Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, Senator Vanstone. Will the minister update the Senate on the results of inquiries made into the temporary skilled migration issues?

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

I thank Senator Bernardi for the question. Senator Bernardi understands that yesterday in this place there were matters raised in relation to the 457 visa, which is a temporary skilled migrant visa—otherwise described by the now nearly racist Labor Party as a ‘foreign workers visa’ with workers coming in to take the jobs of your children.

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

Mr President, I rise on a point of order. It seems to me that it has to be unparliamentary to accuse Labor senators of being racist.

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

Minister, I think you were referring to everybody, but I would ask you to choose your language a bit more carefully in that area.

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

Mr President, I will. You are quite right: I made a general reference; it was not to individual people.

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

Mr President, I rise on a point of order. Mr President, I asked you to rule on whether or not the minister’s reference to Labor senators as ‘racist’ was unparliamentary. Do I take it that you ruled that it was not, or do I take it that you did not rule on my point of order?

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

I did not rule on it. I made the point that the minister used a term that may be seen as unparliamentary collectively rather than individually. It is when it is directed individually that she would have to withdraw it. I did ask the minister to choose her language carefully, which she has accepted.

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

Yesterday I was asked:

Can the minister confirm information from her department on occupations filled by 457 visa holders that 43 waiters, 77 domestic housekeepers, 251 personal assistants and 1,594 elementary clerical workers entered Australia on the visa last year?

As a consequence of that, I asked Senator Evans, the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate: ‘What are you talking about? Are you talking about visas granted? Are you talking about workers? Are you talking about flow? Are you talking about stock?’ The answer I got was: ‘It’s off your website.’ So I undertook to have a look at it. No wonder I got a bemused look from Senator Evans: he had none of the above. He actually had some sort of flow data which shows how many people with a 457 visa have come in and gone out of Australia in any one year. They may have come in and out two or three times on a holiday. They are not necessarily the workers. They might be the wives and they might be the children. So they are the workers, the families and the children crossing the border in 2005.

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

We have child labour as well now, do we?

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

Order! Senator Carr!

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

Included on the list given to Senator Evans’s office was 14,001 non-working children who were on the visa. Why? Because workers are allowed to bring their children in. But, wait, there is more! At the bottom of the last page of the material provided to Senator Evans there is in bold print and in capital letters: ‘Figures marked with an asterisk are subject to sampling variability’—because this is a sample—‘too high for most practical purposes.’ Seven of the eight occupations selected by Senator Evans had the asterisk. So we have a leader of the opposition in the Senate who does not know what he is using. Furthermore, when he uses something and it has an asterisk that says, ‘Watch out, this is unreliable’, he chooses to use the unreliable data. But, wait, there is more! Remember that it was said by the job snobs opposite, ‘You’re letting in caravan park attendants’—and shame on you if you have a job as a caravan park attendant! We know where the shame now lies. Caravan park attendants and workers are not on the list. It would seem that, when it says ‘caravan park managers’ and you do not like it, you change it.

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

Rubbish!

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

That is what I am asserting has happened.

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

That is complete rubbish. You didn’t know your own portfolio.

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

The assertion from the opposition is that I did not know how it worked, but what we have is a leader of the opposition in the Senate who brought in the information, who did not know what it was, who used the most unreliable stuff and who, it appears, changed the data for his own purposes. The caravan park manager on a 457 visa in Central Australia manages 16 staff and it was certified by the Northern Territory Labor government that he was required to fill the job.

Senator Wong is looking bemused. Yesterday, remember, she was angry. I can assure Senator Wong, through you, Mr President, that if she goes back to law and goes before a court and changes the words—as they were changed yesterday—she will not be practising for very long. It is considered inappropriate for an officer of the court to mislead the court—and it should be considered inappropriate for the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate to come in here and use data he does not understand and take no notice of caveats. (Time expired)

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

My question is to Senator Vanstone, the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs. Will the minister confirm that the document I referred to yesterday, headed ‘Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs: Arrivals by Visa Category 457 by ASCO occupation, financial year 2004-05’ is her department’s list, provided to the Parliamentary Library by her, that describes the 49,000 people who entered the country, most of whom were not on the list of skills required by Australia—a list also issued by her department? Will she confirm that these people—

Government Senators:

Government senators interjecting—

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

No, it is a question; so listen.

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

Order! Senator Evans!

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

Will she confirm that these people came into Australia and they are not on the list of skills required by the Commonwealth?

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

Senator Evans, would you address your remarks through the chair!

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

If she is going to call us racist, I will address her—because she was right out of order.

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

Senator Evans, I ask you to address your remarks through the chair.

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

I ask the minister: can she confirm that it is her department’s document of the 49,000 who came in? I seek leave to table the document.

Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I rise on a point of order. Listening to that supplementary—if that is what it was—it was impossible to tell from that harangue whether it was a statement or whether it was a supplementary question. Mr President, I would invite you to consider whether it should be ruled out of order.

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

It wasn’t a supplementary question.

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

It was Senator Evans’s question.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Correct; you idiot!

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

Senator Conroy, would you withdraw that?

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw it.

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

Senator Vanstone, did you hear the question? I am sure I did.

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

Mr President, yes, I heard the question, but I must say that I thought it was a point of order being raised, because Senator Bernardi wanted to jump and did not get the call. I assumed you took Senator Evans because you thought it was a point of order. But it does not matter; I will answer the question. To answer the question as to whether the document from which he was quoting yesterday was headed that, yes, it is.

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

Is it your document?

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

Yes, it is. The point being made, however, is that, when you get a document which is headed with something, you usually say, ‘What does that mean?’ When you see an asterisk at the bottom and you see that it says, ‘Contains figures which are subject to sampling variability; too high for most practical purposes,’ you usually say to someone, ‘Could you tell me what this means?’

I will tell you what it means. This means that, of all the people who hold 457 visas in any one year, who might come in and out—there might be a number of years of 457 visas here—and who are travelling for one purpose or another, there is some sampling done. That is what that information at the bottom means. You understand what sampling means. There is some sampling done with passenger information cards. On passenger information cards people write down their occupations. It would be no surprise to me if the partner of a 457 worker had put ‘Home duties’. It would be no surprise to me at all. It is perfectly acceptable for people to take those sorts of jobs. What this document shows you, Senator Evans, if you had bothered to ask—

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

I asked you!

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

Order! Senator Evans, come to order. Senator Vanstone, address your remarks through the chair.

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

Mr President, Senator Evans, once given the document, should have bothered to ask of his staff: ‘What is this about? I want to ask a question on this. I want to go into the Senate and make an accusation on the basis of this, so can you please explain to me what this is?’ Instead of that, Senator Evans came in and asserted that this data is something other than what it is. This is not an indication of the principal applicants who have come in in any one year. It is not that. It is an estimate based on flow data derived from passenger cards. That is what it is.

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

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

I did hear some yelling from the other side that we would not give them the data and we would not tell them what came in. I can tell you this: in the 2005-06 visa grants to principal applicants—and if Senator Evans wants to be the leader, he has to know what question to ask; he cannot come in with data that he does not understand, ask a question about it and expect to get an answer that is meaningful when he does not understand the data—the occupation that came in in highest number was that of registered nurse, and 2,530 of them came in. Computing professionals came in. There were 2,270. There were business and information professionals—1,430; general medical practitioners—980; and chefs—960. On it goes.

If the opposition want to ask what visas have been given to principal applicants then that is the question they should ask in order to get the information. What they cannot do is come in with data that they simply do not understand and assert that these people are the primary applicants that are brought in for the purpose of working. Of course, it is true that someone’s spouse is entitled to a job, and they may not work in the most highly skilled areas. But, more particularly, any leader ought to know, when there is an asterisk that says, ‘Take care,’ that that is what you ought to do.

I am tempted to misuse data myself. In 1996 some parliamentarians were on this list. They must have come in as spouses. You might think, ‘What was the skills shortage there?’ There is a skills shortage in a leader who understands the question. (Time expired)

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

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I point out that one of the families that came in was the Wright family. The minister has been asked these questions before in estimates and on notice. Yesterday I asked her if she could confirm the information on that list. If the minister claims that the information on that list is not representative then I do not know why her department produced it. Can the minister tell us today exactly how many people let into the country in 2004-05 under the so-called skilled 457 visas were caravan park workers, personal assistants, housekeepers, ticket sellers and waiters? How is it that they came in under that visa given that those categories were not listed as being skills shortages in this country?

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

It is an embarrassment. It has been explained to Leader of the Opposition in the Senate that a 457 visa worker has to have particular skills. But they are entitled to bring their partners with them.

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

Senator Chris Evans interjecting—

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

Senator Evans, you are continually shouting across the chamber. If you do it again, I will warn you.

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

They are entitled to bring their partners in. No amount of bluster and bluff will escape the fact that the senator had flow chart information and he did not ask what it was. He did not ask if it showed principal applicants. He did not take any notice of the fact that children were on there. Blind Freddy could tell you that, when there are 12,000 kids on there, it is not principal applicants. But you came in here and misused data—you know you did.

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

Through the chair, Senator Vanstone.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Wong interjecting—

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

And Senator Wong, you ought to know better, unless you were misled. If you try to mislead in this place you will never go back to law.

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

Senator Vanstone, address your remarks through the chair.

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

You will never successfully go back to law.

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

Order! Senator Vanstone, I have asked you continually to address your remarks through the chair. Pointing across the chamber is not a very good way of answering questions. And there is too much noise on my left. Senator Vanstone, you have one second left to complete your answer.

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

I have completed it.

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

Mr President, I raise a point of order. In terms of the list that I referred to, which has 49,000 people on it not including children and partners, I sought leave to table the list and I have not had a response from the government. Can I table the list or not?

Leave granted.