WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.220 today's session for the Adelaide Festival of Ideas. My name is Suzanne Lemire, I'm the 2 00:00:06.220 --> 00:00:12.140 Dean of Law from the Adelaide Law School and I'm very pleased to welcome you today to the 3 00:00:12.140 --> 00:00:19.620 session in a post-Brexit world. I acknowledge here today that we are gathered on the traditional 4 00:00:19.620 --> 00:00:25.260 country of the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains. We recognise and respect their cultural 5 00:00:25.260 --> 00:00:30.440 heritage, beliefs and relationships with the land. We acknowledge that these are of continuing 6 00:00:30.440 --> 00:00:37.420 importance to those Kaurna people living today and we pay tribute to their elders past and present. 7 00:00:38.640 --> 00:00:43.300 Can I please remind you if you haven't already switched off your mobile phone please do so 8 00:00:43.300 --> 00:00:47.600 and you are welcome to connect with the festival. The tweet handle is 9 00:00:47.600 --> 00:00:54.340 at ADLFOI. Hashtag is hashtag ADLFOI. 10 00:00:55.260 --> 00:00:58.920 And Instagram is also at ADLFOI. 11 00:01:00.200 --> 00:01:05.320 Today's session is being audio recorded by Radio Adelaide for broadcast and future podcasts. 12 00:01:05.940 --> 00:01:13.220 And basically we're going to, Joanne is going to present to you first and then we've saved a little 13 00:01:13.220 --> 00:01:17.780 time for questions from the audience and you'll see there's a microphone set up for you 14 00:01:17.780 --> 00:01:21.480 about halfway down on the on your left hand side. 15 00:01:22.720 --> 00:01:25.180 So it is my very great pleasure to 16 00:01:25.260 --> 00:01:33.180 introduce you to my wonderful colleague Dr. Joanna Howe who's a senior lecturer of law at the University of Adelaide and consultant with 17 00:01:33.180 --> 00:01:38.600 Harmer's Workplace Lawyers. Joanna came to us with a doctorate of philosophy in 18 00:01:38.600 --> 00:01:43.320 law from the University of Oxford where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar. She's 19 00:01:43.320 --> 00:01:46.920 also worked as a consultant for the International Labour Organization, the 20 00:01:46.920 --> 00:01:51.220 Mackell Institute and for the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency. 21 00:01:52.900 --> 00:01:54.720 Joanna is the leading Australian 22 00:01:54.720 --> 00:01:59.400 expert on the legal regulation of temporary labour migration. She's project 23 00:01:59.400 --> 00:02:04.220 leader on a number of significant national research grants including one 24 00:02:04.220 --> 00:02:07.520 for the horticulture industry and another for the Fair Work Ombudsman 25 00:02:07.520 --> 00:02:11.560 examining the experience of international students in the Australian workplace. 26 00:02:13.480 --> 00:02:18.020 Joanna is the author of three books and her work is internationally recognised. 27 00:02:18.520 --> 00:02:23.240 Her edited collection Temporary Labour Migration in the Global Era is the 28 00:02:23.240 --> 00:02:24.700 seminal international work on the international labour migration. She's also a member of the Australian Labor Association and is the 29 00:02:24.720 --> 00:02:50.900 former 30 00:02:50.900 --> 00:02:52.820 together international labour experts. 31 00:02:53.940 --> 00:02:58.880 Joanna's regularly invited to present evidence to Australian parliamentary inquiries and 32 00:02:58.880 --> 00:03:01.720 reviews into Australia's temporary labour migration program. 33 00:03:02.820 --> 00:03:08.020 Her recommendations regarding the 457 visa program have been accepted by successive federal 34 00:03:08.020 --> 00:03:09.700 governments and inquiries. 35 00:03:11.120 --> 00:03:15.520 She's a regular media commentator, having given expert evidence on Four Corners and 36 00:03:15.520 --> 00:03:19.500 7.30 and is regularly commissioned to write for the Sydney Morning Herald, the Melbourne 37 00:03:19.500 --> 00:03:21.180 Age and the Australian newspapers. 38 00:03:22.320 --> 00:03:26.820 She is the recipient of the University of Adelaide's Women's Research Excellence Award 39 00:03:26.820 --> 00:03:27.620 for 2015. 40 00:03:28.380 --> 00:03:31.560 So without further ado, please welcome Joanna Howe. 41 00:03:36.720 --> 00:03:40.140 Thank you, Suzanne, and thank you to everybody for coming today. 42 00:03:40.720 --> 00:03:45.380 As the daughter of an immigrant, I know firsthand the transformative powers of immigration. 43 00:03:46.020 --> 00:03:48.900 My father left India in his late teens for England. 44 00:03:48.900 --> 00:03:52.260 With only the money in his suitcase when he arrived. 45 00:03:52.740 --> 00:03:57.720 In England, he worked three jobs while studying and ultimately he worked his way up to the 46 00:03:57.720 --> 00:03:59.540 senior management of an IT company. 47 00:03:59.920 --> 00:04:04.340 And all through that time, he sent money back home and ultimately was able to bring out 48 00:04:04.340 --> 00:04:08.300 seven of his eight brothers and sisters who followed him to the West. 49 00:04:09.160 --> 00:04:14.600 He worked hard, as immigrants often do, because they want that opportunity for a better life. 50 00:04:15.340 --> 00:04:17.680 In England, he met my mother on a blind date. 51 00:04:17.780 --> 00:04:18.860 They had three children. 52 00:04:18.900 --> 00:04:21.800 They immigrated to Australia as part of a job transfer. 53 00:04:22.220 --> 00:04:24.980 And for my family, the rest became our history. 54 00:04:25.480 --> 00:04:32.500 I often think that but for my father's courageous journey, my life and indeed that of my three 55 00:04:32.500 --> 00:04:34.640 children would be very, very different. 56 00:04:35.480 --> 00:04:40.040 Every time I get into a cab and I talk to an Indian taxi driver, of which there are 57 00:04:40.040 --> 00:04:47.060 many, many of whom have first come to Australia as international students, I reflect upon 58 00:04:47.060 --> 00:04:48.440 the fact that for my dad. 59 00:04:48.900 --> 00:04:53.440 I'm making that journey from India to England over 50 years ago, how hard it must have been 60 00:04:53.440 --> 00:04:55.880 and how many challenges he must have faced. 61 00:04:56.360 --> 00:05:01.480 And when I talk to Indian cab drivers, they talk about their aspirations and their dreams 62 00:05:01.480 --> 00:05:02.460 for a better life here. 63 00:05:03.880 --> 00:05:09.620 Labor migration that is traveling from one country to another is a well for the purposes 64 00:05:09.620 --> 00:05:15.500 of work is a well-established route to citizenship and an established practice of host nations 65 00:05:15.500 --> 00:05:18.060 like Australia, the US, the UK and Canada. 66 00:05:18.140 --> 00:05:18.880 To deal with the challenges of the future. 67 00:05:18.880 --> 00:05:23.420 To deal with that phenomenon of an aging population and lowering birth rates. 68 00:05:24.540 --> 00:05:29.400 In Australia, the rhetoric around labor migration is usually far more positive than it is around 69 00:05:29.400 --> 00:05:29.880 refugees. 70 00:05:30.660 --> 00:05:35.840 In a speech last year to the Australian Press Gallery when Scott Morrison was the Minister 71 00:05:35.840 --> 00:05:42.740 for Immigration, he talked about 457 visa holders as the right kind of immigrant, job 72 00:05:42.740 --> 00:05:47.720 seekers, not center link seekers, which I guess was his not so subtle job at refugees. 73 00:05:49.220 --> 00:06:00.920 Which were not at profit. 74 00:06:00.920 --> 00:06:02.020 Which were not profit. 75 00:06:02.020 --> 00:06:02.560 Which were not profit. 76 00:06:03.280 --> 00:06:03.880 Which were not profit. 77 00:06:04.020 --> 00:06:05.140 Which were not profit. 78 00:06:05.140 --> 00:06:05.320 Which were not profit. 79 00:06:05.340 --> 00:06:05.440 Which were not profit. 80 00:06:05.520 --> 00:06:06.180 Which were not profit. 81 00:06:06.520 --> 00:06:07.300 Which were not profit. 82 00:06:07.880 --> 00:06:08.580 Which were not profit. 83 00:06:11.820 --> 00:06:13.980 Which were not profit. 84 00:06:14.040 --> 00:06:15.560 Which were not profit. 85 00:06:15.560 --> 00:06:22.420 rhetoric of international economic institutions. People are uncertain that globalisation delivers 86 00:06:22.420 --> 00:06:27.640 all that it promises. They're concerned that free trade and the increased movement of people 87 00:06:27.640 --> 00:06:32.480 around the world for work is anything more than a smokescreen for helping big business, but 88 00:06:32.480 --> 00:06:39.500 not the rest of us. So partly fuelled by the politics of fear, but also because of genuine 89 00:06:39.500 --> 00:06:45.280 problems with the way host countries manage their labour migration policy, we are now beginning to 90 00:06:45.280 --> 00:06:54.080 rethink our support for labour migration. In my talk today, I want to unpack this. In a post-Brexit 91 00:06:54.080 --> 00:06:59.320 world, how can we manage labour migration without succumbing to the politics of fear? 92 00:07:00.380 --> 00:07:06.120 So let's deal with the fear issue first. Typified by Trump's idea of building a wall, 93 00:07:06.260 --> 00:07:10.620 or Hansen's anti-Asian or anti-Muslim immigration sentiment, depending on the decade, 94 00:07:10.820 --> 00:07:14.940 or the Brexit debate, we know there will always be politicians 95 00:07:14.940 --> 00:07:19.380 who want to inspire fear of foreign workers in order to get votes. 96 00:07:20.500 --> 00:07:25.780 But it's not just limited to independent, non-establishment politicians like Hansen, 97 00:07:26.420 --> 00:07:31.840 but something that both major parties can be guilty of. For example, in Britain just last week, 98 00:07:31.900 --> 00:07:36.800 the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, at the Conservative conference, she said foreign 99 00:07:36.800 --> 00:07:42.100 workers should not be able to take jobs that British workers should do, which is reminiscent 100 00:07:42.100 --> 00:07:44.900 of something our own Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, said. 101 00:07:44.940 --> 00:07:49.360 Back in 2013, when she went to Rudy Hill, which is a quintessentially working-class 102 00:07:49.360 --> 00:07:54.980 suburb in New South Wales, and she went there and in a crowded hall, she told them in no 103 00:07:54.980 --> 00:08:01.100 uncertain terms that 457 visa workers must get to the back of the queue and Aussie workers 104 00:08:01.100 --> 00:08:06.680 to the front. And of course, the tabloids had a field day. Maybe we agree with that 105 00:08:06.680 --> 00:08:12.720 sentiment, that Australians should get the first opportunity at job vacancies in Australia. 106 00:08:13.780 --> 00:08:14.920 But it's the rest of the world that's going to be the first opportunity. And I'm not 107 00:08:14.940 --> 00:08:15.860 going to take the job vacancies. It's going to be the rest of the world that's going to 108 00:08:15.860 --> 00:08:16.580 take the job vacancies. It's going to be the rest of the world that's going to take the job vacancies. 109 00:08:16.660 --> 00:08:22.980 It implies that foreign workers are stealing jobs, that they are to blame for local unemployment, 110 00:08:23.360 --> 00:08:29.360 that they knowingly and underhandedly try to make things worse for the rest of us. 111 00:08:30.240 --> 00:08:34.540 The truth, as Amber Rudd and Julia Gillard should know, is somewhat more nuanced. 112 00:08:34.860 --> 00:08:40.460 It's usually poor government choices and regulation that sets up systems and processes 113 00:08:40.460 --> 00:08:44.920 which allow labour migration to be managed to meet the needs of big people. 114 00:08:44.940 --> 00:08:49.660 business and employers. Governments choose to manage it in this way, using temporary migrant 115 00:08:49.660 --> 00:08:54.860 workers as cogs in the wheels of global capitalism, without real regard for whether the migrant 116 00:08:54.860 --> 00:09:00.600 workers themselves are better off or whether local jobs, wages and opportunities are protected. 117 00:09:01.520 --> 00:09:05.960 The fault usually lies at the door of poor government regulation and choices, 118 00:09:06.220 --> 00:09:10.680 not individual migrant workers who are mostly just doing what the rest of us are doing, 119 00:09:10.680 --> 00:09:17.200 trying to make their lives better. Indeed, one of the biggest issues in the Brexit debate was 120 00:09:17.200 --> 00:09:23.360 around this EU notion of free movement of people. When Britain joined the EU, they joined that 121 00:09:23.360 --> 00:09:28.600 common economic zone within the European Union. And as part of that, as part of the benefits of 122 00:09:28.600 --> 00:09:33.180 that, they had to open their borders up so that there would be a free movement of people. 123 00:09:33.660 --> 00:09:40.380 And this was, singularly, a really contentious issue within the debate, 124 00:09:40.680 --> 00:09:47.380 around Brexit. This concern that these EU citizens were coming to Britain and stealing 125 00:09:47.380 --> 00:09:52.280 jobs and stealing welfare and resulting in decreasing living standards for everybody. 126 00:09:53.380 --> 00:09:59.920 And a new book by Gary Gibbons just last week, who's a UK political writer, he reveals how the 127 00:09:59.920 --> 00:10:07.840 Vote Leave campaign manipulated fears around labour migration to mobilise voters to vote for 128 00:10:07.840 --> 00:10:10.660 Brexit. So the Vote Leave campaign, which is a very important campaign, is a very important 129 00:10:10.660 --> 00:10:11.400 campaign. And it's a very important campaign. And it's a very important campaign. And it's a very 130 00:10:11.400 --> 00:10:15.940 They constantly praised the Australian point system for labour immigration. They said it was the best 131 00:10:15.940 --> 00:10:21.320 example of labour immigration practice. And they suggested that Britain should resolve from the 132 00:10:21.320 --> 00:10:27.020 free movement of people, but should introduce a point system. Even though they knew that that 133 00:10:27.020 --> 00:10:31.360 particular policy wouldn't work for Britain in terms of its demography or its geography, 134 00:10:31.620 --> 00:10:37.080 but they pushed it nonetheless because focus group testing showed that Britain, British working 135 00:10:37.080 --> 00:10:40.640 class voters, when they thought of Australia, they thought of it as predominantly, not just 136 00:10:40.660 --> 00:10:46.880 predominantly white, not black. And so these Vote Leave campaigners used the point system policy 137 00:10:46.880 --> 00:10:53.040 in the campaign, not because it had any particular relevance. And indeed, it had no particular merit 138 00:10:53.040 --> 00:11:01.800 for Britain. But it was a very, very effective campaign tool. So Brexit, Trump's wall and Hanson's 139 00:11:01.800 --> 00:11:08.380 anti-immigration rhetoric, they throw up what the sociologist Stanley Collins calls folk devils. 140 00:11:08.640 --> 00:11:10.360 These are scapegoats. 141 00:11:10.660 --> 00:11:14.420 Who can personify and take the blame for problems that are indeed very complex. 142 00:11:15.500 --> 00:11:19.540 Brexit is being read off as an instruction to curb the number of immigrants. 143 00:11:19.960 --> 00:11:23.320 Though all the economic data, both in Australia and internationally, 144 00:11:23.840 --> 00:11:27.620 shows that labour immigrants are net contributors to society. 145 00:11:29.320 --> 00:11:33.840 But the currency of the politics of fear is fear, not facts. 146 00:11:35.020 --> 00:11:40.580 But I don't think that attributing anti-immigration sentiment only to the politics of fear is 147 00:11:40.580 --> 00:11:46.000 quite right. It's not the whole story to say that anybody who is anti-labour immigration 148 00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:52.120 is bigoted, fearful or small-minded. The truth is, Australia does have a major problem with 149 00:11:52.120 --> 00:11:56.920 its labour immigration system. It's cobbled together, being held up at the seams and it's 150 00:11:56.920 --> 00:12:03.120 not fit for purpose. While its aim to make lives easier for employers, it often doesn't. 151 00:12:03.120 --> 00:12:09.840 But it also doesn't protect local jobs, local wages and local opportunities. It opens the 152 00:12:09.840 --> 00:12:14.940 door to exploitation of temporary migrant workers. It's a long way from being the triple 153 00:12:14.940 --> 00:12:20.280 win that it's meant to be. It's not surprising, therefore, that there's growing community 154 00:12:20.280 --> 00:12:22.880 concern and anxiety around labour migration. 155 00:12:25.340 --> 00:12:30.400 Today I want to talk about three things we can do to make labour immigration work better 156 00:12:30.400 --> 00:12:36.460 in Australia. I think that if we do these things, it will lead to less fear and more 157 00:12:36.460 --> 00:12:39.740 facts being in our national discourse around labour immigration. 158 00:12:39.840 --> 00:12:44.760 It will lead to greater national respect and regard for migrant workers and it will 159 00:12:44.760 --> 00:12:50.720 lead to more public confidence that the system actually works. To do this, we need to understand 160 00:12:50.720 --> 00:12:56.500 why the system is broken. The first problem with our current approach is that we have 161 00:12:56.500 --> 00:13:01.780 no proper mechanism to identify where skill shortages exist in the Australian economy. 162 00:13:02.880 --> 00:13:08.780 So when someone like Hanson or someone in, just an ordinary person on the street says, 163 00:13:08.780 --> 00:13:14.100 migrant workers are stealing local jobs, this actually could be true because the current 164 00:13:14.100 --> 00:13:19.860 system allows it to happen. The visa we have which allows skilled temporary migrant workers 165 00:13:19.860 --> 00:13:25.960 to come to Australia is the 457 visa. It's officially designed in the legislation to 166 00:13:25.960 --> 00:13:32.980 meet genuine skill shortages. Yet we have no concrete regulatory mechanism to identify 167 00:13:32.980 --> 00:13:38.600 where the skill shortages actually exist. So if an employer wants to bring in a temporary 168 00:13:38.600 --> 00:13:44.360 pre-migrant worker on the 457 visa, all they have to do is make sure that the occupation is listed 169 00:13:44.360 --> 00:13:51.560 on this thing called the Consolidated Sponsored Occupations List, the CSOL for short. Now unlike 170 00:13:51.560 --> 00:13:56.640 Canada which has about 30 occupations on their shortage list or Germany which has four occupations, 171 00:13:56.760 --> 00:14:04.900 Australia has 600 occupations on this CSOL, many of which are not actually in shortage. In fact 172 00:14:04.900 --> 00:14:09.920 they're occupations like teaching, nursing, the law and accounting, occupations where in most 173 00:14:09.920 --> 00:14:17.040 metropolitan cities Australian university graduates are struggling to find jobs. We say that the 457 174 00:14:17.040 --> 00:14:22.900 visa can only be used if there is a genuine skill shortage but the mechanism we use to test this is 175 00:14:22.900 --> 00:14:29.500 incredibly easy to evade. So in 2013 after Harudi Hill's speech, Gillard's government introduced 176 00:14:29.500 --> 00:14:34.800 something called Employer Conducted Labour Market Testing. This requires that any employer 177 00:14:34.800 --> 00:14:41.660 wanting to hire a 457 visa holder has to first advertise the job to local workers. Theoretically 178 00:14:41.660 --> 00:14:47.480 it's a good idea but it's incredibly ineffective as a regulatory measure. In fact it's a measure 179 00:14:47.480 --> 00:14:53.580 that we used between 1996 and 2002 and Senate reports showed that it didn't work so we got rid 180 00:14:53.580 --> 00:14:59.940 of Employer Conducted Labour Market Testing. But you know they introduced it again in 2013 without 181 00:14:59.940 --> 00:15:04.660 looking back. The biggest farce though is that the Department of Immigration's own advice 182 00:15:04.660 --> 00:15:11.380 to employers is that a Facebook ad will suffice as labour market testing. So all an employer has 183 00:15:11.380 --> 00:15:18.020 to do is throw up an advertisement on Facebook for one week and then that's enough to say that 184 00:15:18.020 --> 00:15:23.920 there is no qualified Australian worker who can fill that vacancy and the application for the 185 00:15:23.920 --> 00:15:29.740 457 visa holder gets the big red tick from the Department. So a temporary migrant worker can 186 00:15:29.740 --> 00:15:34.640 replace local jobs but I guess the question you might then ask is why would employers 187 00:15:34.660 --> 00:15:39.840 go to all that trouble? There's more paperwork involved in getting a temporary migrant worker. 188 00:15:39.980 --> 00:15:45.300 There's a few one-off costs to do with application fees. Although if the worker is already in Australia 189 00:15:45.300 --> 00:15:50.200 as increasingly they are what it means is the employer doesn't have to pay for airfares which 190 00:15:50.200 --> 00:15:56.000 is of course a big cost. The evidence shows there's a whole range of motivations why an employer would 191 00:15:56.000 --> 00:16:03.060 prefer to get a 457 visa holder over an Australian worker. Just yesterday a case was handed down in 192 00:16:03.060 --> 00:16:04.640 the Federal Court. Penalty was given to an Australian worker who was a 457 visa holder. 193 00:16:04.660 --> 00:16:09.460 The employer was penalising a labour hire company $100,000 for only employing Asian backpackers 194 00:16:09.460 --> 00:16:14.700 because the boss of that particular company favoured Asian backpackers over local Australians 195 00:16:14.700 --> 00:16:20.080 because they were too old and too slow. She actually told the court that. Certainly there's 196 00:16:20.080 --> 00:16:24.700 a perception that temporary migrant workers will work harder and be more motivated. They'll work 197 00:16:24.700 --> 00:16:29.820 longer. They'll be far less likely to be unionised. They're far less likely to complain to the 198 00:16:29.820 --> 00:16:34.640 authorities or to question the employer's orders. They'll also work harder and be more motivated. 199 00:16:34.660 --> 00:16:40.680 They'll work harder in the hope that they'll get permanent residency. Our migration system gives too much 200 00:16:40.680 --> 00:16:46.400 power to employers to control the lives and futures of temporary migrant workers and that's a leverage 201 00:16:46.400 --> 00:16:53.520 that Australian employers do not have over local workers and that leverage can be used to maximise 202 00:16:53.520 --> 00:16:59.040 profits for employers. The easiest route into Australia is via employer sponsorship through 203 00:16:59.040 --> 00:17:03.640 the 457 visa or through the employer nomination program for the permanent scheme. 204 00:17:04.700 --> 00:17:10.160 And this creates a double bind for migrant workers who really need that sponsorship to stay. 205 00:17:11.960 --> 00:17:16.520 So one of the cases that I've looked at in my research is the situation of Mr Farsday 206 00:17:16.520 --> 00:17:22.720 who's an engineer whose employer agreed to sponsor him for permanent residency. In return 207 00:17:22.720 --> 00:17:28.760 the employer compelled Mr Farsday to work unpaid overtime to perform menial and other 208 00:17:28.760 --> 00:17:33.600 tasks unrelated to his job as an engineer. So he was required to chauffeur around the 209 00:17:33.600 --> 00:17:34.640 boss's son, pick him up on the way to work and then he was forced to leave the house 210 00:17:34.660 --> 00:17:38.040 and come up from the airport, take him to his social gigs. He was even asked to work 211 00:17:38.040 --> 00:17:42.920 on the employer's farm. Now when Mr Farsday actually dared to complain about this and 212 00:17:42.920 --> 00:17:47.080 to say look all the other Australian workers don't seem to have to do these extra jobs 213 00:17:47.080 --> 00:17:53.140 and in fact they get paid more than me, the boss's response was to sack him. Mr Farsday 214 00:17:53.140 --> 00:17:59.680 as a result had 90 days under the 457 visa to look for a new job. He couldn't find a 215 00:17:59.680 --> 00:18:04.220 new job in 90 days. It takes local Australians a long time to find new work, let alone a 216 00:18:04.220 --> 00:18:09.200 foreign worker without the connections and networks. So he was sent home and deported. 217 00:18:09.300 --> 00:18:13.900 He lost his application for permanent residency because he no longer had an employer to sponsor 218 00:18:13.900 --> 00:18:21.140 him. So despite his huge investment in that company and in working very very hard, ultimately 219 00:18:21.140 --> 00:18:26.380 he was sent home because he complained. The Fair Work Commission, he bought an unfair 220 00:18:26.380 --> 00:18:31.280 dismissal claim but the Fair Work Commission couldn't reinstate him and they gave him some 221 00:18:31.280 --> 00:18:33.080 money, a small amount of money as compensation. 222 00:18:33.080 --> 00:18:40.140 But in that situation it shows that really the employer was able to leverage that situation 223 00:18:40.140 --> 00:18:45.540 to get a lot more out of that worker and when the worker dared to voice concern about it, 224 00:18:45.600 --> 00:18:50.240 the biggest consequence was faced by him, not by the employer even though it was the 225 00:18:50.240 --> 00:18:56.060 employer that was in the wrong. So given that employers can have all kinds of motives for 226 00:18:56.060 --> 00:19:01.940 wanting to hire a 457 visa holder and recognising that most employers in Australia are good 227 00:19:01.940 --> 00:19:03.060 and would not seek to do the same for their employees, they are not going to be able to do that. So I think that's a good thing. 228 00:19:03.080 --> 00:19:06.760 We have a lot of work to do to do this but we do know that it occurs. I think we need 229 00:19:06.760 --> 00:19:12.040 to have a robust and independent labour market testing mechanism to identify which occupations 230 00:19:12.040 --> 00:19:17.100 are in shortage. I think this decision is too important to delegate to employees and 231 00:19:17.100 --> 00:19:22.140 indeed the OECD says that employers are not a reliable indicator of which occupations 232 00:19:22.140 --> 00:19:27.100 are in shortage because they have a profit maximising goal whereas the national interest 233 00:19:27.100 --> 00:19:29.240 seeks to meet a broader set of objectives. 234 00:19:33.080 --> 00:19:37.300 And one independent inquiry led by Jon Azarius that have each accepted this recommendation 235 00:19:37.300 --> 00:19:42.160 that are put to the Government on independent labour market testing but unfortunately it's 236 00:19:42.160 --> 00:19:46.300 still an area where they have not fixed it. They have been unwilling to devote resources 237 00:19:46.300 --> 00:19:53.340 to it. As a result the integrity of our 457 visa is seriously compromised and it opens 238 00:19:53.340 --> 00:19:58.380 the door for politicians who peddle fear to legitimately claim that foreign workers are 239 00:19:58.380 --> 00:19:59.220 taking Aussie jobs. 240 00:20:00.580 --> 00:20:03.060 The second reason the problem is broken. The second reason why it is not profit maximising 241 00:20:03.060 --> 00:20:08.700 sorry the second reason the system is broken is because it is riddled with the exploitation of 242 00:20:08.700 --> 00:20:14.520 temporary migrant workers now we don't know how many temporary migrant workers are being exploited 243 00:20:14.520 --> 00:20:21.500 I remember appearing before the senate in 2013 when Brendan O'Connor was the minister for 244 00:20:21.500 --> 00:20:27.660 employment and he'd made this claim that there were 10,000 incidences of rorts within the temporary 245 00:20:27.660 --> 00:20:32.200 labour migration system and you know sadly the senate because it was the senate committee because 246 00:20:32.200 --> 00:20:36.920 it was concerned about the politics of this was really trying to pin down me and anyone who 247 00:20:36.920 --> 00:20:42.700 presented to sort of quantify how big and how many are the rorts now it is impossible to know it's 248 00:20:42.700 --> 00:20:47.400 impossible to work that stuff out we don't have the resources to monitor every single workplace 249 00:20:47.400 --> 00:20:54.360 and to know this but we do know that in Australia there's over a million temporary migrant workers 250 00:20:54.360 --> 00:20:59.860 out of a workforce of 11 million so almost one-tenth of the Australian workforce of temporary 251 00:20:59.860 --> 00:21:00.560 migrant workers 252 00:21:01.280 --> 00:21:02.180 and we don't 253 00:21:02.200 --> 00:21:07.260 know through the media and through the cases being brought by the Fair Work Ombudsman that there is a 254 00:21:07.260 --> 00:21:13.200 significant problem with exploitation to do with underpayments unpaid work and threats and bullying 255 00:21:15.080 --> 00:21:20.940 it's not just the the stuff that makes the news like 7-11 last year the problems are much deeper 256 00:21:20.940 --> 00:21:27.480 and more endemic and I argue in my own research that the real cause of this exploitation is that 257 00:21:27.480 --> 00:21:32.180 government regulation imposes prohibitive visa conditions placing extra money on the government 258 00:21:32.200 --> 00:21:33.640 under pressure on temporary migrant workers 259 00:21:33.640 --> 00:21:37.260 so I don't say it's the whole cause but it's certainly part of the story 260 00:21:37.940 --> 00:21:47.300 under the migration act if a visa holder breaches a work condition in their visa they don't get a simple slap on the wrist or a fine or a penalty 261 00:21:47.300 --> 00:21:50.780 it can actually lead to their visa being cancelled and them being 262 00:21:50.780 --> 00:21:51.280 deported 263 00:21:51.280 --> 00:21:58.540 so this led to the 7-11 situation where international students were coerced by their bosses to work over 264 00:21:58.540 --> 00:22:02.180 that limit to 40 hours per fortnight which they are allowed under 7-11 to profit profit profit profit 265 00:22:02.180 --> 00:22:07.920 their visa and once they worked over 40 hours their boss would threaten to expose them to the 266 00:22:07.920 --> 00:22:13.340 Department of Immigration and send them home. And because the Department of Immigration doesn't 267 00:22:13.340 --> 00:22:19.520 release statistics on how many workers get deported every year there's a whole lot of fear in the 268 00:22:19.520 --> 00:22:25.640 minds of temporary migrant workers and a whole lot of uncertainty around can I actually speak up and 269 00:22:25.640 --> 00:22:31.180 talk to the authorities. Just this week I did focus groups with international students here in Adelaide 270 00:22:31.180 --> 00:22:36.900 and a number of the students who were from China and Russia said we would never go to a government 271 00:22:36.900 --> 00:22:42.160 authority to say that we're being paid nine dollars an hour or to say that we're forced to handle hot 272 00:22:42.160 --> 00:22:46.020 water and we get burnt and we're told to deal with it and they just said we've just got this fear of 273 00:22:46.020 --> 00:22:50.620 government and we just wouldn't do it. And so there's a lot of barriers around visa conditions, 274 00:22:50.800 --> 00:22:58.660 around fears, around different laws in these people's home countries. In one heartbreaking 275 00:22:58.660 --> 00:23:01.160 situation that I looked at an international student who was a migrant worker and she was 276 00:23:01.160 --> 00:23:07.480 employed as a cleaner of guest rooms at a hotel and she was sometimes delayed in the performance 277 00:23:07.480 --> 00:23:13.300 of her work because the cleaning equipment would malfunction or because the hotel guest overstayed. 278 00:23:13.380 --> 00:23:18.180 I've certainly been guilty of that in the past. They would check out after the allotted checkout 279 00:23:18.180 --> 00:23:25.960 time. This meant that she worked five hours over a couple of times over that 40 hours work limit 280 00:23:25.960 --> 00:23:31.140 that's in the international student visa. But what the Department of Immigration and the Department of Immigration 281 00:23:31.160 --> 00:23:35.840 did was they looked at the fact that she had excellent academic results. She had a strong 282 00:23:35.840 --> 00:23:42.740 commitment to study. She had references from her teachers at her university and she also attested 283 00:23:42.740 --> 00:23:47.860 to the fact that her boss at the hotel said you have to finish the job. You can't just leave in 284 00:23:47.860 --> 00:23:53.980 order to meet your 40 hours. But they still cancelled her visa and sent her home. And these 285 00:23:53.980 --> 00:23:59.340 prohibitive visa conditions place an extra degree of vulnerability for temporary migrant workers 286 00:23:59.340 --> 00:24:01.140 that is simply not there to be seen. And so I think that's a big problem. And I think that's a big problem. 287 00:24:02.060 --> 00:24:11.800 And I think that's a big problem. And I think that's a big problem. And I think that's a big problem. 288 00:24:13.540 --> 00:24:16.540 And I think that's a big problem. And I think that's a big problem. And I think that's a big problem. 289 00:24:16.540 --> 00:24:18.780 And I think that's a big problem. And I think that's a big problem. And I think that's a big problem. 290 00:24:19.140 --> 00:24:20.360 And I think that's a big problem. And I think that's a big problem. And I think that's a big problem. 291 00:24:20.360 --> 00:24:21.680 And I think that's a big problem. And I think that's a big problem. And I think that's a big problem. 292 00:24:21.720 --> 00:24:27.820 And I think that's a big problem. And I think that's a big problem. And I think that's a big problem. 293 00:24:27.820 --> 00:24:32.220 part of my solution is that we need to prevent there being an immigration related consequence 294 00:24:32.220 --> 00:24:37.680 for reporting to the authorities breach of a visa's work condition or reporting to the authorities 295 00:24:37.680 --> 00:24:44.480 workplace exploitation. So currently and many of the workers that I speak to if their boss is doing 296 00:24:44.480 --> 00:24:48.780 something wrong, they've got bad occupational health and safety, they're not paying them for 297 00:24:48.780 --> 00:24:54.800 their work, they're not giving them overtime on Sundays, they feel petrified of going to the 298 00:24:54.800 --> 00:24:59.840 Fair Work Ombudsman because they also know that they've accepted cash in hand or they've acquiesced 299 00:24:59.840 --> 00:25:05.000 to that arrangement. What I think we should do is something that some of the other countries 300 00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:10.700 around the world do which is to say that if you report a workplace exploitation incident there 301 00:25:10.700 --> 00:25:15.260 will not be an immigration related consequence and that information will not be passed on from 302 00:25:15.260 --> 00:25:19.020 the Fair Work Ombudsman to the Department of Immigration. I think we need to build a Chinese 303 00:25:19.020 --> 00:25:24.620 wall between those two institutions. We need to encourage temporary migrant 304 00:25:24.620 --> 00:25:30.280 workers to speak up about their complaints. Only one in ten complaints made to the Fair Work 305 00:25:30.280 --> 00:25:35.360 Ombudsman are from temporary migrant workers and given that only one in ten workers are temporary 306 00:25:35.360 --> 00:25:42.020 migrant workers you might think that that complaint rate is okay but we know that 75% of the Fair Work 307 00:25:42.020 --> 00:25:47.600 Ombudsman's enforcement actions is around temporary migrant workers. So when temporary migrant workers 308 00:25:47.600 --> 00:25:53.560 actually do complain, their complaints are real, they're really really serious and they warrant the 309 00:25:53.560 --> 00:25:54.580 Ombudsman to voting a C. 310 00:25:54.620 --> 00:26:19.960 The other issue here is that although the Ombudsman is there to help temporary migrant workers, severe exploitation is made possible because these workers themselves find it difficult to access legal remedies. They simply don't know about the rights that they have, they also don't know about the community organisations like the Working Women's Centre or Legal Aid that can help them or they don't know or belong to a union. 311 00:26:20.740 --> 00:26:24.600 So for example in a review that I did of unfair dismissal decisions, I found that the Ombudsman's enforcement actions were not necessarily 312 00:26:24.600 --> 00:26:49.560 directly text 313 00:26:49.560 --> 00:26:54.640 bring a claim every year but over a seven-year period there were only 50 by visa holders. 314 00:26:55.560 --> 00:26:59.760 And I might add that the one international student who successfully bought the unfair 315 00:26:59.760 --> 00:27:04.360 dismissal claim, he'd actually been so egregiously treated that he'd been dismissed. His whole 316 00:27:04.360 --> 00:27:09.360 dismissal centred around the fact that he made himself a cup of coffee on the premises of the 317 00:27:09.360 --> 00:27:14.920 employer before he started his shift as a cleaner. That was the only thing that he'd done. He'd had 318 00:27:14.920 --> 00:27:21.280 an exemplary work record for more than two and a half years for that organisation. And in this 319 00:27:21.280 --> 00:27:25.300 case, and I spoke to the Commissioner about it afterwards and he just couldn't quite believe 320 00:27:25.300 --> 00:27:30.100 that this case had made it to him, and he says in the judgment that Mr Bister's consumption of 321 00:27:30.100 --> 00:27:35.300 coffee was trivial and insignificant, likening it to the drink of a cool glass of water from 322 00:27:35.300 --> 00:27:40.060 the office water cooler on a hot summer's day. Certainly not a reason to warrant dismissal. 323 00:27:41.340 --> 00:27:44.900 But I digress there. The central point is that temporary migrant work, 324 00:27:44.920 --> 00:27:50.080 workers are unaware of their legal rights, they don't know how to exercise them, and we know 325 00:27:50.080 --> 00:27:55.040 that they're not bringing the cases in the same way that Australian workers do. So we need to do 326 00:27:55.040 --> 00:28:01.580 more to help these workers to know about and exercise their workplace rights. The third problem 327 00:28:01.580 --> 00:28:08.280 with our immigration system is that it's dishonest. In 2006, when John Howard was Prime Minister, 328 00:28:08.480 --> 00:28:14.020 he famously said, we are not a guest worker country. We only permit the highest skilled 329 00:28:14.020 --> 00:28:14.900 workers to come back. We are not a guest worker country. We are not a guest worker country. 330 00:28:14.900 --> 00:28:20.040 In the race for global talent, Australia is seeking to get the best and the brightest. 331 00:28:21.380 --> 00:28:27.000 Ever since, successive Australian governments, both Labor and Liberal, have stuck to this lie. 332 00:28:27.460 --> 00:28:32.380 The numbers, however, show a very different story to this notion that we're not a guest worker 333 00:28:32.380 --> 00:28:37.900 country. It's through the huge numbers of international students, and in particular 334 00:28:37.900 --> 00:28:44.140 through the huge numbers of working holidaymakers, Australia has a de facto low-skilled work visa 335 00:28:44.140 --> 00:28:44.580 pathway. 336 00:28:44.900 --> 00:28:52.960 We have the biggest working holidaymaker program in the world. Ours lets in between 190,000 to 250,000 337 00:28:52.960 --> 00:28:57.960 backpackers every single year, whereas countries like the UK, Canada and New Zealand have much 338 00:28:57.960 --> 00:29:04.400 smaller programs of around 20,000 to 40,000. We say that the official purpose of the international 339 00:29:04.400 --> 00:29:10.420 student visa is to study, and that the backpacker visa is for cultural exchange. But the reality, 340 00:29:10.560 --> 00:29:12.940 particularly for the backpacker visa, is far different. 341 00:29:13.700 --> 00:29:18.900 We know that international students, and particularly backpackers, are employed all across the Australian 342 00:29:18.900 --> 00:29:24.700 labour market in low-skilled, low-wage work, often in the types of entry-level jobs that 343 00:29:24.700 --> 00:29:30.240 young Australians had used traditionally to enter the jobs market. There's no labour market 344 00:29:30.240 --> 00:29:34.960 testing. There's not even the farce of a Facebook ad that is involved for an employer that wants 345 00:29:34.960 --> 00:29:40.920 to hire a backpacker or an international student. If you need evidence for how heavily we rely 346 00:29:40.920 --> 00:29:42.920 on international students in hospitality, we have the opportunity to do so through the 347 00:29:42.920 --> 00:29:43.120 ! 348 00:30:12.920 --> 00:30:17.200 We are not just doing these jobs in Australia, but it's that we are using side doors and 349 00:30:17.200 --> 00:30:22.980 back doors to meet labour shortages. And as a result, our system invites the exploitation 350 00:30:22.980 --> 00:30:28.100 of these workers because they're invisible to the law. We have no way of ascertaining 351 00:30:28.100 --> 00:30:30.900 how many there are or where they are in the labour market. 352 00:30:31.200 --> 00:30:35.740 With the 457 visa scheme and with a proper labour migration scheme, we know where the 353 00:30:35.740 --> 00:30:40.860 workers are because the Department of Immigration keeps tabs on that. But with a visa that's 354 00:30:40.860 --> 00:30:42.900 officially not for a work purpose, but for a job, we have to be careful. We have to be 355 00:30:42.920 --> 00:30:43.020 careful. 356 00:30:43.020 --> 00:30:45.240 job of a labour migration expert is being used for work like international students 357 00:30:45.240 --> 00:30:50.120 or backpackers. These people go everywhere and we just don't know. And so when I was 358 00:30:50.120 --> 00:30:56.060 interviewed for the Four Corners investigation into the horticulture sector, the journalist 359 00:30:56.060 --> 00:31:01.800 talked to me just about how difficult it was to try and find out where these backpackers 360 00:31:01.800 --> 00:31:04.600 were and where they were living and where they were working. 361 00:31:05.880 --> 00:31:11.220 In my view we need to have an honest conversation about Australia's labour needs and whether 362 00:31:11.220 --> 00:31:12.900 labour migration through a dedicated labour system would be a successful and successful 363 00:31:12.900 --> 00:31:18.500 low-skill pathway is the appropriate mechanism to meet these skill shortages and labour shortages. 364 00:31:19.380 --> 00:31:23.820 I think we need to reassure employers that we're not going to close the door to labour immigration, 365 00:31:24.020 --> 00:31:28.360 but we also need to reassure the Australian public that we're going to do it in a sensible, 366 00:31:28.940 --> 00:31:33.200 targeted and measured way. We're going to do it in a way that measures where are the 367 00:31:33.200 --> 00:31:36.400 genuine labour shortages and where are the genuine skill shortages. 368 00:31:38.060 --> 00:31:43.680 Other countries in the world do it far better. I began my talk today talking about the transformative 369 00:31:43.680 --> 00:31:48.620 potential of labour immigration, which I have first-hand experience of and indeed so many 370 00:31:48.620 --> 00:31:54.980 Australians do. But I also have alluded to the dangers of when we poorly regulate immigration, 371 00:31:55.320 --> 00:32:01.240 when we don't have all the facts at hand. When this occurs, it becomes possible to demonise 372 00:32:01.240 --> 00:32:06.280 immigrants, to shut our doors and to let fear dictate our future. Except for our own indigenous 373 00:32:06.280 --> 00:32:12.480 people, Australia is a country of immigrants and we must do better. Today I've identified 374 00:32:12.480 --> 00:32:17.200 three concrete regulatory problems with our labour immigration system and I've suggested 375 00:32:17.200 --> 00:32:24.280 three solutions. We need to rethink the regulation of skilled and low-skilled migration. We need to 376 00:32:24.280 --> 00:32:30.260 provide less deference to employers and redesign our system in the national interest. And we need 377 00:32:30.260 --> 00:32:36.260 to end the exploitation of temporary migrant workers. Writing over 50 years ago about the 378 00:32:36.260 --> 00:32:41.740 migrant workers, German philosopher Max Frischl said, we asked for workers and we got people. 379 00:32:42.560 --> 00:32:47.600 His words reverberate today as the Australian government and indeed her people but learn to 380 00:32:47.600 --> 00:32:51.940 deal with the challenges and possibilities that are created through labour migration. Thank you. 381 00:33:01.020 --> 00:33:06.020 Thank you very much, Joanna. And perhaps if people will have questions, they could move to the 382 00:33:06.020 --> 00:33:12.520 microphone. There's one down here and one in the gallery as well. Please do keep your questions as 383 00:33:12.520 --> 00:33:17.560 short as you can and avoid making long statements. Thank you. 384 00:33:17.880 --> 00:33:25.820 Hello. Look, thank you very much for what I think was a really articulate overview for a lot of us who are grappling 385 00:33:25.820 --> 00:33:36.000 with, I don't know, with morality, I suppose, of what we're doing in this country. I watched the Four Corners thing last year and I know that I was 386 00:33:36.000 --> 00:33:45.600 appalled. I mean, I was angry about the fact that we're using it. It appears and I may sound Pauline Hanson text in this and I'm not intending to. We appear to use four, 387 00:33:45.680 --> 00:33:54.660 five, seven as a way of having second class migration if you like. And those people will remain sort 388 00:33:54.660 --> 00:34:02.060 of second class citizens or not even citizens. So given that there seems to be collusion between government, 389 00:34:02.060 --> 00:34:06.940 big business and I would suspect even the union movement, the labour movement 390 00:34:06.940 --> 00:34:10.540 and you've outlined some 391 00:34:10.540 --> 00:34:14.980 remedies to try and make us a little bit more honest 392 00:34:14.980 --> 00:34:18.520 about our overall migration program which I think is at the core of 393 00:34:18.520 --> 00:34:22.740 your discussion. Is there any inclination 394 00:34:22.740 --> 00:34:26.220 you can see in Canberra and from the powers that be 395 00:34:26.220 --> 00:34:30.300 for us to move to a more honest and perhaps 396 00:34:30.300 --> 00:34:34.160 presumably a larger overall immigration program? 397 00:34:35.820 --> 00:34:38.580 So I think it's a very good question 398 00:34:38.580 --> 00:34:42.620 is there an inclination, is there a political will for this because temporary migrant workers 399 00:34:42.620 --> 00:34:46.000 don't vote and so the group that's being most 400 00:34:47.260 --> 00:34:50.880 disadvantaged by these policies are disenfranchised and they don't 401 00:34:50.880 --> 00:34:54.780