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

I am facing a situation here where there are senators behind their leader seeking to ask different questions from the leader’s, and it does make it a bit difficult to focus on what it is the leader wants to ask. I will take this, having indicated to the senator that if he gives me the particular source document he is commenting on we can have a conversation about it at some point when I have the opportunity to give him a sensible answer.

I did hear in the question, ‘Isn’t this an excuse to bring in low-income workers?’ The average salary on this visa is $60,000. That is not regarded by anyone as a low salary. That is the average salary for this visa. The biggest user of the visa, I am still advised—I will check if this is right—is the New South Wales Department of Health, and the biggest category are health workers all around Australia. The last I heard was that Labor governments were not in the process of bringing in people from overseas to undercut the wages of their own workers.