Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you for your question. I say at the outset that all foreign airline crew must hold a visa when in Australia. I note there is an exception to that where they are New Zealand citizens, but they still are required to hold a special purpose visa. Foreign crews on wholly domestic flights are required to hold a valid temporary work visa. That is a 457 visa negotiated through a labour agreement. For a labour agreement to be approved the employer should demonstrate a genuine need that cannot be met from the Australian labour market and make specific commitments to training, wages and conditions. That ensures job opportunities for locals and helps protect foreign workers from exploitation.

In respect of the second part of your question—foreign crews on international services, including domestic legs of that service—they are able to hold a special purpose visa that specifically allows for international air crew travel. Broadly, a domestic leg of an international flight must have the same flight number as the international flight and must include immigration and customs clearance and processes in all domestic ports. Such 457 visas are monitored. The program has a strong monitoring requirement for all approved visas. In addition, employers who are approved as sponsors will be monitored to ensure that they are complying with all their sponsorship obligations. These obliga­tions, of course, govern their use of the program in relation to pay and conditions for overseas workers, recordkeeping and cooperation with authorities. When sponsors fail to satisfy any of those requirements— (Time expired)