Peter Georgiou (WA, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The Government within a month, reports to the Senate, on the number of jobs which would have been available to Australians but were taken by individuals on international student visas.

Why is it that almost a third of our youth are either unemployed or underemployed? I'm talking about kids between the ages of 15 and 24. And that stat isn't anything new. These figures have been around since the global financial crisis. I do note that our labour participation rate this year, which is around 62 per cent, is the highest it's been for around five years, and I hope it continues to grow, but I am surprised to learn that last year over 343,000 international student visas were granted. The department of immigration and citizenship does know this figure. How many of these students work, where do they work and do they get paid in cash or report it to the ATO? Apparently, around 100,000 young people on student visas work up to 20 hours a week. That's great. What happens to the other 200,000 people? We don't know. How is this possible? Meanwhile, we've got 273,000 local kids between the ages of 15 and 24 who are struggling, not working, and could be contributing to our local economy. I think it's important that we discover just how many jobs out there could have been taken up by young Australian people but instead were taken up by individuals on international student visas.