James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Cyber Security) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution on the Migration Amendment (Strengthening Employer Compliance) Bill 2023, which amends the Migration Act 1958 to strengthen employer compliance measures in relation to protecting temporary migrant workers from exploitation, including by implementing recommendations 19 and 20 of the 2019 report of the Migrant Workers Taskforce.

Work on this bill first began under the former coalition government, which established the Migrant Workers Taskforce in 2016 to identify proposals for improvements in law, law enforcement and investigation, and other practical measures to identify and rectify cases of migrant worker exploitation. The task force was chaired by Professor Allan Fels and included members from a wide variety of government agencies, including the Department of Home Affairs and the Australian Border Force. The report produced by the task force was presented to the former government in February 2019. On 7 March 2019 the report was publicly released along with the government's response, which noted that we support taking further measures to protect vulnerable workers and ensure law-abiding Australian employers are not undercut by unscrupulous competitors. The report made 22 recommendations, and the former government accepted all 22 of those recommendations in principle.

The former government then developed legislation to implement recommendations 19 and 20 of the report of the Migrant Workers Taskforce via the Migration Amendment (Protecting Migrant Workers) Bill 2021, which was introduced on 24 November 2021 and referred to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee. The Senate committee report was tabled on 18 March 2022 and lapsed prior to the dissolution of the parliament at the 2022 election. When the previous bill was examined by the committee, the Labor members of that committee, led by former senator Kim Carr, added 10 pages of comments and concerns in the committee report, and I note none of those have been picked up in the bill before the Senate.

The current bill was referred to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee for its consideration. The committee held a hearing in Brisbane on 21 August last year and heard from a range of stakeholders, and the committee process highlighted a range of issues with the bill. The coalition's representative on the committee, Senator Scarr, provided additional comments in the report to the Senate, and the opposition has worked with the government to develop a range of amendments in line with Senator Scarr's recommendations. I commend Senator Scarr on his work on this bill. The opposition understands that the department has committed to develop extensive educational and information material to ensure that employers understand their obligations under this legislation, and we welcome this work. We need to ensure that, while we seek to protect migrant workers' rights, we do not inadvertently create a legal minefield for small businesses.

The amendments before the Senate, which will be moved by the government, will help address these transitional issues. I understand there will be 25 amendments, including a number of minor technical amendments, and each of these recommendations made by Senator Scarr in the Senate committee have now been addressed. I understand there will be a commencement date of 1 July 2024. There is a technical amendment that creates a new definition in the Migration Act, as opposed to relying on the ordinary meaning of the words, which helps define the new powers in connection to work and helps clarify the intent and scope of the new offences in the bill. Another technical amendment will clarify that the work captured by this legislation is work done by people holding a temporary visa in Australia. Another amendment lists the objective of prohibited employer measures, to better clarify the government's intent in the bill. This articulates important policy objectives such as to prevent vulnerable workers from being exploited.

Other amendments reflect recommendations of the opposition for this bill to rely less on delegated legislation, including listing the triggers for the prohibition notices in the Migration Act as opposed to an instrument. The only exception to this is the ability to delegate for criminal penalties in the Fair Work Act. Further amendments to this bill also address views expressed by the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills in its Scrutiny digest No. 10 of 2023 and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights in Report 9 of 2023. As a result, the coalition will be supporting both the bill and the amendments moved by the government.