Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A few weeks ago I met a Singaporean man, Jolovan Wham—or, as he introduced himself, Jo—who was in Australia as a guest of United Voice, Amnesty International and the SEARCH Foundation. Jo came to Australia to share his story and advocate on behalf of one million low-wage migrant workers who contribute so much to Singapore's economy and society. During his visit, Jo met with a range of politicians from across political parties, as well as civil society organisations, NGOs and unions, including Union Aid Abroad, Unions NSW and the Maritime Union of Australia.

Some of Jo's stories on the lack of freedom of expression and assembly in Singapore and the lack of labour rights for migrant workers were truly horrifying. Jo is a social worker and former executive director of the Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics, or HOME. HOME is a Singaporean NGO committed to supporting and empowering migrant workers who suffer abuse and exploitation.

When we think of Singapore, we think of a small South-East Asian island state that has been a dynamic tiger economy for the past 40 years. Singapore is Australia's seventh-largest trading partner and fifth-largest foreign investor. Twenty thousand Australians call Singapore home. The attractiveness of Singapore for many Australian firms is as a tax haven—some Australian companies, like BHP, access concessionary corporate tax rates of just five per cent as a so-called marketing hub for their coal.

Behind the glitz of the corporate world, there is a tragic underbelly in Singapore: the plight of the one million low-wage migrant workers. These workers hail from developing countries across Asia, such as India, Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia. They have travelled to Singapore seeking a chance to make some money to remit to their families. They make up 30 per cent of the Singapore labour force and they're in Singapore on precarious one- or two-year visas which can be cancelled by their employer at any time without showing cause. The one million low-wage migrant workers are crucial to most economic sectors, particularly construction, domestic work, manufacturing, retail services, cleaning and transport, such as buses.

Singapore does not have minimum-wage legislation, and it is not uncommon for migrant workers to be paid as little as $2 per hour, even though Singapore is one of the richest countries, per capita, in the world. Without minimum-wage legislation, wage discrimination by nationality is endemic across industries, with migrants paid significantly less than Singaporeans for similar jobs. The precarious nature of their visas also means that migrant workers face numerous problems arising from lack of social protection, including debts owed to recruitment agencies, sometimes as high as $15,000; restrictions on movement; and confiscation of passports. Further, these workers often experience long working hours and physical, verbal and sexual abuse. The 240,000 female foreign domestic workers are excluded from the Employment Act, which means that they don't get mandatory days off, public holidays, annual leave or limits on their working hours. Domestic workers are also subjected to compulsory six-monthly pregnancy tests.

Unfortunately, there are virtually no independent unions in Singapore, and strikes are essentially not practised. The most recent strike by 100 migrant bus drivers resulted in the deportation of 29 workers, the jailing of four workers, reports of assault in police custody of two workers and reports of surveillance and intimidation of the workers and supporting activists by state intelligence services. It's not just industrial action that is suppressed in Singapore. Freedom of expression and assembly are severely curtailed in Singapore. Singapore's Public Order Act requires a police permit for any cause-related assembly if it is held in a public place, but such permits are routinely denied unless it is held at the government sanctioned space known as Speakers' Corner. Remarkably, the definition of an assembly includes one person acting alone.

The government uses the Public Order Act, the Sedition Act, the Broadcasting Act, the Penal Code and laws on criminal contempt of court to silence dissidents. Opposition parliamentarians face the threat of legal suits from the government and its members. In the past, this has bankrupted politicians, preventing them from running for election. Currently, the only opposition members of parliament face a suit in the courts which has already cost $600,000 in legal fees and in which authorities are seeking $30 million in damages.

Jo Wham has experienced the brunt of Singapore's legal mechanisms to blunt freedom of expression and assembly. Jo was found guilty of scandalising the judiciary for making the following statement on Facebook: 'Malaysian judges are more independent than Singapore's for cases with political implications.' He faces a maximum fine of $100,000 for this offence—for one Facebook post of a basic opinion. Jo has also been charged for: organising a public talk without a permit; organising a tiny protest on a train to commemorate the 30th anniversary of a security crackdown; organising a small public vigil outside a prison complex for a man who was to be executed the next day; and failing to sign police statements, because he wasn't given a copy of those said statements.

It is vital that in this place we call out our friends when their behaviour is not up to scratch. It is vital that, in seeking to defend the rights of migrant workers in our country, we defend the rights of migrant workers across our region. It is vital that, in pursuing our democratic project in Australia, we share strong values of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly with our friends. Of course, without freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, there is little that people in Singapore can do to activate large-scale change in support of migrant workers. I thank Jo Wham for visiting Australia and sharing his story, for sharing the work of the incredible people at HOME and for shining a light on the tragic underbelly in Singapore—the plight of the one million low-paid migrant workers.