Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

In respect of the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, in the last 10 months it has been an interesting organisation to observe. It has started to turn the battleship around in the creek, if I can describe it that way. However, that was all thrown out with the arrival of 43 West Papuans on our doorstep; the department of immigration took a completely different tack. I do not blame the department of immigration. They came up with a new slogan, ‘People: our business’, and I think that they genuinely tried to turn the battleship around in the creek, but they had an anchor attached to it. Senator Vanstone was firmly holding onto that anchor and she has ensured that the department could not turn around and start to address the difficulties and problems that beset it.

If you go back and look at that whole period, you will see that, even back in 1999, Immigration produced a guide on work rights and came up with a review of illegal workers in Australia. It was intended that there would be measures to reduce the number of illegal workers in Australia and provide more employment opportunities for Australians and legal residents with a right to work. However, a lot of water passed under the bridge and many of the recommendations never saw the light of day. The department itself decided not to pursue them. But then, seven years later, we do find one on the Notice Paper. I will not go to the content of it. I will have an opportunity, hopefully this week or the next time parliament sits, to discuss it. It is about employer sanctions, to ensure that employers are doing the right thing in respect of employing people under visas. People should have visas that permit work rather than visas that permit holidays.

In fact, what we also talked about today was the 457 visa—the long stay visa. What we found, from the report by Mr Kinnaird, was that it was also about churning in that area. Much of the debate went to these long-stay business visas, the 457 visas, being utilised to bring in foreign workers from overseas. But what we found amongst the figures was that there was also significant employment in Australia of people whose visas had expired or who had different types of visas. There is utilisation of the 457 visa for employment purposes. In other words, they are pulling people out of a pool already within Australia. They have repeat goes at it. If you look at that, you would say, ‘Surely there is a better way.’

What this government has come up with is a system where the use of temporary 457 visas is not to fix shortages of skills in certain areas. They are now being churned—that is, these people are now gaining a visa with one employer and then being passed on, when that visa expires, to another. There might even be a third employer. It is not appropriate and it should not be done. But this government’s compliance mechanisms are weak and ineffectual.

Their compliance mechanisms seem to include having DIMA turning up and saying, in front of the employees—the people who are on the visas—‘Is everything okay?’ The alternative under the Work Choices legislation is a bit dim for those employees because, if they do not say yes, I suspect they will find that very shortly after DIMA leaves they will not have a job. If they do not have a job then they do not have a 457 visa. As a consequence, you would expect to get an answer that everything is fine. That compliance mechanism might get a tick from DIMA. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.