Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Hansard source

My question is directed to Senator Vanstone, the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs. Can the minister confirm that under the current 457 visa program employers are under no obligation to offer positions to Australians before employing a temporary foreign worker? Doesn’t this mean that any employer can now look overseas for a temporary worker for any of the hundreds of classifications listed as ‘skilled’ under the regulations, even when there are unemployed Australians with the necessary skills available? Isn’t the 457 visa program no longer about filling skills shortages and all about opening up another source of labour? Did the minister effectively admit this in June when she conceded that the reason why we needed the increasing number of temporary foreign workers was to keep the wages of Australians down?