Amanda Vanstone (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Senator, the advice I have is the same as the advice I gave you at the time. The advice I gave you at the time was that we did not believe that one could look at the regulation alone—that anyone who was engaging a 457 worker had to look at the determination or regulation order, or whatever the delegated legislative instrument is, but also look at the agreement that was made with the department and Australian industrial relations law. All three needed to be read together. On that basis, the view was that the proposition you put was not acceptable. I further said to you that, just in case some people did have the idea that you put forward, we would make it crystal clear and therefore we would change the delegated legislative instrument, which we did. The point I am making to you is that the proposition the government puts is that, when you read all three together as they were, you still had to pay the appropriate salary, but, because you raised the doubt and others presumably agreed with you that the legislative instrument was not crystal clear on that, we would make that crystal clear. So the legal advice has not changed. As to the degree to which that has been canvassed currently, I will get some advice on that. (Time expired)