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

I thank the senator for his question. Labour agreements have been used by this government and previous governments for some time to deal with either an industry wide agreement, as might be the case with, for example, the meat industry—and there is an agreement under negotiation there that has not yet been resolved—or an agreement for a particular company that may want advantages in terms of its understanding of its capacity to bring people into Australia.

What comes to mind here is—and, if you like, perhaps it was a precursor to the labour market agreements—the regional headquarters agreement made by the previous Labor government, signed by, I think, Senator Cook, with Amex to bring its regional headquarters to New South Wales. A competition—it was pretty much a bidding war—was held between, I think, two Labor states, but one might have been a Liberal state, to attract the Amex regional headquarters. In the end, New South Wales won the Amex regional headquarters.

That occasioned Amex to shut some call centres in a number of places around Asia and to seek the opportunity to bring in hundreds—I do not have the details with me, but it was either 460 or 640 or something like that; let us say it was 400, but I will get you the details just in case I am remembering another brief—of people from those other call centres to set up in Australia. The only condition on that agreement was that they pay according to Australian law. In fact, it is subsequent versions of that agreement that have required some sort of salary uplift and some focus on what skills are coming in. It is that agreement that Amex now seek to renew.

It is true that Amex wrote to this government and suggested that the agreement be rolled over, under which, as I am advised, the same salaries would be paid as those paid to Australians in the job, and they would be roughly akin to the salaries paid to other Australians in some other call centres. I am certainly advised that a look at websites dealing with call centre operator jobs confirms that. Nonetheless, those salaries are below the minimum salary level. I have asked the New South Wales government for their view of that, and they are not happy with that.

It seems somewhat extraordinary to me since it was a New South Wales Labor government that attracted Amex to New South Wales, but nonetheless my department is negotiating with Amex to see what can be done in that context. The reason is that the minimum salary level is judged on a base salary on, I think, a 38-hour week, not taking into account other supplementary payments. It may be that Amex will choose to rejig the structure of its salaries so that there is more of a base salary to enable it to come up to the minimum salary level.

In any event, I have the capacity to do that. I have not done it yet. When we have had labour agreements we have included the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations. The initial one relating to the Amex call centre—and there would be others—was not in fact with the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, which did not exist then. It was with the department of industry under Senator Cook. It was part of the regional headquarters program, and there was a supplementary agreement to that to attract Amex here. I have not been involved in negotiations in relation to any others. (Time expired)