Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the explanation.

I appreciate that the minister will come back to the Senate with a detailed explanation for the lack of answers. It is an extraordinary situation. On 10 July the first assistant secretary wrote to the committee but on 14 August the answers are still not delivered. I understand there are 73 unanswered questions from the last round of estimates. I know that 54 or so were from me. Most of them relate to 457 visas. It strikes me that there is a pattern of maladministration within the department on this issue which requires a much more detailed explanation than just a simple proposition as to why these answers have not been presented. It is quite apparent that the government has a great deal of answering to do on this matter.

There are fundamental problems with this visa class. Last week we witnessed a tirade of abuse against Senator Lundy in question time when it was declared that a problem of employer rorts in Canberra restaurants was negligible. The minister has identified in various correspondence with the states and others that the hospitality industry is a key problem industry with regard to 457 visas. The government has now acknowledged publicly, through The 7.30 Report and elsewhere, that there are a whole range of problems which have been identified through the estimates process. But, despite the minister’s acknowledgement that these problems exist, no formal answers have been given to this chamber.

I take the view that they are important questions. We have properly used the estimates process to establish what is going on within the public administration of this department and we have yet to get proper explanations back to this chamber, despite the fact that the minister is on the public record having acknowledged the profound problems with this program. Despite that, we have had abuse of Labor senators in this chamber. I trust that when the minister does come back—and I trust that she will come back tomorrow with an explanation—she will be able to clear up that inconsistency.