Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Resources and Northern Australia (Senator Canavan) and the Minister for Employment (Senator Cash) to questions without notice asked by Senators Gallacher and Cameron today relating to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and to labour market testing.

I do this reluctantly, Madam Deputy President, particularly after hearing the comments of Senator Leyonhjelm about South Australian politicians and the gratuitous attack that he launched on my home state of South Australia. But I feel I must talk on the issue and that I must respond to some of the things that have occurred in the last few hours in respect of legislative changes in this place.

This morning we saw the Nick Xenophon Team supposedly put water ahead of workers' rights by supporting the so-called ABCC legislation. Of course, as you would know, Madam Deputy President, they have made life very much harder for people who work in the building industry in this country.

But I do not want to focus specifically on that issue, rather on the so-called deal that the Xenophon group got in exchange for voting for this legislation. What the deal seems to be is that it will reduce working conditions for building workers by supporting the ABCC in return for a better deal on water in South Australia. Of course, being a South Australian, I am all for a better deal on water for South Australia—particularly for the Murray-Darling Basin. But let's look at the deal that Senator Xenophon got.

What did he get? Well, the deal is that water will now be discussed at future meetings of COAG. I will repeat that: water will now be discussed at future meetings of COAG. That is the deal that Senator Xenophon and his team got in return for reducing the conditions of building workers in this country. What I think South Australians actually wanted from Senator Xenophon and the other members of the Australian parliament was water, not words. They wanted more water, not more words. I am afraid that what we have from Senator Xenophon and his team is simply words and not water.

What sorts of things could you have got if you were in the position of Senator Xenophon and his team to negotiate this? You could have got an agreement on when the 450 gigalitres of environmental water was going to start flowing down the River Murray. You could have got some sort of agreement on the time frames for improving irrigation and water retention strategies along the River Murray. But what did Senator Xenophon and his team get? They got a promise of discussion on water at COAG. No practical results, no implementation of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and no real and effective outcomes in all of the discussions that Senator Xenophon had.

We asked the question of Senator Canavan today—through Senator Gallacher, a great South Australian senator—and referred to comments made this morning by Senator Birmingham, in particular in relation to the role of Minister Joyce. Has he been sidelined in all of this process—this fantastic discussion that is going to take place at COAG meetings? The answer that Senator Birmingham gave this morning was, 'Nothing has changed'. And that is exactly right! As a result of Senator Xenophon and his team's agreement to reduce the working conditions of building workers as a result of the ABCC legislation, nothing has changed in respect of water.

Former Senator Barnaby Joyce and now Deputy Prime Minister Joyce will continue his role as water minister, he will continue his attacks on South Australians getting a fair share of the water system and he will continue to ensure that the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is not implemented. (Time expired)

Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is indeed the festive season, so I would like to begin by extending my congratulations and, indeed, the congratulations of all coalition senators, to those political interns who have been running the opposition Senate question time tactics committee over the last few weeks!

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A very good point!

Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Macdonald. There is still one more question time, but it is revealing that at a time when there is no shortage of issues confronting our nation that Labor senators on that side seek to confuse and whip up a bit of a fear campaign. Indeed, they try to trawl over an issue such as the Bell Group litigation, only to end up with it all over their faces.

What we have seen this week is the modern Labor Party in bed with big unions. We only have to go back to the Bell Group litigation and the scandalous affairs that rocked the WA Labor government in the eighties to see the danger that arises when big Labor gets into bed with big unions. If there is some time available to me I will come to that point and the findings of that royal commission, which fired a shot across the bow of the modern Labor Party in the late 1980s and in the 1990s.

But let me get to the issue—let me get to the suggestion from Senator Cameron this afternoon that somehow there was this grand conspiracy on the part of the coalition to let foreign workers run amok in our country. It is just a boldfaced lie.

Opposition senators interjecting—

And why is that? Why is it a lie? You could have read in The Daily Telegraph, Senator Dastyari, Senator Carr and Senator Bilyk, exactly why that is a lie.

Senator Dastyari interjecting—

Senator Dastyari, I know that you know what I am about to say. You know that I am about to talk about McDonald's. You know that I am about to talk about Clive Palmer—

Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Stop bringing McDonald's in here!

Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You do, don't you? So let me talk about McDonald's and let me talk about Clive Palmer. The Daily Telegraph article of 29 November makes it crystal clear. I am reading exclusively from page 4 of The Daily Telegraph. It says:

The former Labor government approved more than 800 visas for Chinese workers to fly into Australia and work at a mine linked to magnate Clive Palmer.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What? This is the Labor government?

Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is, and there is more, Senator Macdonald. It is hard to believe, but there is more:

The Daily Telegraph can reveal more than 850 Chinese nationals were given the green light to work at the Sino Iron Project on 457 visas between 2008 and 2013.

At its peak there were 374 people on 457 visas working on the mine with 372 of them Chinese.

MCC Mining (WA) Pty Ltd … was contracted by CITIC Pacific to undertake the procurement for the site.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten was employment minister during a portion of the period when the 457 visas were approved—

at the expense of Australian workers. If you were generous, Senator Macdonald, you might well think that is an isolated incident—a one-off. If you were being generous, you would have been too generous because only the day before in The Daily Telegraph it says under the heading, 'Shorten's foreign visa policy is fried', that Shorten—that is, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Bill Shorten—is attempting to whip up some kind of foreign worker backlash by acting tough on people arriving here on 457 visas. It goes on to say that it emerges that Labor's previous Gillard government, in which Shorten was workplace minister, oversaw a huge increase in the number of foreign workers' 457 visas which were extended even to those working at the likes of McDonald's, KFC and Hungry Jack's.

It is not my place to lecture the modern Labor Party about its industrial relations history, but what is shameful is that the modern Labor Party has drifted so far away—I do not mind; I am big enough to say this—from its foundations and its legacy of genuinely looking after workers' interests and rights. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We were greeted today with yet another example of how this government says one thing and does another. This was the result of a question Senator Cameron asked Senator Cash about the contradictions in her statements about the approach this government was taking to 457 visas and the statements that she had made as the Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. She actually moved an instrument to remove labour market testing with regard to 457 visas as a result of four free trade agreements.

So we have a situation. We have the Prime Minister today making some statements in response to some amendments that were moved last night in the Senate with regard to 457 visas. The Prime Minister has made, I think, two important contributions today. The first was that he has failed to rule out that Senator Brandis will be appointed overseas for a diplomatic post. The urgers, the cheer squads and the apologists within the right-wing press might in fact applaud that move. What they will not applaud is the Prime Minister's second statement today, which was to support a Labor Party amendment which was carried in the Senate last night with regard to 457 visas. The amendment that was moved by Senator Cameron made the observation, in terms of a proposition with regard to the Building Code, that a person should not be employed in undertaking building work unless:

(a) the position is first advertised in Australia; and

(b) the advertising was targeted in such a way that a significant proportion of suitably qualified and experienced Australian citizens and Australian permanent residents (within the meaning of the Migration Act 1958) would be likely to be informed about the position; and

(c) any skills or experience requirements set out in the advertising were appropriate to the position; and

(d) the employer demonstrates that no Australian citizen or Australian permanent resident is suitable for the job.

This is an extraordinary, sweeping amendment which the Senate has agreed to and which the government has accepted.

Of course, that is part of a pattern that has been established in recent times with this government. It is prepared to maintain a position with regard to its economic program, but is now prepared to entirely abandon that if it thinks it can get a vote through the Senate on a bill which essentially been so hollowed out that it bears no real resemblance to the position of the ABCC bill that has been put to this parliament over the last three years. We now have a situation where we essentially have a bill that has the same title but a very different proposition. I think that this is particularly the case with regard to what we see with the procurement question. Nearly $60 billion worth of government procurement right across the whole of government is now being fundamentally rewritten as a result of the interventions in this Senate on this particular matter that I think are very worthwhile.

What has surprised me is that the extreme right-wing elements in the Liberal Party clearly do not understand what they have been drawn into. The cheer squad from the IPA has not got a clue what the implications of these measures are. Of course, the right-wing Murdoch press will froth at the mouth when they understand the full scope of the changes. It is all in the interests of getting a vote in this chamber to smash building workers. This is the Faustian pact which, very disappointingly, from my point of view, has been accepted. Their people are prepared to trade off important questions with regard to manufacturing with the human rights and civil rights of building workers. That is a disappointment to me even if the policy objectives with regard to that I would fully support. It might shock some people on the other side of the chamber that a person like me would support that, but it goes to tell them how far they have gone in their desperate measures to secure a majority here.

So we have a situation now with regard to 457 visas and procurement that this government has essentially accepted a Labor Party agenda in a desperate bid to secure a majority across these benches so they can find the necessary numbers to belt up building workers. There is a tragedy in the fact that the government feels there is some political advantage in undermining the working conditions of building workers, but it is an irony that a government so conservative and so right wing has been obliged to accept such a far-reaching interventionist agenda in a desperate bid to secure its program. (Time expired)

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I address the substantive part of the motion, could I just say in response to Senator Carr that the Senate in its wisdom last night adopted a bill that will help workers in the construction industry. It will attack some people in that industry, and they are the union thugs, the bosses who control the ACTU, who do nothing for the workers. Some of the sanctimonious claptrap I heard last night in the debate—particularly from Greens senators, who for some reason filibustered all the way through the night—was that the bill was about a reduction in safety standards. It has nothing to do with safety standards; it has everything to do with returning law and order to the building and construction industry and getting a fair deal for workers in the industry.

I will move on to the subjects of today, which deal with 457 visas in one case and the Murray-Darling Basin in the other. In relation to 457 visas, Labor should never raise this. As Senator Smith said before me, there were 850 Chinese workers in Australia on 457 visas under Labor's watch and another 374 the next day. The list goes on and on. There are, in fact, fewer workers under 457 visas in Australia now than there were in the days of the 'workers party'—the Australian Labor Party. The most outrageous and well-known of the 457 workers arrived during the time of the Labor government when Ms Gillard was the then Labor Prime Minister of Australia. She imported a 457 worker from Scotland into Australia to run her office. I do not think she did any market testing at the time. I do not think she offered the position to Australian supporters of the Labor Party. She was so bereft of any loyalty or competence in the Labor Party that she had to import someone on a 457 visa to run her office. This just demonstrates that, under the legislation, which was introduced by the former Labor government in 2013, the range of exemptions to labour market testing effectively allowed for anything to happen. It is a fact that, under the Labor Party's labour market testing provisions, an independent review on the integrity of 457 visas found that labour market testing was completely ineffective. This legislation was introduced by Mr Shorten and the Labor government. So anything the Labor Party says about 457 visas can only be taken as a comedy contribution to the Senate.

On the Murray-Darling Basin question, Labor mouths the words about problems there, but unfortunately they never listen to the answers given here. They never listen to the truth about the matter. They never even read the documents and the written answers to questions on notice by the government about the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. The government has said time and time again that it is committed to the delivery of the plan. Senator Canavan in question time today reiterated that on several occasions, as he has done several times during question time this week. In spite of the government's assurances, in spite of the government explaining in detail what it is all about, the Labor Party continue, as is their norm these days, to make allegations that are patently false in the hope that some lazy journalist will pick them up and run with them as a factual story. This government, unlike the Labor government before it, has nothing to be embarrassed about on its administration of 457 visas or the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of the answers to questions that were asked today in question time, particularly the first two questions asked by Labor senators. I want to touch on issues regarding the use and misuse of 457 visas, particularly the issue of market labour market testing. The answer that was provided by the minister was largely around the notion that says: 'It's all going to be okay, even though labour market testing has been removed, because you can trust me; you can take my word for it.' I think that is a very worrying trend and a very worrying direction for us to be heading in with this policy. We have seen time and time again in recent debates in this chamber the misinformation, incorrect information, spin and slant being placed on what is being said. I worry very much that when we start removing protections like labour market testing it ends up becoming a race to the bottom, and that is not a good place for any of us to be.

I specifically want to draw the attention of this chamber to the concerns that we need to have when the minister tells us that we can take her word for it when looking at the situation with the ABCC and the unintended consequences that may or may not now result from the passing of that legislation. We heard from Senator Carr how deal after deal was cut and concession after concession was made in a desperate bid to get this legislation through. We read in the papers that there were random negotiations on matters that had nothing to do with the ABCC legislation, yet those deals were done.

I want to draw the attention of the Senate to the work of the Australian Services Union and the United Services Union, in particular, in trying to limit the scope of what was already a bad piece of legislation. The ABCC bill should not have been passed on its own merits, but the bill itself was made even worse by the minister's failure to clarify the scope of this legislation and what this legislation would mean—to clarify the scope of who would and would not be included. I draw the attention of the chamber to a letter sent on 30 May this year from Mr Robert Potter, at the time Acting National Secretary of the ASU, to Minister Cash, specifically asking whether or not employees in the construction industry in local government would be included and whether or not employees not in construction but in local government—we are talking about librarians, council workers—would be captured by the ABCC. There was no response from the minister, no response at all—not even the courtesy of sending a letter back. We have strong, powerful, important unions—that have been going out of their way to stand up for the rights of their members—unable to get any type of clarification on what the consequences of this legislation would be. The reality is that, perhaps, the government does not even know how far this legislation will reach.

I acknowledge the work of the National Secretary of the ASU, Dave Smith; the Acting Assistant National Secretary, Robert Potter; and the New South Wales Secretary, Graeme Kelly, as well as the many other ASU and USU officials across the country. I hope that when clarification is finally provided on the scope of this legislation we do not find a situation where council employees are being dragged into this. It is bad enough that construction workers are going to be treated as second class citizens; it would be even worse if that were extended to council employees as well. Frankly, when we look at the Building Code and the opportunities for review we need clarification. Unfortunately, the opportunity was not taken by the government to do it at this point. But, certainly, at a minimum, they need to remove the potential for council employees to be dragged into this mess.

Question agreed to.