David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have previously given a speech saying thank you to smokers. Today I want to thank another group of Australians who may be ignored or worse, but who make a great contribution to Australia. Let me say thank you to Australia's young brown men.

The young brown men I come across in my day-to-day life are often in low-paid jobs. They drive me in their Ubers and taxis. They deliver my online purchases, my groceries and my pizza. They serve me at my local 7-Eleven, at my local service station and at my local restaurants. Many of these young brown men have only been in Australia for a decade or so, and they are giving it a go, just like previous generations of young migrants. The countries of origin have changed, with previous generations coming from Vietnam and, before that, Europe, while our latest wave of young migrants are more often from the subcontinent and the Middle East, but the willingness to give it a go is the same.

Australia's young brown men are typically the ones who turn up their sleeves in the face of jobs that many other Aussies would turn up their noses at or would not turn up at all for. They do all this without whinging about a brown pay gap, even though, if there were any data, it would show a gap that is absolutely huge. Immigrants from greater Asia and the Middle East, both male and female, are disproportionately overrepresented in low-paying jobs in this country. Some are doing English courses, although some have better English than many graduates from the school system. Some are studying in new fields or are trying to get their existing qualifications recognised.

Up to 40 per cent of recent immigrants are overqualified for the work they are doing. Overeducation is greatest for immigrants from non-English-speaking backgrounds. According to the latest census, just 24 per cent of young educated migrants from non-English-speaking backgrounds were able to find professional-level jobs within five years of arriving here, compared to 50 per cent of those from mainly-English-speaking countries. Australia may be squandering the talent pool of its young brown men and women.

A contributing factor is likely to be racial discrimination in employment. A Curtin University study last year found that skilled migrants experience an unwillingness by Australian employers to hire them, and many often end up working in lower-skilled jobs than the jobs they had before migrating to Australia. Some of the examples in the report were: an engineer working as a technician; a vocational school teacher working as a cleaner and packer; a geologist working in aged care; and a mechanical engineer employed as a security officer. Anyone who is a regular user of Uber and has a habit of chatting to their driver will hear similar tales. Of the 508 skilled migrants interviewed in the study, more than 53 per cent were working in a job that was of lower skill than the job they had prior to migrating, but they are working nonetheless.

Racial discrimination in employment is against the law but, in practice, such discrimination will only recede in time. In the meantime, our young brown men and women are patiently plugging away to make a living, and I thank them for this. Roughly half of our immigrant community is brown, so I have no qualms in repeating my thanks to the young brown men and women of Australia. Thank you. Through your hard work, you are doing what Australians have always done and, in the process, changing the complexion of Australia for the better.