Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I start by saying that this debate has been going on for seven years. It is not primarily a debate about long-stay business visas under section 457; the true debate is about this government’s inability to address the skills shortage in Australia over the last seven years, the inability of this government to manage the economy, the inability of this government to ensure that there would not be capacity constraints in the Australian economy and the inability of this government—its lack of vision, I think—to ensure that we would not be in the position that we face today.

The position is that the government has turned to the immigration department to use the 457 visa program, which was intended—upon its introduction by the Labor Party, under Paul Keating—to be a sensible measure to address short-term skills shortages in industries, and has turned it into a program with which you can try to fix, supplement or otherwise support the failure of the government to train Australians. It was a program to ensure that skilled Australians were available for the skills needed in Australia. If you look at the three-card monte, it has got to a point where a card says ‘457 long-stay business visa’, but when you turn the card over it says ‘guest worker’. For all intents and purposes, that is what the government has turned this program into. It should not be that, but this is what the government has allowed it to become. That is why I have used those words. Unfortunately, the government has ensured that a sensible measure has been used wrongly, badly and inappropriately. It leads to only one path and it is the wrong place to put it.

If you draw all those threads together and look at the June economic outlook by BIS Shrapnel that started the process, they said:

While the difference between 3 and 4 per cent growth may sound minor, accumulated over a whole decade it amounts to a 10 per cent difference in the size of the economy. This is roughly the size of the output of Australia’s agriculture, mining and electricity sectors combined.

BIS Shrapnel warn:

A chronic shortage of skilled labour is set to act as a permanent constraint on Australia’s growth—

and—

Australia has entered a new era of constrained growth. Businesses are already grappling with the problems of tight capacity, infrastructure bottlenecks and an acute shortage of skilled labour.

The government’s answer is not to address the skills shortage but to turn to a migration solution. But look at the statistics—this is where the rot set in under Mr Howard. In 1996 and 1997, the government reduced the VET grants, abolished real growth funding and reduced training expenditure by $240 million. In 1998, the growth through efficiencies policy effectively froze and brought to a standstill the Commonwealth VET funds, resulting in a loss of growth funding of around $377 million over the 1998 to 2000 period. When you shut the door so firmly and so hard, the flow-on effect is skills shortages across Australia. The government’s answer is a de facto guest worker program. Shame on you for that.

The Howard government’s main response to the skills crisis has been to massively increase skilled migration but, having found that it is not enough to fill the gap, you have sought other labour groups, including unskilled and semi-skilled workers, to try to fill it because it is a skills shortage across all of Australia in all of those sectors. You look at how many people you have turned away from TAFE—300,000; they are the statistics. You heard in question time today of the areas that you are seeking to use the 457 visa in. It highlights, perhaps with a full stop, the 43 waiters, 77 domestic housekeepers, 251 personal assistants and 1,594 elementary clerical workers who came here under that visa last year. Add to that the 107 carpenters, 31 bricklayers, 25 plumbers and 13 plasterers who were issued with 457 visas—out of a total of 50,000 people who entered Australia on this visa last year.

This problem is not brewing; it started under the Howard government. You do not want to recognise that it started under the Howard government. It did not only start in the migration area; it started in training, skills and infrastructure. All of the economic indicators point to a failure by this government to ensure that when we got to this point in time there would be enough skilled, trained Australians to undertake work and that the 457 visa would be used for the purpose for which it was intended—that is, to support short-term temporary skills shortages across Australia in those technical and professional areas and other areas of need where you would expect them.

You couple that with a compliance strategy that you could only call lax—a compliance strategy which is lax for one reason and one reason only: you do not want to expose how and why you are using the 457 visa system. As a government you do not want to highlight the fact that the 457 visa system is being rorted. We heard from the minister today, so it is clearly a case of her only now turning her attention to meatworks—and T&R might be the first. The report in the minister’s possession—will she make it public? I am not sure. Will she ensure that the findings and recommendations are acted on? I am not sure. The minister did not give us an advantage today by indicating that that was her intent. So it is a case that this government, in ignoring—(Time expired)