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. Can the minister confirm that in the year she became minister for immigration all 457 visa sponsors were monitored for compliance with visa conditions? Is it also the case that in that year more than a quarter of all work sites employing 457 visa holders were visited by the department? Is it true that last year less than two-thirds of all 457 visa sponsors were monitored for compliance and a mere 18 per cent of sites where 457 visa holders worked were inspected? Can the minister explain why, at a time of increasingly disturbing publicity about 457 visa rorts, her department is visiting less than one in five work sites?

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

I am glad that senators opposite do in fact look at the DIMA annual report, which was tabled yesterday if not the day before. It is true that we have for a long time had a very high level of visits, around 100 per cent—for monitoring, at least—and that the visits would tend to be in the 25 per cent mark. The number of sponsors monitored in 2005-06 did fall from 7,963 to 6,471, while the number of site visits fell from 1,845 to 1,790. The annual report does show that the percentage of sponsors monitored fell from 96 per cent to 65 per cent—the target that we work on is 100 per cent—while the number of site visits fell from 22 per cent to 18 per cent. Our target there is 25 per cent. They are the percentages from the overall figures that I have given you.

Resources were diverted to investigate an increase in allegations—not all, of course, of which have been found to be warranted. In doing this we have targeted resources to higher risk industries, for example restaurants and construction. It used to be the case many years ago in Customs, for example, that every package of goods would be looked at. But people recognise in compliance that targeted work generally produces better results than a blanket ‘visit everybody’ approach.

Chris Ellison (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, it does.

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

I hear Senator Ellison saying it does. Compliance does that. Tax target where they are going to work—they actually publish: ‘We’re going to focus on this group next year,’ because focusing your work on the higher risk areas will give you a more effective result. And that is what we have done.

Our work, of course, would be aided if we did not have false allegations; if we did not have people saying, for example, that Indonesian workers were working at Halliburton in the north of South Australia getting paid $20 to $30 a day—only to find out, after investigation and effort by a whole range of agencies, that they were getting $20 to $30 a day in bonuses, that their salaries were up around $60,000 a year and they were only there for three weeks to do some specialist work. I have raised before my interest in the person who is digitised out in the Advertiser photograph covering that story; it says something about the source of it. But the general point I am making to you, Senator, is: if people insist on making false allegations we will still have to investigate them.

But I do not offer that as an excuse, and what I give you as an explanation is we are more closely focusing our work. In any event, I have been working within government to get more resources, and I believe I have been successful in that. We may be able to put even more resources in, but I can assure you they will not be just cast around across the board; they will be very well focused.

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

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Hasn’t 457 visa compliance fallen every year since Senator Vanstone became the minister for immigration? How could the minister have allowed this to happen at a time when evidence of abuse of the 457 visa is growing? Will the minister now commit to a full review of the integrity of the 457 visa system?

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

Senator, it is clear that I did not speak in plain enough English. What I said to you was that I confirmed that the number of monitoring letters—which is what happens in terms of the monitoring and site visits—had gone down, but that does not mean that you have actually done less in compliance. As I have indicated to you, there is a focus on targeting particular industries, and we think that gives a better result. I mean, if the police knock on 100 doors and do not get a result, you will not say they have done less if they knock on 50 doors that are more targeted and find the perpetrator. So I am interested in shifting the immigration work to have a more targeted focus. I do not accept that the proposition that I think you put, by simply not having had the opportunity for a briefing which I am happy to give you on 457 visas, means that less work is being done. I make that point again: it would be a lot easier if the Labor Party and the union movement, in a desire to attack IR laws, did not make false allegations—about which I will have more to say later. (Time expired)