forward to real action to combat this. Then we had the member for Sturt laying blame at the feet of the union movement. He couldn't imagine a world where any small-business owner might be tempted to engage a temporary migrant employee contrary to our industrial laws. The member for Sturt even went so far as to say the union movement's ultimate goal is to constrict migration. How does that stack up when key members of the opposition's brain trust, namely the Leader of the Opposition himself and the member for Hinkler, have criticised the government for letting migration levels rise to a slightly lower level than what they, when in government, modelled would occur prior to closing the borders at the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Their criticism can only mean they are advocating for the pandemic-era border closures—but, of course, Labor and unions are against migrant workers. Frankly, from now on, I am hoping those opposite do an appropriate amount of warm-up stretches before engaging in debate on immigration or industrial relations, because the flexibility they must possess to somehow occupy both sides of this argument and blame Labor is quite impressive. If I were a high school debating adjudicator, I would be awarding some pretty high marks for that effort, but it's just a game to some of them. On our side of the chamber, it is anything but. As those opposite point out until blue in the face, we are full of ex-union officials, myself being one of them. We have seen what exploitative workplace practices can look like in the real world and their effects on workers, not only on their hip pocket but also their self-esteem and mental health.

It doesn't matter where you were born or what conditions someone has to work in in Australia; if you are working here, you deserve the full complement of workplace rights as everyone else. Allowing the derogation of workers' rights, conditions, entitlements, and minimum standards of our domestic workforce will hurt our migrant workforce, and the opposite is just as true, too. But it is our migrant workforce that faces additional vulnerability and susceptibility to falling prey to unscrupulous practices. This bill particularly aims to tackle the exploitation of migrant workers, which is something that has been exposed for its prevalence through a number of reports.

A report of particular significance that has led to this bill is the one that the Migrant Workers' Taskforce handed down. Additionally, a slightly more contemporary report I will encourage members to read when they can was a report published by the Grattan Institute earlier this year called Short-changed: How to stop the exploitation of migrant workers in Australia. The Migrant Workers' Taskforce was commissioned to report to government largely due to the shocking revelations that were reported on in the media concerning 7-Eleven franchises—a company where migrant workers, namely international students, dominated its main workforce. Further investigations confirmed many of the reports by the media that workers were systematically underpaid, with franchisees going so far as to falsify records to hide these underpayments. It was quite evident that, mainly due to the prevalence of this transpiring amongst 7-Eleven franchises, the exploitation of migrant workers was baked into their business model in some of the most egregious ways.

The Migrant Workers' Taskforce report was handed down to the government in early 2019. To their credit, the government at the time gave a response to the report mere weeks afterwards. This was something the Morrison government was known to have form for. However, the time line after that response was handed down is more on brand for the former government. The recommendations of the Migrant Workers' Taskforce, in addition to the bill introduced by the previous government that lapsed in the 46th parliament, culminated in this government introducing its own bill—the Migration Amendment (Strengthening Employer Compliance) Bill 2023. Without delving into every tiny detail contained within the bill, I will attempt to paint the measures contained within by way of broad strokes.

Part 1 of this bill introduces new employer sanctions against the Migration Act. This part implements recommendation 19 of the Migrant Workers' Taskforce report, which proposes that the government develops legislation so that a person who knowingly and unduly influences, pressures or coerces a temporary migrant worker to breach a condition of their visa is guilty of an offence. These circumstances will include circumstances where a person knowingly or recklessly coerces or exerts undue influence on a lawful noncitizen to work in breach of their work-related visa conditions, on an unlawful noncitizen to work to avoid an adverse effect on their continued presence in Australia, and on a lawful noncitizen to work to avoid an adverse effect on their immigration status or to avoid being unable to acquire the required information or documents regarding their work for visa purposes.

The maximum penalty associated with each of the offences listed above shall be two years imprisonment or 360 penalty units. The civil penalty associated with these offences is set at 240 penalty units, which, however, are distinct from the offences, given that the state of mind of a person is not required to be proven in order to form all of the required elements of the civil offences, meaning that if an employer coerces an international student to work more than the hours in their visa permits then the employer will be committing one of the offences above to a standard dependent on the circumstances involved.

These provisions satisfy a number of aims: to deter others, to punish those in breach and to protect migrant workers from coercive practices by employers that would find them in a breach of their visa conditions with respect to the manner that they can work and for the amount of time they can work during a given period of time. These exploitative practices against migrant workers need to be dealt with strongly. The amendments to the Migration Act in part 1 have been a very long time coming, much like the others proposed by the Migrant Workers' Taskforce.

Part 2 of the bill concerns the conditions in which an employer may be prohibited from employing temporary migrant workers. Through this part, the minister or their delegate can prohibit the hiring of additional workers on a temporary visa where an employer has underpaid or otherwise breached their obligation as an employer. The circumstances in which they can occur are also set out in this part, through how a person can be subject to a migrant worker sanction. Once a person has satisfied the criteria to be subject to a migrant worker sanction, the minister or delegate may declare that person to be a prohibited employer for a five-year period each time a person is subject to a migrant worker sanction.

This part further outlines what happens once someone has been declared a prohibited employer. Namely, the penalty for allowing a noncitizen to begin work, whether for reward or otherwise, is two years imprisonment or 360 penalty units, or 240 penalty units as a civil penalty. This part also provides an affirmative duty to name and shame prohibited employers on the department's webpage. Part 2 also provides for the procedures for the 12-month period after a person's term as a prohibited employer concludes, with a number of interim conditions imposed, such as the requirement to report on any new temporary migrants that are employed during this time.

Part 3 of the bill increases the pecuniary penalties that currently exist for work-related civil penalty breaches in the Migration Act and for breaches under existing employee sponsorship obligations in the Migration Act and the Migration Regulations 1994.

Part 4 of the bill establishes a framework whereby the minister or their delegate can enter into enforceable undertakings with an employer, labour hire company or other party that has committed a work-related offence or other such provisions under the Migration Act, which would include the new civil penalties and offences provisions within part 1 of the bill. Part 5 of the bill establishes a framework enabling an authorised officer to issue a compliance notice as an alternative to initiating court proceedings for contraventions of work related provisions of the Migration Act. Part 6 of the bill comprises a number of ancillary amendments.

I commend this bill to the House, and I would urge all members to support it to put to rest amendments to the Migration Act that have been sorely warranted and called for by several experts and a number of parliamentary committees. By virtue of the lapsed bill in the previous parliament, the Migration Amendment (Protecting Migrant Workers) Bill 2021, you could even extend that through to the opposition, given they were in government when introducing similar legislation into the 46th parliament.

This is one big step forward to eliminating exploitative employment practices against our migrant workforce. It's a workforce that Australian employers cannot take for granted, and employers can't abuse their fundamental rights and protections under Australian industrial law with wanton abandon without risking the full weight of that law by trying to do so. It has been flagged that this is by far not the complete cure, but these are measures that have been asked for now for a significant amount of time that will go a long way to addressing the problem and to minimising its prevalence in pockets of Australia whilst also maximising the likelihood of workers feeling comfortable enough to report breaches by prospective or former employers to the relevant authorities. I thank the House.

Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to start at the outset with two clear, simple but powerful propositions. Firstly, Australia has done really well over decades as a permanent settler society. Secondly, as a corollary, we don't want our country to become a guest worker society where there's this temporary underclass that is exploited. I think most Australians would agree with me. Even if those opposite don't agree with those simple propositions, don't care about migrant workers being exploited or won't back action to do something about it, let's be very clear on the self-interest that every Australian has in stamping out the exploitation of migrant workers. Exploitation and wage theft don't just hurt migrant workers. They impact every Australian, as they can drive down wages and worsen conditions for all Australian workers. If unscrupulous employers can keep exploiting cheap migrant labour, there's no incentive to pay Australian workers properly or to raise wages.

This was an old-fashioned speech at the outset, but let's put a couple of facts on the table. The government, informed by evidence, has public policy informed by evidence—I know, particularly when you look at the climate change debates of recent years, that it's a shocking thing for the opposition. Fact: one in six recent migrants to Australia are paid less than the minimum wage—one in six! Recent migrants are 40 per cent more likely to be underpaid than long-term residents with the same skills and the same experience doing the same job. Temporary visa holders make up four per cent of the workforce yet make up 26 per cent of all litigation initiated for breaching the Fair Work Act, and there's every indication that that's a significant underrepresentation of the real situation.

Personally, I think those statistics alone are shocking and morally wrong. Everyone in our country should be treated fairly, whatever their visa status is, whether they're here for four weeks, four years or 40 years and whether they're citizens, permanent residents or temporary visa holders. But that's manifestly not the case now, and it's been going on for years. The previous government had numerous inquiries over their decade in office, but they failed to do anything meaningful. I'll quote Professor Allan Fels, Chair of the 2019 Migrant Workers' Taskforce, who said that this exploitation:

… has been severe problem for at least 10 years, there have been huge numbers of underpaid and exploited migrant workers and nothing was done about it. Now it is extremely timely …

He said that in June this year.

These are not abstract issues, though. They're real people. I see the member for Hotham here; we share a community in Greater Dandenong. In our communities, the majority of people are born overseas. They're not 'other people'. We have tens of thousands of people in each of our electorates in south-east Melbourne who are not citizens but here on temporary visas. They're our neighbours. They're the other parents at the school gate. They're the people who make your coffee. They're the people who clean your workplaces. They're the people who repair your cars. They're the people who pack the food in the factories for the supermarkets.

Enough is enough. We don't need more inquiries and more reports. We need action by changing the law, finally, and changing the incentives. That's what the government is doing. This bill is not every step of the plan, but it's an important part of the plan. For the first time in a long time the government is already out there raising awareness amongst employers about their obligations, actually getting out and visiting businesses. People may ask if will we step out all exploitation, and of course the answer is no. Some people will always do the wrong thing in any human society or any big service system in the economy. But we can and we must make real changes. The Liberals and the Greens political party should not play politics; they should actually vote for this bill.

One important shift is to move the focus of compliance from the worker to the employer. I can't emphasise that enough. For too long, workers who were exploited for being in breach of a visa condition were then punished through the criminal system rather than the employers who were breaking the law. This practical fact has led to the clause in the bill that repeals the part of the Migration Act that, currently, makes it a criminal penalty for workers to breach their visa conditions and so, effectively, to criminalise speaking up.

All of this goes to what kind of country we want to be. There's undoubtedly a crisis of exploitation in Australian workplaces. People are too terrified to speak out when they're mistreated because of the high risk that they'll be criminally charged. Exploitation is not isolated. It has been proven, year after year, in report after report, to be systemic in the labour market. Unscrupulous employers, migration agents and facilitators have misused the visa rules and the visa system to exploit workers.

I've talked about these issues over many years. It is hard for people—for most citizens, frankly—who were born in Australia, to truly understand the vulnerability, and the vulnerability to exploitation, that is caused by a temporary visa status and the power that an employer has over a person if they're on a temporary visa. That threat is a key driver of exploitation: do what I tell you, or I'll dob you in and get you deported. That's the basic power imbalance and basic threat. It's a key driver of sexual slavery, underpayments, wage theft, mistreatment conditions, empty promises of permanent residency and sham contracting—that threat of calling Australian Border Force and having them deported. There are stories where people have had their passports locked away and been sexually enslaved. These are not abstract. It's actually happening right now. As we debate this legislation, there'll be people right across the country hidden away in factories, on farms and in houses in the suburbs and the regions suffering this kind of exploitation. We have to reverse the onus.

This bill implements key recommendations from Professor Allan Fels's Migrant Workers Taskforce report in 2019. It recognises, as I said at the outset, that when people vulnerable to exploitation are mistreated we all suffer. It also inherently recognises the positive contribution made by so many workers and that Australia cannot take for granted that we're a destination of choice for prospective migrants. We're in the global competition for talent. This growing problem we have as a country, where it's reported around the world by international students and others that if you come to Australia you'll get exploited, is something we can't sustain. Morally, we can't sustain it in terms of the impact on Australians and their wages and prospects, and we can't sustain it in terms of our competitive position globally. So it's critically important for the government of Australia to demonstrate our strong commitment to addressing worker exploitation, because it's the right thing to do and it's squarely in our national interest.

The bill reflects our principle, if you like, that approaches to employment and migration have to work side-by-side, collaboratively, if we're actually going to address exploitation. The Fair Work Act and the Migration Act have to work together to protect workers, regardless of their visa status. ACTU president Michele O'Neil was spot on when she said:

Migrant worker exploitation is a national shame—we welcome the Albanese Government taking action to protect migrant workers from exploitation and to implement key recommendations of the Migrant Worker Taskforce—after years of inaction by the Coalition Government.

She's right: it is a national shame. And the former government is to blame—as I said, not for every incidence of exploitation; of course you can't stamp everything out: there'll be people who do the wrong thing. But they are to blame for having these reports and, worse than doing nothing, going through a political charade and pretending they were going to do something but instead sitting by and overseeing this crisis of exploitation in workplaces across the country. There was a national debate in the wake of that shocking 7-Eleven scandal, which showed it was a scam. It wasn't just missed time sheets. It was a systemic exploitation and rorting of the labour and migration systems to exploit vulnerable people, undercutting the wages of Australians, hurting our international reputation and just doing the wrong thing. They could have fixed this.

So, they got the Migrant Workers' Taskforce report in 2019—and fair enough. As the previous speaker said, to their credit, they responded. They didn't agree with everything, but they put out a government response and said, 'We're going to do this stuff.' They didn't do anything. It was a scam; it was a sham. Then they introduced legislation to the parliament, two years later. In 2021 they introduced a bill. But, as was so common with the former government, they didn't even bring the bill forward for debate. They introduced the bill, they got the press release, they got the speech up on social media—job done! They didn't actually care about stamping out migrant worker exploitation. It was all about sending another dodgy message before the election, to make people think they were doing something. They didn't even bring the bill on for debate, let alone allow a vote, let alone allow it to go to the Senate, let alone allow it to become law.

It'll be interesting to see whether the opposition can actually bring themselves to vote for action on this, given their wasted decade of division, dysfunction, decay and denial, which exacerbated this problem, as they sat by and watched it grow. As we saw, the Liberals preferred temporary visas to permanent visas, which actually made it easier for unscrupulous employers to exploit workers. Not only did they sit by and do nothing, not only did they pretend to do something—a con trick—but they actually made it easier for employers to exploit workers. They also created a backlog of nearly one million visa applications—well over a million if you count the citizenship backlog, too. They neglected the basic administrative tasks by looking the other way. Instead of employing some public servants, as the government's done—I think over 500 new public servants in the Department of Home Affairs, working through that shocking backlog—they blew 92 million bucks trying to privatise the visa system. I think the reason they abandoned it wasn't because they figured out it wasn't a great idea but because they couldn't find anyone to give it to, as a tenderer, who wasn't a mate of Scott Morrison, because good old Scott Briggs wasn't there. They had to abandon it because of probity. It's been in the paper. That $92 million included I think a $42 million PowerPoint for BCG. I mean, it's good work if you can get it, isn't it?

So, the bill's new criminal offences of using a person's migration status to exploit them in the workplace are welcome. That's recommendation 19 from the task force. They could have done that years ago. There's a new tool to prohibit employers who are engaged in exploitative practices from being able to hire workers on temporary visas for a period of time. That's recommendation 20 from the task force. They could have done that years ago. But the bill will go further. Higher penalties are proposed for people who do the wrong thing. There has to be a strong deterrent. As the government has made clear, we've got to reverse that onus, we've got to change the incentive and we've got to remove the disincentive for people to speak up about exploitation. It's a ridiculous situation that we've put up with for too many years, where an exploited worker makes a report and then they're threatened or criminally prosecuted, and the employer gets off scot-free.

The government will promote workers' ability to speak up and report exploitation by putting in place appropriate protections from visa cancellation, and that's just one part of the government's plan to protect workers. In the budget this year there was $50 million over four years to Australian Border Force. Shocking revelations—I do not envy the Minister for Home Affairs the job that you have to do now to clean up this mess, after it was revealed that there was almost no enforcement on shore, almost no integrity measures. I see the former assistant minister sitting over there. We've got the Leader of the Opposition. He set up the shemozzle—set it up to fail, as the leaked report said. He was a tough cop on the beat, tough on the borders. It turns out that over 100,000 people arrived on their watch, with fake protection claims that they let run up, with no onshore enforcement and no integrity measures.

An opposition member interj ecting—

No integrity measures. They know it's true. It's a shocking record.

The other problem about letting the million visas back up, as any of the migration professionals will tell you, is that you create a honey pot. It is better to work migration scams then because the department, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal—the whole system—is so clogged and so overwhelmed with years of backlogs that it's a good return on investment to run a scam. They can come here, make fake claims, hang around for years working and sending money home, and eventually, if they happen to get deported, if one of the department's couple of staff find them, then they've made a lot of money. It's a good return on investment.

As I said, the ABF with those new resources oversaw a month of action in July targeting those employers who were suspected of doing the wrong thing. It wouldn't have been possible without the additional funding provided by the government and the priority that this government is placing on tackling the exploitation of workers.

In summary, I commend the bill to the House. I do genuinely hope that the opposition can bring themselves to support the bill—it's not usually in their DNA; it certainly runs against a decade of their record—and to ensure its quick passage through the Senate so that workers who are being exploited right now across our country can start to be confident of being able to speak up without fear of criminal prosecution and start to expose those employers who are systematically rorting and abusing the system, who are not just hurting the exploited migrant workers but driving down the wages of Australian workers. (Time expired)

Debate adjourned.

Ordered that the resumption of the debate be made an order of the day for a later hour.