Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

I beg your pardon, Mr President. I am sorry to inadvertently demote you! It is nice to see you sitting there listening to the debate. The Democrats support the Migration Amendment (Employer Sanctions) Bill 2006. As has been said, it is very unfortunate that it is the bill of 2006 and not the bill of 1999 or 2000.

You really have to look at the contrast in the levels of urgency that this government has given to different migration issues. When there are 43 people seeking protection from persecution, arriving in Australia seeking asylum, the government acts almost instantly to announce more draconian legislation to restrict those people’s rights, to further pervert our Migration Act, to further remove basic rights and justice and to give the government the power to take people completely outside the rule of law; and the government attempts to push it all through in a matter of days or weeks. Yet, when we have comprehensive evidence of tens of thousands of people working illegally in Australia year after year, the government takes seven years to act.

This legislation was tabled, we had the Senate committee inquiry and the report was tabled—I think, nearly four months ago—but it has been left to sit there for that whole period of time. Suddenly it became more urgent to try and push through legislation to persecute asylum seekers than it was to address the reality of thousands of people working illegally in Australia. That, more than anything, says all you need to say about this government’s priorities in the area of migration law.

Any time there is a chance to scapegoat an asylum seeker or use boat arrivals to tap into community fears and concerns, this government will act in a flash. There are major announcements and attempts to whip up community concern and moral panic, and there is a sense of massive urgency, that it is absolutely crucial, that this legislation is pushed through without delay for border protection reasons, even though asylum seekers are the group of people—amongst the literally millions of people who arrive in Australia each year—who are most thoroughly assessed and checked and whose background and details are most comprehensively examined. There is no border protection issue when it comes to asylum seekers. They do not threaten our borders.

People who do threaten our borders and aspects of the Australian economy and society are people who live here illegally for prolonged periods of time and work here illegally, under the radar. I am not saying that they are a threat in the way that the government likes to paint any of these people as threats, in the sense of being potential terrorists or anything like that, but they are people in the community, under the radar or in the black market, and we are not aware of where they are or who they are. That does not apply, I would have to say—and I have to emphasise this—to asylum seekers, whether they are in the community or elsewhere. There are, of course, many asylum seekers in the community. We know who all those people are, where they are and what they are doing. Some of them have work rights and some of them do not. That is a separate issue that I will get to in a moment.

The simple fact is that tens of thousands of people are working and living illegally in Australia for prolonged periods of time. Quite clearly, that is a much greater risk to any meaningful sense of the term ‘border protection’. It is certainly a much greater risk when we have people operating and living in the community and we do not keep track of them and we do not know who they are or what they are doing. Yet a very simple and essential measure to try and put more focus on people who deliberately employ illegal migrants has just languished for seven years. That is a clear example of how this government is not serious about genuine border protection or the integrity of our migration system. It is serious about looking for political opportunities to vilify and stereotype people for short-term political gain, regardless of the personal suffering or the social divisions that it causes, the perversion of our Migration Act and, I might say, the culture of the implementation and administration of our migration law.

Let us not forget that the period of complete inaction, more than seven years, was precisely the period that has been recognised and acknowledged by comprehensive inquiry reports—by the Ombudsman, amongst others—as the period when the culture of our migration department was perverted, distorted and clearly made very sick. This government cannot step away from the fact that it has to bear primary responsibility for that destructive and negative culture in the migration department. This is a clear example of why that culture was so perverted: all of the energy and focus was honed in on asylum seekers and people who might be perceived to be here for those sorts of reasons. When it came to people generally working illegally in the community, then simple legislative amendments—important legislative amendments anyway—were just not undertaken. That message cannot be made strongly enough with regard to this legislation.

The legislation itself is welcome. The committee inquiry into the legislation was constructive—once again a reminder of the value of Senate committee inquiries when they are given the opportunity to actually do their job. It provided information and guidance as to ways to make measures like this legislation more effective and make the goals that are part of this legislation more effective. Now there certainly can be no excuse for employers in Australia to deliberately and knowingly employ people who do not have work rights. I acknowledge that sometimes it is hard to determine exactly who has work rights and who does not, and that is another argument for broad-ranging and sweeping reform of our Migration Act. It is incredibly complex. There are 150 different visa subclasses, each of which has different work rights attached. Some of them have no work rights and some have only limited work rights for certain periods of time. For some student visas it is 20 hours a week, for some people on working holiday visas it is three or six months in one particular job with the same employer, and there are rollover provisions and renewal provisions. There are a range of different components and criteria that determine who has work rights and who does not. That makes life complex for employers, and I appreciate that.

We need to get as much information as possible out into the community and make it as easy as possible for employers to be confident that the person they are employing has work rights. The one potential negative of this legislation that I think we need to guard against—an unintended consequence, if you like—is employers becoming fearful of employing people because they may not have work rights and therefore not employing them at all. I use the obvious example, again, of refugees who are here on temporary protection visas or asylum seekers who are in the community on bridging visas. Some of them have work rights; some of them do not. I think all of them should have work rights after a period of time, but that is a separate matter. As the law stands, some of them do and some of them do not.

It is not surprising to hear reports—and I hear them regularly—of refugees who have been given only temporary protection visas, three-year or five-year visas, who have difficulty getting employment because an employer is not sure if they have the right to work. When it comes to refugees and people on protection visas, there is a subconscious undercurrent that there is something suss about them because these are the people that the government kept saying were bad in some way. It heightens that general sense of unease and uncertainty about whether these people are okay to employ.

That is a direct consequence of a calculated campaign of vilification by the government towards asylum seekers over quite a number of years now. All we can do is try and undo that slowly and make people recognise—as is now finally happening—that many of these refugees are amongst the hardest working people in the community and they are so desperate to get on with rebuilding their lives that they will take on jobs that other people will not do, and they will work hard at them. Of course, as has been mentioned by a number of people in this place, me included, many of those refugees on temporary protection visas have actually kept businesses operating, most notably abattoirs in some regional communities as well as other agricultural businesses that rely very heavily on that labour.

In bringing in this legislation which has stronger sanctions for employers who knowingly employ people without work rights, it is important that it does not create unnecessary apprehension on the part of employers who employ migrants or refugees, particularly if they are on various forms of temporary visas. We need to ensure that that does not happen, and the Senate committee inquiry report addresses some of those issues.

I would like to also emphasise that I think it is important—and I am again repeating things that I have said in this place before—that the government look at ways to do more with settlement assistance for migrants, not just brand new arrivals and people on permanent visas but also people who are here on long-term temporary residency visas. People can now get four-year temporary residency visas, temporary work visas, which can be renewed. Many people who are here for long periods of time without being a migrant, in the traditional sense of the word—that is, a person on a permanent residency visa—fall outside the traditional scope of settlement assistance because they are not seen as settlers. Without suggesting that there have to be myriad programs foisted upon these people, I think we need to put more effort into identifying them and providing that general support. Sometimes those small but important connections can mean the difference between someone remaining isolated or being exploited and someone integrating more effectively into the community.

We have heard some talk more widely from members of the government in recent days about the importance of people integrating when they migrate to Australia—a principle that nobody disagrees with. However, singling that out in a critical way only with regard to Muslims is a practice that I think is abhorrent. But the principle of encouraging people to be able to more effectively integrate is a key part of a practical and effective policy of multiculturalism. The fact is we are now bringing in around half a million people each year on residency visas—whether it is permanent residency or long-term residency; the majority with work rights—and with that larger number of people I think we need to look at investing extra amounts of money and resources and re-examine the way we do things to ensure those people are more able to effectively integrate.

Of course, a key mechanism for people integrating effectively into Australia is through employment. We do not want to put in place unnecessary barriers to employment, even if they are psychological barriers, either for the migrant or refugee or for the employer. I call on the government to monitor the operation of these provisions, not just in a legal sense but also in the sense of a broader monitoring of any impact they may have on the behaviour of employers and migrant and refugee employees. Hopefully, these provisions will have a positive impact.

As I said before, there really can be no excuse now for deliberately employing people without work rights. Whilst there are still labour shortages—and we know that—the fact is that a significant number of people are coming into this country each year specifically for the purpose of obtaining work. That number is quite enormous, and I would suggest it is as high as it has ever been in our country’s history once you include the people on temporary residency visas of various types. In that circumstance, there really should be no excuse for employers resorting to employing people who do not have work rights.

I do want to take the opportunity to make the point, though, that there are people in the community who should have work rights but do not. I particularly mention those on bridging visas, and bridging visa E is the one most widely referred to. Many asylum seekers have to wait in the community, sometimes for years, for their claims to be assessed or to go through the process, in many cases without any work entitlements at all—no entitlements to Medicare or to any form of income support. They have to live totally off charity for literally years in some cases. This can include families with children. That is simply unacceptable.

I recognise there are balances there. I recognise that there is a problem in that potentially people can get work rights and then string out an application for a visa for a prolonged period of time and just keep working in the meantime. That is a problem and I acknowledge that. But if you balance that problem against the problem of a family with children, particularly ones who clearly have grounds worth considering with regard to fleeing persecution, to leave them without any support whatsoever for years is a far greater social and ethical ill than someone who might be stringing out a visa application so that they can work for a bit longer, particularly in the context of the current labour market here in Australia. If we had extremely high unemployment at the moment it might be more understandable to be more hardline there, although I still doubt I would support it. But, when we do not have high unemployment, I think it is even less excusable to put people in compulsory penury, particularly children, for years at a time.

It is important in the employer arrangement, particularly when it comes to migrants, to ensure that there is not exploitation. We need to do better at coordinating and recognising the skills of people that come here and seek to come here. I do not want to go off too widely into other debates, although I am sure that other contributors will, but there is also a balance here. We have had other debates in this place already about the 457 visa, the business skills visas and the long-stay temporary skilled visas. As I have said previously, I support aspects of the concerns about those visas with regard to people being open to exploitation if the scheme is not administered properly, and I have concerns about inadequate recognition of skills and the sloppy administration of the program, allowing people to pour in who do not have the requisite skills or adequate English language levels for the tasks that they are going to do. Those are all valid concerns and it is appropriate to draw attention to these problems and to continue to pressure the government to act on them.

But that should not be used as an excuse to attack or gut the whole scheme or to rerun the old Hansonite antimigrant, protectionist argument, and that is what is being done in some quarters. I would not say it is being done by Senator Ludwig, for I think he puts his contribution in a reasonably measured way. But certainly in past debates—and Senator Carr is one who springs to mind—it is quite clear that some arguments are just a Hansonite, xenophobic dog whistle, trying to repeat the same old myths that migrants are taking Aussie workers’ jobs and we should be scrapping the skilled visa programs or winding them right back. Firstly, it is a myth that is inappropriate and unhelpful and divisive to propagate; and, secondly, it is quite economically destructive, given the current reality.

Of course, this government has failed to properly resource and invest in education and training; it has terribly underinvested in those areas. But that should not be used to punish and penalise and attack migrants who simply seek to come here to fill jobs that are available and contribute to our community. That is an important part of the whole purpose of this legislation and the whole broader issue. That is why I support this legislation. Migrant workers working within an effective system where people’s rights are protected and where people do have work rights contribute to the building of the Australian society. That is the migrant story of Australia and this is part of building it. (Time expired)