Jana Stewart (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today I am happy to support the passage of the Migration Amendment (Strengthening Employer Compliance) Bill through the Senate. These are much-needed, long-overdue reforms affecting the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in our community, in our society. We know that migrant worker exploitation has been widespread in Australia. According to a report by the Grattan Institute released last year, between five and 16 per cent of employed recently arrived migrants—that's between 27,000 and 82,000 workers—are paid below the national minimum wage. In addition, between 1.5 and eight per cent of recent migrants are underpaid by at least $3 an hour. That's between 6,500 and 42,000 people underpaid. Migrants are twice as likely to be underpaid as long-term residents, and they struggle to find work or are employed well below their education levels. This is despite the fact that migrants have, on average, a higher level of education than people born in Australia.

The Migrant Workers Centre in Victoria has some useful case studies that bring some of these statistics to life. Felisia's story is a good example. Felisia came to Australia from South-East Asia as a 29-year-old on a student visa in 2009. She had a bachelor's degree in business management and continued her studies in Australia with a diploma in business management. Despite having experience working in her field, Felisia had a tough time finding work after her studies. She eventually found a job as a marketing manager, but she was underpaid from the beginning. She stuck it out because she was relieved to finally have a job and it meant she had a pathway to a skilled sponsorship visa. But, in addition to the wage theft, Felisia's boss had also begun to harass her and bully her at work. He made her stay late without pay and began asking her to accompany him to events outside of work hours. She experienced outbursts of anger when she refused his requests, and his behaviour had escalated to sexual harassment. After Felisia reported his behaviour, she lost her job. Her fears around her uncertain visa circumstances meant she did not pursue an unfair dismissal claim. Additionally, she had to restart her permanent visa eligibility process despite the harassment that she had endured.

Then there's Ravi's story. Ravi was a 26-year-old who came to Australia in 2019 with his wife, who was studying. He got a job as a truck driver with an on-demand delivery company that operated in a gig economy model. His employer asked him to apply for an ABN instead of a tax file number, which is usually required for independent contractors that run their own business. By asking Ravi to attain an ABN instead of a tax file number, his employer sought to take advantage of him to avoid paying award wages and entitlements.

Both Felisia's and Ravi's difficulties highlight how Australia's visa system has historically pushed migrant workers to accept exploitative conditions in the hopes of securing their life in Australia. Thankfully, Ravi's and Felisia's stories end relatively happily. In Ravi's case, he was successfully able to reclaim over $9,000 in wages after fighting against his employer's incorrect classification of him as an independent contractor. Felisia eventually found another job in her field and learnt about unions and her rights at work. But this isn't the case for thousands of other exploited migrant workers in Australia.

Exploitation like this can occur for a range of reasons. In 2019, a report by the Migrant Workers Taskforce highlighted some factors which may contribute to migrant workers' vulnerability to exploitation. They include: limited English language skills, lack of knowledge of workplace laws and standards, a willingness to accept below-award wages, the remoteness of some working locations, business models that rely heavily on labour hire companies, and franchise models that make it difficult for franchisees to run at a profit without underpaying wages.

The Migration Amendment (Strengthening Employer Compliance) Bill 2023 introduces several mechanisms to address some of these vulnerabilities and the crisis of migrant exploitation in Australia more broadly. This bill makes it a criminal offence for people to coerce someone into breaching their visa conditions. It bars businesses from further hiring people on temporary visas where they have exploited migrants via the introduction of prohibition notices. It increases penalties and compliance tools to deter exploitation. It repeals section 235, which makes it an offence for a noncitizen to contravene conditions of their visa and was seen to discourage the reporting of exploitative behaviour. In short, dodgy employers will no longer be able to assume that international students and other migrants will suffer in silence if they are underpaid or abused.

Professor Allan Fels AO, co-chair of the government's Migrant Workers Taskforce, says that it was obvious 10 years ago that the actions that the government is taking now were required. He notes that the problem of migrant exploitation is so widespread that strong, comprehensive remedies are required but that they would not have been required on this scale had the problem been tackled at the outset.

It's an absolute shame that the previous government failed to act against migrant worker exploitation when they had a decade to do something about it. By stepping through some of their actions over the last decade, it's clear that the coalition have been more than willing to capitalise on migrant labour without wanting to spend a cent on safeguarding their rights. A large number of people come to Australia with the promise of well-paid jobs working on farms. People who held temporary protection visas and safe haven enterprise visas worked, paid taxes, started businesses and built lives in our communities, often in rural and regional areas. However, without permanent visas, they couldn't get a loan to buy a house, build their business or pursue further education. The coalition government blocked the ambition of thousands and thousands of migrant workers, and it's an absolute shame on the coalition. The previous government's inaction and wilful ignorance also ensured that migrant workers were highly vulnerable to extreme exploitation and wage theft. They were at the beck and call of the agents and labour hire companies that arranged to bring them to Australia. Shame.

Secondly, those opposite refused to increase the minimum salary for skilled temporary entrants for a decade. The temporary skilled migration income threshold was frozen at $53,900 from 2013 on, after successive coalition governments chose to do nothing about it and chose not to raise it. Shame. The Albanese government, on the other hand, increased the minimum income threshold to $70,000 from July last year. This adjustment ensures that the income threshold is in line with the current job market.

Thirdly, the coalition government allowed overseas students to work unlimited hours. A representative of the International Education Association of Australia, Phil Honeywood, said that the coalition's 2021 decision—which was made to plug workforce shortages—involved no consultation whatsoever with the international education sector. There was no consultation whatsoever before they made this important policy decision. When he contacted the former minister for education, the message he received was that corporate Australia needed unskilled labour because there were no more people on working holiday visas, and the easiest way to fund the labour force was with full-time students.

Prior to COVID border restrictions, international students were able to work 20 hours a week while completing their studies—in line with laws in other jurisdictions like Canada and the UK. This meant that international students could focus on a quality education in one of the best education destinations in the world. The impact of this change, according to the Council of International Students Australia, was that students who came to Australia for legitimate study reasons were under severe mental health pressure to capitalise on the unrestricted working hours. This also meant that students were less likely to achieve their main goal, which was to complete their course and complete it well.

Last year the Albanese government reduced student work hours to 48 hours per fortnight that classes are taking place. This change allows students to focus on obtaining a quality Australian education and qualification while also gaining valuable work experience and contributing to Australia's workforce needs. International higher education graduates with eligible qualifications were also granted an extra two years of post-study work rights from 1 July 2023. This increases the availability of a well trained and highly capable workforce and helps plug the skills shortage that we have in our nation right now.

Finally, the coalition government refused to progress key recommendations of its own Migrant Workers Taskforce. The Albanese government isn't looking the other way on this issue. We are tackling complex, wicked problems head-on and doing it correctly. We're doing it by driving systemic changes to our migration system, which will ensure it works in the interests of Australian workers and Australian businesses. We are doing the work required to ensure that no-one who comes to this country is exploited or abused.