Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, Senator Vanstone. Can the minister confirm that employers have to make a specific case before they can engage a worker on a temporary skilled migration visa? Can the minister explain whether there are any safeguards in place to ensure that these workers are actually employed in the specific field set out in their visa application? Isn’t it actually the case that there are no restrictions on what employers can force temporary skilled workers to do or even what industry they are employed in once they are in Australia? Doesn’t this totally undermine the case for these skilled workers being needed by particular employers in the first place?

Amanda Vanstone (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr President. I am just looking—I did get it out quite deliberately. I thank—what is her name?

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

McEwen, I think it is. Ask Mr Beazley—he will know.

Amanda Vanstone (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator McEwen for her question. Senator Campbell reminds me that I am not the only one who cannot remember who Senator McEwen is!

Honourable Senators:

Honourable senators interjecting—

Amanda Vanstone (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He is having a bad day. I take it back, Mr President. That was not nice.

Honourable Senators:

Honourable senators interjecting—

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senators will come to order. The noise level is too high. A question has been asked of the minister. I would ask you to come to order.

Amanda Vanstone (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am conscious of the fact that a word once written can never be unread and a word once spoken can never be unsaid, but I do apologise to Senator McEwen. It was unfair of me to have a go.

Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I don’t need your apology.

Amanda Vanstone (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know you do not need my apology, because I could see the goodwill with which you took my comment. I in fact saw you laughing. So you have that great Australian trait of being able to laugh at yourself—which is welcomed.

The question that was asked was: are there any mechanisms to ensure that people are working in the areas for which they make application for a skilled temporary migrant visa? I think the fair answer to that is yes. Obviously, the people making the application have to convince the department that it is appropriate. We reject a lot of applications because, for example, the training commitment from a company is not there. In fact, one of your own colleagues—who is not here today—made a request that we place a 457 worker with a company, and we were not able to do so because the company did not have an adequate training record. There are plenty of occasions where we in fact reject applications on that basis. Unfortunately, your colleague did not put it in writing—otherwise, you can be sure, Senator, that you would be reading the correspondence in the paper.

There is obviously the primary requirement that you tell us what you are going to do, and you are expected—just as you are in any other aspect of dealings with government—to live up to the commitments you make by way of application.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Are you warning that any correspondence we send to you will be leaked by you? Is that what you are saying?

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Evans, it is not your question. Come to order!

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, on a point of order—

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no point of order. Resume your seat.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have not made the point of order.

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Resume your seat unless you have a point of order.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a point of order.

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What is your point of order?

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My point of order—and I apologise, Mr President, as I should have raised it with you directly—is that Senator Vanstone suggested that she would leak any written request made to her by an opposition member. I object to the suggestion that she would abuse her ministerial position in such a way, and I want her to confirm whether that was what she was really saying.

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If Senator Vanstone did say that, I did not hear it for the noise on my left.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We heard it all the way over here.

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I did ask you to come to order. I ask Senator Vanstone to resume her answering of the question.

Amanda Vanstone (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In addition to the commitments that are made in the application, there is a process of review over the first year where companies are required to report back and there is also an arrangement for site visits. As is the case with any compliance matter, such as, for example, the number of containers coming into the country, Customs do not inspect every container. Why? Because they work on the basis of targeting their compliance work, as in fact we do. In addition to that, there is the consequence of someone not living up to their commitments. That consequence may well be losing the right to sponsor further workers. Since this visa is very much appreciated in industry, you will find that people are not keen to lose the right to sponsor.

Do I expect that the New South Wales Department of Health will put in an application for a psychiatrist and ask the person to sweep the floors? No, I do not. Do you know why? Because, normally, industry put in an application for the workers they need, and they want those people to do those jobs. Why? So they can deliver better services and make Australian companies stronger and Australian jobs more secure. Australian jobs have never been more secure than they are now—thanks to good management of the economy and thanks to us not engineering a recession that we thought Australia had to have.

Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Can the minister confirm that her department’s investigation into foreign workers at T&R meatworks at Murray Bridge in South Australia found that the majority of these workers were found to be working in unskilled areas in breach of their visa conditions? Can the minister table her department’s report on this case? Can the minister explain whether T&R meatworks has been subject to any penalties and, if so, what the penalties are?

Amanda Vanstone (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are some further matters that are being looked at in relation to that particular meatworks, but on any occasion where we find that someone is not doing the right thing and I am subsequently asked about it, I will make clear what the answer is. I do not think that should be hidden from anybody. We do not want this visa to be misused; we want the visa to continue.

But, when members opposite get up and raise allegations, I would welcome them also saying, ‘Gee, that was incorrect’—for example, in relation to the allegation that Indonesians were being paid $20 to $40 a day to dig ditches in my state of South Australia, when in fact $60 a day was the bonus payment and they were on salaries of over $50,000 a year. And we ask ourselves why the Advertiser digitised out the face of one of the people in the media. I believe the Labor Party knows the answer to that, because they know who was in the photograph. They know who gave the Advertiser the incorrect information, and they do not want anyone else to know who it was. (Time expired)