Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, apologies. There is a greater issue at play here with aeroplane people claiming asylum, and it is an issue of exploitation. Once these individuals make a claim for protection and their original visa expires, they are placed on a bridging visa, often with work rights. There are currently over 200,000 people on bridging visas in Australia. The number of people on bridging visas in Australia reached the record high of 230,000 in March this year under this Liberal government. Bridging visas have blown out quarter on quarter, year on year since Peter Dutton became the responsible minister in 2014. That is six straight years of significant increases. The number of people on bridging visas in Australia increased by 29,000. Since the Liberals formed government in September 2013 the number of people on bridging visas in Australia has increased by 93,000. In fact, this increase alone is more than double the number of boat arrivals under the previous Labor government. So the government, who are constantly telling Australia that they are strong on our borders and strong on the protection of our national security, are, in fact, not telling us the full picture.

The government attempts to claim the majority of people on bridging visas are part of the legacy case load of boat arrivals. The home affairs minister has been quoted as saying:

… people who arrived under the Labor Party by boat are, a large number of the times, we don't know who they are because of the issues in terms of identity. They don't have travel documents and there are still many thousands of those people who are on bridging visas in the community as a direct consequence of the 50,000 people who arrived under Labor. We've got that number down over the years but it's been a long process and continues to be and is a direct consequence of Labor's appalling legacy.

However, according to the July 2019 illegal maritime arrivals legacy case load report, there are only 8,000 people with applications on hand or at review.

Visa processing times are both the reason for and a symptom of the current problem. In addition to all of this, the government has allowed these people to become vulnerable and face widespread exploitation in Australia. It's contributing to a growing labour crisis in the agricultural and horticulture sector, as Senator Keneally has said, and is significantly impacting my home state of South Australia. Virginia in South Australia is a regional town close to Adelaide, with most growers requiring labour all year round to work on a variety of vegetable crops, such as carrots, potatoes and tomatoes, although there are, of course, some inflated labour needs at harvest time.

A study conducted by Howe et al at the University of Adelaide titled Towards a durable future: tackling labour challenges in the Australian horticulture industry showed some staggering evidence of the government's policy failure in this area:

Despite being an eligible postcode for the WHM visa extension, growers we interviewed relied heavily on a local population of recently arrived permanent migrants from developing countries.

The absence of an intermediary role by accommodation providers can be attributed to the permanent residency status of the workforce with no need for temporary accommodation.

The case study in Virginia also revealed much less reliance on intermediaries than in the other four case studies. In this location, the … ABC FourCorners television investigation exposing non-compliant labour hire use in Virginia in 2015 has had a unique impact on growers' decision-making regarding labour hire use.

There was general consensus among large and medium-sized growers in Virginia that using labour hire posed significant risks to their businesses. As one grower reported, "After that [the Four Corners program] wemoved to direct employment and hired a human resources manager".

There was a high level of distrust of labour hire among growers in Virginia. The response of some growers was to bring all hiring decisions in-house. One grower reported, "we got stung really badly by a dodgy labourhire company — that was ripping off the workersand paying them the permanent rate but treatingthem like a casual; so when we audited payslipswe thought they were getting paid right".

Another grower told us, "I think labour hire is too dangerous and often attract the wrong kind of people. We don't want to work with contractors much because it's our responsibility to check everybody. Labour hire should be audited or closed up as an industry, otherwise it's too risky".

The exploitation of workers, regardless of their status in our country, under this government's watch is utterly and absolutely unacceptable. It is a perfect example of the growing list of policy failures from this Liberal government. If this government can't even be trusted to hold onto its own speaking notes, how can it be trusted to manage illegal plane arrivals entering Australia? It is absolutely clear that, on the issues of security and border protection, this chaotic and shambolic government cannot be trusted, and it seems pretty clear to me that this is precisely the reason why they have failed to answer Labor's questions.