John Hogg (Queensland, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The President has received a letter from Senator Ludwig proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion, namely:

The Minister for Immigration’s mismanagement of the 457 visa program, noting:

(a)

The recent dramatic rise in the numbers of guest workers under the program over the last 1-2 years;

(b)

The Minister’s statement that the increasing numbers of guest workers are required to keep wages low;

(c)

The Howard Government’s failure to provide Australians with the training needed to meet the current skills crisis;

(d)

The use of guest workers in unskilled jobs and in skilled occupations where there are qualified Australians available; and

(e)

The Minister’s failure to ensure the rights of guest workers are protected.

I call upon those senators who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today’s debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

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

I start by saying that this debate has been going on for seven years. It is not primarily a debate about long-stay business visas under section 457; the true debate is about this government’s inability to address the skills shortage in Australia over the last seven years, the inability of this government to manage the economy, the inability of this government to ensure that there would not be capacity constraints in the Australian economy and the inability of this government—its lack of vision, I think—to ensure that we would not be in the position that we face today.

The position is that the government has turned to the immigration department to use the 457 visa program, which was intended—upon its introduction by the Labor Party, under Paul Keating—to be a sensible measure to address short-term skills shortages in industries, and has turned it into a program with which you can try to fix, supplement or otherwise support the failure of the government to train Australians. It was a program to ensure that skilled Australians were available for the skills needed in Australia. If you look at the three-card monte, it has got to a point where a card says ‘457 long-stay business visa’, but when you turn the card over it says ‘guest worker’. For all intents and purposes, that is what the government has turned this program into. It should not be that, but this is what the government has allowed it to become. That is why I have used those words. Unfortunately, the government has ensured that a sensible measure has been used wrongly, badly and inappropriately. It leads to only one path and it is the wrong place to put it.

If you draw all those threads together and look at the June economic outlook by BIS Shrapnel that started the process, they said:

While the difference between 3 and 4 per cent growth may sound minor, accumulated over a whole decade it amounts to a 10 per cent difference in the size of the economy. This is roughly the size of the output of Australia’s agriculture, mining and electricity sectors combined.

BIS Shrapnel warn:

A chronic shortage of skilled labour is set to act as a permanent constraint on Australia’s growth—

and—

Australia has entered a new era of constrained growth. Businesses are already grappling with the problems of tight capacity, infrastructure bottlenecks and an acute shortage of skilled labour.

The government’s answer is not to address the skills shortage but to turn to a migration solution. But look at the statistics—this is where the rot set in under Mr Howard. In 1996 and 1997, the government reduced the VET grants, abolished real growth funding and reduced training expenditure by $240 million. In 1998, the growth through efficiencies policy effectively froze and brought to a standstill the Commonwealth VET funds, resulting in a loss of growth funding of around $377 million over the 1998 to 2000 period. When you shut the door so firmly and so hard, the flow-on effect is skills shortages across Australia. The government’s answer is a de facto guest worker program. Shame on you for that.

The Howard government’s main response to the skills crisis has been to massively increase skilled migration but, having found that it is not enough to fill the gap, you have sought other labour groups, including unskilled and semi-skilled workers, to try to fill it because it is a skills shortage across all of Australia in all of those sectors. You look at how many people you have turned away from TAFE—300,000; they are the statistics. You heard in question time today of the areas that you are seeking to use the 457 visa in. It highlights, perhaps with a full stop, the 43 waiters, 77 domestic housekeepers, 251 personal assistants and 1,594 elementary clerical workers who came here under that visa last year. Add to that the 107 carpenters, 31 bricklayers, 25 plumbers and 13 plasterers who were issued with 457 visas—out of a total of 50,000 people who entered Australia on this visa last year.

This problem is not brewing; it started under the Howard government. You do not want to recognise that it started under the Howard government. It did not only start in the migration area; it started in training, skills and infrastructure. All of the economic indicators point to a failure by this government to ensure that when we got to this point in time there would be enough skilled, trained Australians to undertake work and that the 457 visa would be used for the purpose for which it was intended—that is, to support short-term temporary skills shortages across Australia in those technical and professional areas and other areas of need where you would expect them.

You couple that with a compliance strategy that you could only call lax—a compliance strategy which is lax for one reason and one reason only: you do not want to expose how and why you are using the 457 visa system. As a government you do not want to highlight the fact that the 457 visa system is being rorted. We heard from the minister today, so it is clearly a case of her only now turning her attention to meatworks—and T&R might be the first. The report in the minister’s possession—will she make it public? I am not sure. Will she ensure that the findings and recommendations are acted on? I am not sure. The minister did not give us an advantage today by indicating that that was her intent. So it is a case that this government, in ignoring—(Time expired)

Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I listened very closely to Senator Ludwig and I did not think he made much sense at all. One of the reasons—and I think it is the basic reason—that we have to rely on 457 visas is that the economy of this nation has taken off. On top of that, the mining and minerals boom in Queensland and Western Australia has expanded to the point where you can walk in as a labourer and demand $100,000. Yes, you have to work maybe 10 or 15 days in a row, but then you might get 10 or 15 days off. This has sucked in all the skilled workers, and nowhere more than in North Queensland, where a person who drives a truck or is a skilled welder or carpenter can go and demand a job—not in a demanding way: people are begging them to take the jobs. We are seeing a migration of labour from the coastal towns like Mackay, Townsville and Cairns into the mines. When you walk around the engineering workshops in Townsville and see the people who make the mining gear and cars, you will find a number of them are on 457 visas.

Generally speaking, when you ask the employers what would happen without them, there is one answer: ‘We’d close down. Without these 457 workers we could not keep our business together.’ I can quote examples, name and verse, time and again, but it is more pronounced when you get to North Queensland. The reason we have had to fall back on 457 visas is that there is just no-one there to fill the jobs. We have an unemployment figure that is now under five per cent. Many of those who are under the five per cent do not want to work or are incapacitated. The economy has just sucked up so many skilled workers that there is a huge shortage. I would have thought, Senator Ludwig, that you would have got up and congratulated the government on their economic management and for sopping up all the unemployment, which was around 11 per cent when you left office. If you had been a bit fair you would have congratulated the government on the wonderful job they are doing in providing jobs for everyone in Australia. Let me tell you a little story from last week. Senator Ludwig, I am not sure whether you come from Charleville or Roma.

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

I lived in Cunnamulla.

Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Cunnamulla; I was not far off. You will recall, because you are a western Queenslander, the town of Charleville. It relied heavily on wool. When the wool crash came in the early nineties, the whole town went into a tailspin. There were vacant shops, vacant houses and there was unemployment. It was terrible. The town was just holding on by its fingernails. Because necessity is the mother of invention and there were a number of feral goats around, the graziers decided that that was their last hope—they would have to farm the goats. From that developed an abattoir that employs 140 people.

Senator Ludwig, if you can give me the name of a meatworker who wants a job at award wages, he can be on the chain tomorrow. If he can get out to Charleville, he will be employed. The owner-manager of that abattoir has spent $14,000 in the last month trying to attract meatworkers, and he cannot. I declare my interest: I have a shareholding in an abattoir at Kilcoy. Kilcoy are employing 457 visa holders, as I believe everyone else is in the meatworks industry. Whether it is the banana industry or the meatworks, people are just flocking to the big money in the mining industry—and why shouldn’t they? Good luck to them. They are leaving vacancies behind and those vacancies are being filled by 457 people.

If those 457 visa holders were not allowed in Charleville, that meatworks could not operate. They would not be able to put 140 people on the floor. That meatworks in Charleville has twenty 457 visa holders. They have come from Vietnam, and they have been accepted by the town as part of the town. Their kids go to the Charleville high school and their wives are part of the community. The community has welcomed them because they know without them they would not have an abattoir that pulls I forget how many millions of dollars into the town of Charleville and it would be back to being broken down, the way it was immediately after the wool crash.

If those 457 visa holders think they are being exploited, they can go and get a job somewhere else. If they think that they are not being paid properly, they can go and get a job somewhere else. But they are paid the award wage and they are paid overtime and holiday pay. Anyone, including you, Senator Ludwig, who wants to go there would be welcomed. I am sure that they would be prepared to show you the books. That is just one example of how these 457 visas are helping rural and regional Australia. I believe you could almost do that sum over in Western Australia—and certainly around Queensland.

So, Senator Ludwig, what you are saying about the government is completely untrue. The government have done everything in their power to encourage people to get into trades. They have opened trades schools. But I am not going to blame the Labor government and the 13 years they were in office. People wanted their little darlings to have a university degree. They all thought everyone could go to university. Consequently, no-one took up trades. You were a second-class citizen if you were a tradie. Now you are one of the elite. Tradesmen have come into their own. They are sort of the new elite. They are the big money earners. You only have to stand by the boat ramp at Redland or Cleveland to see a boat worth $80,000 or $90,000 on a trailer pulled by a big four-wheel drive with ‘Fred Bloggs, Plumber’ painted on the side. Because he has the skills, he is earning big money. It is a question of supply and demand.

The 457 visas are terrific. Rural Australia wants them. When you get out into the smaller towns, the Vietnamese—or wherever else people come from—are accepted. They fit into the community. The community welcomes them. It is the only way we can sustain our productive industries, our meatworks or our haul-outs for cane. If you take those visas away, you will stall rural and regional Australia.

Therefore, I ask you to not simply get your riding instructions from the unions on AWAs and 457 visas. You come in here dutifully repeating the message that the union organisations give to you. But if you care to make yourself available for a week, Senator Ludwig, I would be more than happy to take you around and show you some factories so that you can see some of the benefits that 457 visas are giving to rural and regional Australia.

Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is an important issue and I am pleased that it has been raised in this way. There are issues about the management of the 457 visa program that need to be addressed, but I also believe that the Labor Party are grossly overstating their case and, in many respects, unnecessarily and unhelpfully running down what is a valuable component of our migration system. It is a visa that has been around for a long time, and it is one that I support. That does not mean that there are not issues in terms of how it is managed, and I think that there are some aspects of that that the government needs to look at more closely.

The position that Labor have put forward has some merit; there is some substance there. But overstating the case not only is creating an incorrect perception about 457 visas—and we heard from Senator Boswell about the very legitimate, extremely valuable and indeed essential role that 457 visas play in many parts of Australia, including regional Australia—but also has too much of an anti-migrant dog whistle about it for me. Given how much energy I and the Democrats have for many years put into promoting multiculturalism, supporting migration and ringing alarm bells whenever there is an anti-migrant type of campaign being run, I think that by overstating the problems here there is too much of an anti-migrant dog whistle about this whole campaign. That is something that the Labor Party need to be very careful about. I am not suggesting that that is their intent—I certainly do not suggest that that is Senator Ludwig’s intent—but it is nonetheless present and it comes through in some of the components of the way this campaign is being run, and that is a concern.

I also think that the use of the term ‘guest worker’ is not particularly helpful. It is a term that basically means whatever people want it to mean. Any person on a temporary visa who is employed could be called a guest worker. As I said, the 457 visa has been around for a long time. The key issue—and I am sure this is where Senator Ludwig’s concern is—is ensuring that those people are not exploited. There are some legitimate concerns about that, and I commend the work that some in the Labor Party and the union movement have done to address that exploitation and to try and pressure the government to do more to prevent it. That is a genuine concern, and this is where the government must acknowledge some problems and must do more to fix them.

The simple reality is that there has been a massive increase in the number of people who have come in on 457 visas in recent years. Remember that this visa has been around for a long time. The real issue is that the dramatic increase in visa numbers has made it much harder to police the visa and ensure that people are not being exploited—or indeed that people coming out here on it are not doing so under false pretences. In round figures, back in 2001-02 there were 37,600 457 visas issued. The next year, 42,400 were issued. The next year, 40,600 were issued. The year after that, 2004-05, there was about a 20 per cent increase in one year, up to almost 50,000. In the financial year just finished, there were nearly 72,000 issued, which is more than a 40 per cent leap in just one year. The practical reality is that such a huge leap over the space of two years is going to create enormous difficulties in policing it. That is where the federal government must do more. I believe that more must be done to ensure that the rights of people who are here on 457 visas are properly met.

We have had calls made by the ACTU and others saying that the skilled migration visas should be stopped immediately. That is a ridiculous overstatement, and it creates a completely false and unhelpful impression of the nature of skilled migration visas. It reinforces all those old myths and subconscious messages about migrants coming to take your jobs. Frankly, that is a whole line of thought and a whole line of political argument that has a pretty sad and dangerous history in Australia. We need to be careful about going anywhere near that turf.

That is not to say that there are not issues to do with ensuring that people are not exploited, are not paid dramatically less than the award wage and are not avoiding the requirements that they have to meet. If employers use the 457 visa according to its requirements then they will not just pay the minimum salary level and ensure that people meet the minimum skill level but also ensure that visa, transport and medical insurance costs are paid. Because those sorts of things are not cheap, employers are not likely to use a 457 visa if there is local labour around.

We all know that there are significant parts of Australia where there are not people available to do some of these jobs. Senator Boswell talked about abattoirs. Indeed, apart from 457 visa holders keeping abattoirs open, we all know—I hope—about the role that many refugees on temporary protection visas played in keeping abattoirs open in many rural and regional towns. Indeed, I would suggest that it is not too fanciful to propose that it was the work of some of those temporary refugee visa holders in abattoirs and in fruit picking and the like in the member for Forrest’s electorate in Victoria that exposed him to the fact that these refugees were hardworking and genuine people who simply wanted to get on with their lives and escape persecution. That may even have played a part in the stance that he took on refugee legislation in the House of Representatives last week. This sort of demonising of people as though they are coming in to take people’s jobs is unhelpful, and that needs to be avoided in this debate.

Nonetheless, there is no doubt that the federal government should be condemned, as stated in this MPI, for its ‘failure to provide Australians with the training needed to meet the current skills crisis’. I am not saying that we could have met all the requirements and that we would not have needed any 457 visas; obviously it has been used for a long time. But it is a massive increase in a short space of time, and it is coupled with the undeniable fact that, compared with other countries in the OECD, we have dramatically underinvested in education and training. That is just a simple fact.

It is not just a matter of people going to university, as Senator Boswell said. There may be a tiny bit of validity in that, but I understand that the greatest occupational category of people coming in on 457 visas has been nurses and other health workers—a lot of people with university degrees. So it is not just a matter of universities versus TAFE; it is a matter of complete underinvestment by the federal government in all forms of education and training. That is a matter of record and this is part of its consequences. Whilst I am strongly in favour of allowing migrants in—including from low-income countries—it is nonetheless not the best thing to have such large increases over a short space of time. That does make it more difficult to manage and it makes it more difficult for the workers too.

That leads me to another area where I think more needs to be done. I spoke in this chamber just a day or two ago about assistance to people who come here on 457 visas. I note that a report in the West Australian earlier this year talked about the significant impact on schools when children arrive with their families under this visa category and they do not receive the same level of English language tuition and support that children of permanent migrants receive. We have always used settlement assistance for people who arrive on permanent visas, but 457 visas are for up to four years and they can be transferred to permanent visas. There is no point waiting until people have been here for four years to see whether or not they are going to settle and whether there are English language issues for their children.

We need to have more casework and outreach assistance for people who come here. That will cost more money as well, but it is an investment well worth making for the broader economic benefits that, as I am sure all the government speakers will agree, these migrants—temporary or permanent—bring to Australia. There are actions the government needs to take. (Time expired)

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Following that rather mealy-mouthed presentation on what is a very serious problem, I think it is appropriate to put in context exactly what is going on. We heard from Senator Boswell, who has a direct vested interest as an employer of people on this visa at an abattoir in Queensland. It is a direct conflict of interest, which I acknowledge he was only too happy to declare. But we ought to explain exactly what is going on.

Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Are you a member of a union?

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My associations are well known, and I say without any equivocation that I am on the side of workers in this matter. What we have here is a situation where the number of 457 visas granted has risen from 28,042 to 40,000 in one year. This is a program that has been fundamentally transformed under this minister. This is no longer a case of just meeting skills shortages; this is a case where the government is seeking to use this visa, in conjunction with its other draconian industrial relations policies, to drive down wages. It is being used as a device to break the power of working people in this country.

There could be no better example than what is occurring in the meat industry. We have given example after example, and this government has failed to respond to them in this chamber. I raised this matter earlier this week, and questions have still not been answered. The minister was only too happy to go on The 7.30 Report back in July and say, ‘I think there might have been some situations where people have tried to pay less than they should.’ Of course she said, ‘That is not something we condone.’ Of course when she gets caught it is not condoned. It is not condoned when it is exposed.

There are some 2,000 people on this visa in the meat industry at the moment. We have situations where workers are being asked to pay to agents in China as much as $10,000 to $20,000 to organise a visa. The workers then come to Australia and they are employed by a company, which often takes direct deductions for them for their housing and then undercuts their rate of pay, and then those workers have to meet the payment to the migration agent. People are being ripped off and are not provided with any protection by this government.

This is not a question of attacking migrant workers; it is a question of defending them. If the Democrats do not understand the difference, it is no wonder that they are being wiped out as a political force in this country. If they do not understand the fundamental difference in terms of human rights, of not allowing workers to be ripped off by this sort of program, then they are in a dreadful state.

This week and last week, the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs abused Labor senators who raised these questions. She has crowed about reports that she has drawn upon. Only yesterday she drew upon the report of Professor Peter McDonald from the Australian National University. She said that the unions and the opposition were wrong in their claims. What she failed to tell this Senate and the public is that the survey in the report that she drew upon was conducted in 2003 and 2004—before the transformation of this program under her administration. She failed to point out that this program did start as a relatively benign and modest program aimed at meeting skills shortages, but it has been transformed by this government, which is waging war upon the working people of this country in their drive to push down wages.

This program has fundamentally been transformed by a government that is seeking to establish a guest worker program. It wants to put a workers in a situation like that stated by the manager of the abattoirs at Bunbury. He has a number of people from Ghana employed at his plant. He was quoted in The Australian of Monday, 4 April 2005 as saying:

If they don’t work out or do the things required of them, you just inform Immigration and they go home.

That of course is the great advantage of this program for the unscrupulous. It is the situation that we have at the Wagstaff abattoir in Victoria. I have raised the matter at Senate estimates and have made inquiries seeking information, and I have had no response from this government.

This government is introducing a brave new world of 457 visas. It has done so throughout the last two years—importing guest workers to keep wages down. We now understand that the minister has been forced to agree with the states in various meetings with state ministers that there is the need for a major renovation of this program. She has admitted that up to 10 crucial aspects of the program are essentially flawed and require urgent and fundamental review—that is, the basic features of this program require substantive renovation. The minister has had to acknowledge that the 457 visa edifice is crumbling and is in danger of imminent and inglorious collapse—and so it should collapse.

The minister has conceded to the states that there is significant potential for breaches associated with the program. She has implied that sanctions in the regime are inadequate. I know that there have been at least 19 cases where sanctions have had to be applied. She has conceded that the kinds of breaches that are at risk of occurring include the underpayment of wages and breaches with regard to the housing of workers and occupational health and safety concerns. Contrary to her tirade against my colleague Senator Lundy in question time last week—when she declared that the problem of employer rorts in Canberra restaurants was negligible—the minister has had to admit to state ministers that the hospitality industry is a key problem industry with regard to 457 visas. The minister and the government have admitted that there are issues regarding the payment of wages to 457 visa holders, including the payment of overtime, the indexation of the 457 visa minimum salary levels and the deductions made by employers from workers’ salaries.

I think the minister said today that $65,000 was the average salary in the meat industry. Her departmental officials pointed out at Senate estimates that the minimum requirement was $42,000. That is a very substantial difference—not to mention the way in which you can get a figure of $42,000 to appear on a piece of paper. The fact is that the minister has been misleading the Senate on these fundamental questions. The minister has also had to agree that there is a need for information sharing between the Australian government and the states with regard to 457 visas, particularly on the question of determining skills shortages. I know of a recent situation in Victoria in the meat industry where the local area committee that was used as the basis for declaring the skills shortage in Victoria was drawn from South Australia so that the concerns that the Victorian government has expressed could be bypassed.

The minister has had to acknowledge that there is a serious problem with forum-shopping between various DIMA offices with regard to the regional certifying bodies and employers seeking 457 visa sponsoring status. She has acknowledged these things in discussions with her colleagues at the state level. She does not do it in here. She tells us an entirely different story. The minister has agreed that measures for determining employer commitment to the training of Australians must be more robust. She also says that there is agreement that communication between DIMA and 457 visa holders needs to be improved. At the same time, the minister has also indicated that she wants to strengthen the English language requirements for 457 visas. I do not think you would get a clearer critique than that which comes from the minister herself in her discussions with state ministers—not what she says here, but what she actually says through the various interdepartmental and ministerial briefings.

The minister nails a whole list of problems and shortcomings that have now been identified with the operations of the regional certifying bodies. They have been admitted to by the minister. They include questions of accountability, of record keeping and of serious conflicts of interest. This is not the genteel, benign program that some senators here would like to have us believe it is. This is not a program which just brings in a few extra doctors and nurses. This is a program that, if it is not watched, could be used to fundamentally undermine human rights in this country. That is something that we should all be very concerned about. We should not be coming in here with mealy-mouthed defences and suggesting somehow or other that it is racist to suggest that people are entitled to decent wages and conditions, that their civil rights should be protected and that they cannot be threatened by unscrupulous employers who say: ‘You either cop what I tell you or we will get Immigration to deport you.’ The labour agreements that the minister is now seeking to negotiate are a measure of her concern—(Time expired)

Ross Lightfoot (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Firstly, let me rebut what Senator Carr was saying, just a few moments ago, in assuming that people who come in on 457 visas are subject to bad wages and bad conditions. Also, when he began his contribution here this afternoon, he mentioned people of Chinese extraction who came into this country and had their expenses for travelling to this country taken out of their wages. It is illegal to do that. Let me also say that the average minimum gross annual salary for a number of IT and computer related occupations in Australia, based on a 38-hour week, is currently $57,300. That applies to 457 visa holders. The minimum gross annual salary, based on a 38-hour week, for other occupations is currently gazetted at $41,850. Senator Carr’s rather voluble tirade failed to mention that, with the advent of the increase in 457 visa holders coming to Australia, employment has actually risen. One expects that, but unemployment has also dropped dramatically.

In my state of Western Australia, in July 2005, unemployment was 4.8 per cent. It is now 3.1 per cent. On a pro rata basis I would propose that we have taken probably more 457 visa holders than any other state in Australia. The engine house of the nation is Western Australia. Queensland could lay some claim to that, but it is in fact Western Australia, based on per capita income. Someone said in Western Australia recently that WA contributes 110 per cent of gross domestic product. I do not think it is that much, but it is certainly around 30 per cent, with slightly less than 10 per cent of the population of the nation.

A significant part of this productivity is based on the skilled workers who come in to Australia, not the unskilled workers. Unskilled workers are not in this category. Of all the people who come to Australia holding these particular visas, 85 per cent are either professionals or semiprofessionals. Do they take away Australian jobs? Obviously not, if unemployment is falling in all of the states except South Australia, where it increased slightly over the year, and New South Wales, where it increased from 4.8 per cent to 5.1 per cent from July 2005. I imagine that that will be an election issue in New South Wales shortly.

That is not the fault of the guest workers—and I do not like using that term, because they are not guest workers, really—as they go to other parts of Australia. They do not go to New South Wales in excessive numbers. They do not go to areas of high unemployment. These people go only where they have jobs. These people do not form a queue for taking handouts on the dole. These people contribute to the Australian economy. These people add to the boom in Australia. These people want houses. These people want their children to go to school here. A great number of these people in fact apply for permanent residency here, and we welcome them. These people are skilled.

I will mention the reason that we need these people in Australia, with their particular skills. I will quote the Hon. Tony McRae, who is the Western Australia Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Interests. When asked whether we need these people in Australia, on their 457 visas, he said that they are ‘absolutely essential for our economic sustainability’. This is a Labor minister rebutting and denying what we have heard from the other side. He is saying absolutely the reverse of what we have heard from the other side today about the skilled workers who are assisting in the maintenance of this boom—this golden decade of Australia’s unbelievable growth. The real reason behind the antipathy of the other side towards these workers is simply this: about 10 per cent of the private sector is unionised today. Ten per cent of the private sector workforce in Australia is unionised. A significant proportion of the other 90 per cent have AWAs, Australian workplace agreements, and others have no agreements whatsoever but are happy to work for excellent wages.

I said that Queensland and Western Australia were the engine houses of Australia—and I make some concession to Queensland there. Senator Ludwig submitted the topic in today’s matters of public importance debate. I do not have time to rebut all the things that he said, but I will try to deal with a couple of them. He said that there has been a dramatic rise in the number of guest workers under the program over the last one to two years. There has been an increase but it is due to the strength of the Australian economy, particularly driven by Western Australia and Queensland. That is why the workers are coming in. They are not coming in to join dole queues; they are coming in because there is a shortage of skills and they fill those skills shortages in many areas, not just in the mining industry. Senator Ludwig noted as his second point:

(b) The Minister’s statement that the increasing numbers of guest workers are required to keep wages low;

Wages have risen, in real purchasing power, with the arrival of these skilled workers. Skilled workers are not actually cheap wage-earners. As I have said, in the IT industry skilled workers are averaging $57,300 a year, based on a 38-hour week. In other areas they are earning $41,850, based on a 38-hour week. It is not a bad wage. How could it possibly be said that that has been driven down? Senator Ludwig noted as his third point:

(c) The Howard Government’s failure to provide Australians with the training needed to meet the current skills crisis;

The current skills shortage is a reflection of the strong economy. There is very low unemployment, particularly among skilled Australians. It is also a reflection of the slowing natural growth in Australia’s working age population. Investment in vocational education and training is actually at record levels. How can it be being neglected if it is currently at record levels? I do not have time to cover everything that Senator Ludwig raised, but here is one more point:

(d) The use of guest workers in unskilled jobs and in skilled occupations where there are qualified Australians available;

If they are being exploited, that should be reported to DIMA. DIMA is currently undertaking reports into this area. I would advise anyone who has discovered that skilled workers are being exploited to report it so that it can be investigated. But the instances are very few. (Time expired)

Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Sport and Recreation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs has once again shown her incompetence in managing Australia’s migration program. It should be of great concern to this chamber that the very important 457 visa program has been so grossly mismanaged by Senator Vanstone. It is not a surprise to anyone here that the government’s new industrial relations laws have opened up a huge gap between the market rate for certain services and what is now the minimum rate. This widening gap is effectively pushing Australian wages down. As this matter of public importance notes, the minister herself has outrageously stated that the increasing number of guest workers is necessary to keep wages low. It is simply not acceptable that the skilled migration program, in combination with the government’s extreme industrial relations laws, be used to push Australian wages down. This not only creates hardship for Australian workers but also is an exploitation of skilled migrant workers, who come to Australia for the prospect of earning a decent wage for doing a fair day’s work.

The government’s approach is both wrong in principle and undermines the legitimacy of a skilled migrant program. I want to refer to evidence published in the People and Place journal by Bob Kinnaird which shows the negative impact that 457 visas have had on employment and training opportunities in the IT industry. Since 2001 the proportion of computer science graduates unable to find full-time work in their chosen profession has been at an all-time record high, and commencing enrolments by Australian students in IT courses have dramatically dropped. This is disgraceful, because we know that there are 5,000 or so skilled migrant workers in this area alone.

By allowing this to happen, the government is undermining a critical part of Australia’s economy now and in the future. The ICT sector is a part of every industry, as well as being a very important growth industry of its own. Young people opting out of this particular career path are basically putting themselves in a situation where they are being denied an opportunity. It all comes back to the fact that they are likely to be reading in the newspapers and hearing in the industry about the number of skilled migrant workers in IT and thinking: ‘I just can’t compete with those people, because they are being paid less than the market rate here. I do not want to do all that study and then have to compete for a lower salary.’

I also want to make note of the fact that the proportion of women in IT is lower than ever—in the undergraduate courses and among graduating students and participants in the IT sector. All these statistics represent very bad news and move against the need for Australia to develop our knowledge economy.

The temporary work visas should not be able to take opportunities away from anybody. The scheme is designed to fill legitimate skills gaps, and we have heard many times today that these gaps are actually a product of the lack of investment by this government in those industry sectors anyway. So it is gratuitous and misleading at best to come in here and say that somehow this is a comment that Labor do not support a skilled migrant program. We do, but we argue for it to be a legitimate program, solving a legitimate problem, not a device of the Howard government to manipulate levels of wages in this country and to permit exploitation of skilled migrant workers to achieve an industrial relations policy outcome for the Howard government. That is a disgusting tactic, and people are being deliberately hurt by this government because of it.

I am particularly concerned about the issue of exploitation of migrant workers. We have heard a number of examples from my Senate colleagues. I think senators are aware I have been involved in raising an issue here in parliament about specific exploitation of migrant workers in the hospitality industry, in restaurants here in Canberra. If we had not raised it, the minister would not have acted; the government would not have acted. I am absolutely convinced of that, and I think the evidence shows that to be the case. But, since I did raise it, there has been some activity. There has been a prosecution, for which a decision is pending; there are more prosecutions pending; and there has been a substantial amount of money paid to workers who were underpaid.

This week in the chamber the minister fessed up that there has been even more exploitation of workers—not of migrant workers this time but of local workers, of young people here in Canberra, who have been underpaid. What we know from public statements is that some 165 workers in some 55 restaurants have been underpaid. All that is on the public record is that 19 of the 55 restaurants owe some $62,000-plus to those workers, and we do not know the rest. We are still waiting on more information from the department. We are yet to get the full story. I remind senators that this is just in Canberra; imagine if the government did this investigation Australia-wide. It is very much the tip of the iceberg.

We also know that the Howard government is trying to brand these investigations as some type of evidence that the Office of Workplace Services is protecting workers’ interests. Nothing could be further from the truth, because they would not have done anything unless we pushed them. We know that now. And it is a massive own goal, because the investigations and prosecutions have been based on underpayment of award conditions—conditions from the same awards that have now been demolished by the government under the extreme IR changes. That changes everything.

I contend that, without an award providing that minimum standard, the skilled migration program will continue to be exploited by employers wanting to cut their wages bills. Ministers of the Howard government standing up and saying things like, ‘It’s about pushing wages down,’ is giving them explicit permission to exploit those workers. That is unacceptable and disgraceful behaviour as far as any public policy in relation to skilled migration or workplace relations goes. But there it is. It is on the record. This government is completely exposed. (Time expired)

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think it is very important to clearly place on the record exactly what we are talking about. We are talking about bringing skilled workers into this country to fill a need, a void, a gap. The main reason is that this economy is running so well that we have a shortfall in skilled workers within our own country. We have an unemployment rate now of 4.8 per cent, the lowest in decades. Senator Carr indicated that he is a friend of the workers. If he were a friend of the workers and if the Labor Party were a friend of the workers, they would be supporting the government’s policies to keep such a low unemployment rate and the policies we put in place to achieve it in the first instance.

The 457 visas are for skilled overseas workers to enter Australia. They are not for any other purpose but to bring in skilled overseas workers. We have a dire need for overseas workers. The issue of exploitation that has just been raised by Senator Lundy is one that this government has taken seriously. Senator Lundy must at least have some confidence now with this government that, when someone exploits the system, in any field, in any endeavour—and in this endeavour—that person is prosecuted if they are caught.

Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Sport and Recreation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If we raise it in parliament, something will happen.

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If evidence is presented to the right authorities, action is taken. Action is always taken on the presentation of evidence. It is okay to raise speculative things, but when evidence is produced action is taken. It just shows how responsible this government is concerning the 457 visas.

There are some important issues in this debate. There has been talk about low wages. There is an absolute minimum wage that must be paid to anyone on a 457 visa, and we cannot go below that. The average wage for 457 class visas is $65,000 per annum. I do not call that a low wage, not by any stretch of the imagination. The minimum wage that must be paid, as was stated earlier, is $41,850. In regional areas, the wage cannot go below the award. It cannot go below agreed award wages. It just cannot do that. The talk of low wages is a furphy. It is a scare tactic aimed at trying to disrupt this government.

Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It’s a nonsense.

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a nonsense. I wondered today, as I was listening to the debate, why this matter has been raised. We have 457-class visas which are filling a vital need. We have low unemployment. We have a skills shortage. I really think it has been raised out of jealousy. I think the Labor Party are jealous. We have done a tremendous job. It is something we thought about. It is something we introduced and it is filling a vital need. If we did not have this class of visa, there would be a lot of serious implications for our workforce, our productivity and our manufacturing ability.

Senator Boswell articulated very clearly some practical examples of the need for this visa class in the state of Queensland, and that could be replicated, I am sure, in other places around the country. I was very impressed to hear the sincerity of Senator Boswell’s comments. He has had grassroots contact with people who have indicated that meatworks and abattoirs would be closed if they did not have the provision of the 457 visa class. That is a serious implication. Do we want to let business and industry wind down because we cannot get people to work in these particular workplaces? The reason they cannot employ people in these workplaces and the reason they cannot attract people is that there is a demand for employment across this country.

Let me give you some statistics from my home state of Tasmania. This issue goes to training as well. We have had a boom in the state of Tasmania. There have been implications that there has been no training and that the training in the country is not good enough. Apart from the Australian technical colleges that this government has been proud to introduce—and they are on the ground in many parts of Australia—training has continued. We are filling a gap in the training needs in this country. Let me quote some statistics. In 2002 in Tasmania, 150 apprentice carpenter-joiners were going through the apprenticeship training program. In 2006, there are 700—that is a mammoth increase in the number of people training. Whilst we have this gap while people are training, we are filling this void through a proactive government response: the 457 visas are allowing industry and commerce to continue with business as usual. Without that response, we would not have business as usual.

If the Labor Party want to say that we should not be using 457 visas and that industry should be shut, go and tell the public that. We do not believe that. We believe we should be looking after every industry in this country. We will use every particular facility we can to do that, and 457 visas are just one of those things to assist in this cause. At least we are responsible and are ensuring that industry continues and does not lapse. I would not like to have to go to the owners of businesses and to the workers and the people of regional Australia and say: ‘I’m sorry, we can’t get any workers. The Labor Party don’t want us to bring in any skilled workers from outside this country, so your business will have to close.’ We are not going to do that. We have a very proactive approach to enable industry to continue. If we had the workers, I am sure employers would be employing local people within their towns and within their cities, but that is just not the case. We do not have the workers yet, but we will get them.

There are some other important issues that need to be clarified concerning the 457 visa program. Some great information has come out from the minister. Whilst I am talking about the minister, there is the suggestion that the minister is not on top of this. The minister has done a superb job. The minister has run this program despite adverse conditions and Labor’s commentary. When the facts come out and the myths are exposed, the fantastic job that the minister has been doing in her portfolio will be proven. I am so pleased we have a minister who has the courage to do these things and look after the industry of this country.

There have been some myths around this issue. The myth about wages is exactly that. To suggest that we are getting low-paid, unskilled workers into this country is an absolute nonsense. It is a great pay rate that we are introducing into this country for these workers. It has been repeated time and again that we need to understand some of the statistics—(Time expired)