ALP pledges crackdown on foreign worker exploitation

Advertisement

By Leith van Onselen

In the wake of widespread reports of foreign worker exploitation (e.g. 7-Eleven), Labor has promised to introduce tough new laws and stiff penalties for companies that underpay staff if it wins this weekend’s Federal Election. From The Canberra Times:

Labor’s new policies would allow workers to go after the $170 billion franchise industry, notably the franchisor, in cases of underpayment of wages. The laws would be changed to allow head office to then chase franchisees to recoup any amount it had to pay out to exploited workers…

The plan also increases fines for serious underpayment tenfold to $108,000 for an individual, or three times whatever amount the worker was underpaid, if that is higher. The fine for corporations would increase tenfold to $540,000.

The package of reforms includes a pledge to increase Fair Work Ombudsman’s budget by $22 million, compared with a $20 million increase by the Coalition.

The Coalition announced its policy to clamp down on wage fraud in May, which also included fines being increased tenfold and new laws so franchisors could be charged for workplace breaches. But Labor says its policy goes further by making head offices prove they weren’t privy to the exploitation.

This is all well and good, and certainly an improvement on the current system. However, it does not address the much larger issue pertaining to the widespread rorting and corruption of Australia’s skilled and student visa programs.

As revealed earlier this week on the 7.30 Report, visa fraud has become endemic in Australia:

Advertisement

JASVINDER SIDHU: These people just get away. Even if they’re caught, media or otherwise through police and thing, they just go on bail and I think the system is very, very easy on these sort of things.

NICK MCKENZIE: It’s easy to rort?

JASVINDER SIDHU: Yes, very easy to rort. You have 10 ways to rort and then if the Government has one rule, you have actually 10 responses how to basically bypass those rules.

NICK MCKENZIE: The Australian Border Force has spent the last 12 months investigating criminal syndicates involved in visa rorting, but insiders say the problem is massive. One of the Immigration Department’s top officials until 2013 has now broken his silence. He says visa rorting was and is endemic and has largely been ignored by politicians focusing on the boat people issue.

Joseph Petyanszki managed investigations for the department for eight years. He wouldn’t be interviewed on camera, but has given 7.30 a statement about what he calls, “The shocking and largely unknown fraud within our working and student visa programs”. He describes a world of “shonky immigration agents” where, “fraudsters …. enter the community with ease”. He points to immigration law “loopholes”, “major integrity problems” and a department which has struggled to cope with such an, “attack on the integrity of our systems”. Petyanszki blames a, “lack of funding and politics”. He says, “It’s been easy to deflect the public’s attention to boat arrivals,” but this fear-mongering has totally ignored, “where the vast bulk of real fraud is most significantly undermining our immigration programs.”

Tonight 7.30 can reveal there are corruption allegations inside the Immigration Department. Its chief Michael Pezzullo has referred 132 allegations to the corruption watchdog, the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity. They are just allegations and the department disputes many of them. They raise the prospect that some officials are involved in the visa rorting.

JASVINDER SIDHU: Yes, there’s corruption from top to bottom. Thousands and thousands of people are being sponsored and they’re all fake. The whole system cannot work that smoothly if there’s no corruption in the system.

NICK MCKENZIE: Someone on the inside has to know?

JASVINDER SIDHU: Oh, yes, definitely. Even if you do a bit of overspeeding, you are caught, but this is a huge corruption – huge level of corruption and it is so widespread.

That Australia’s visa and permanent residency system can be run this way is an absolute disgrace. So why are both sides of politics ignoring the issue, deflecting the public’s attention to boat arrivals instead?

[email protected]

Advertisement
About the author
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.