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

My question is to Senator Vanstone, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, who is not in the chamber at the moment. So I will put my question and hope that she is listening.

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, I think it reasonable for senators to wait for Senator Vanstone to arrive. Certainly the Leader of the Government in the Senate has not suggested that there are any changes to ministerial arrangements for today’s question time.

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

Does the minister recall the case of T&R Pastoral and the investigation into reports that it had misused the 457 visa scheme? Specifically, does the minister recall her advice to the Senate on 28 March 2006 that she was determined to ensure that examples of 457 visa abuses were dealt with and dealt with promptly? Does the minister further recall telling the Senate on 14 June that T&R was still being looked at by her department? Can the minister now explain why, five months after she claimed that visa abuse by T&R would be dealt with and dealt with promptly, we are still waiting to be advised on the progress of the investigation and its findings? Isn’t this proof of the minister’s failure to properly manage this program, and can she now finally update the Senate on the status of the allegations against T&R Pastoral?

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

I might take the opportunity to apologise for being a few seconds late to question time—to you, Mr President, to the Senate as a whole and in particular to my opposition colleagues, since they are the ones who will be asking me questions today. Yes, Senator McEwen, I do remember the T&R Pastoral issue. It is a current issue. The investigation into that has finished. I think it was the week before we came back here, when it was very nearly finished. I had seen at least a part of the draft of the report and was unhappy with one assertion, and I wanted that assertion further checked. It was an assertion, incidentally, in favour of T&R, but I did not think that the few sentences there gave an adequate answer. In other words, you could have read this and still have been misbehaving. The statement, ‘It’s okay because of X, Y and Z’ that was made could have been true, but in the particular area that I was looking at—which was housing, the provision of housing and charging for housing—it could still have been true that they were not doing the right thing. It is possible to have two true statements; say only one and therefore mislead as to the other. So I asked for further work to be done on that.

Further work has been done on that; I have been verbally advised that the statement holds and the negatives that could have been there are not there. I will have to check and see whether the final report has come. It will be no surprise to indicate that there is an area where the people engaged on 457s are not doing the sort of work that they should be doing, and I am in the process of working out the best way to deal with that, both to ensure further that there are no problems in the future and also to maintain the production at T&R so Australian jobs are not lost. These are not competing interests; I think it is in everybody’s interest. But there are balancing interests to take into account, and I hope to have that matter resolved very soon.

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

I thank the minister for her answer, that the report was almost completed. However, it is nearly five months since the minister said that this was such a grave issue that it had to be dealt with urgently. As a supplementary question, can the minister advise why it has taken her so long to advise the Senate on the outcome of this investigation, and can the minister indicate what penalties or sanctions, if any, will be applied to T&R Pastoral? What action has the minister taken to ensure that T&R does not continue its illegal use of 457 visas in the future?

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

The parts of an investigation that can be done by the department itself can usually be done, relatively speaking, quite quickly. But in terms of a skill assessment it needs to be done by MINTRAC or another authorised body. We have been using MINTRAC; I think that took some time, but I can have a look at the components in the flow process as to what has taken the time here. I can say that we are not approving further 457 visa holders for T&R at this point. As to righting the wrongs, I think that goes to the point that I have made to you, Senator. That is that my whole interest as the immigration minister is in building Australia and building Australian jobs, and if the process of compliance costs Australian jobs then I am going to think very carefully about the manner in which that compliance is implemented. But one thing we can do and are doing is not further approving 457 visas until we resolve this matter in the interests of the Australian employees at T&R. (Time expired)