The Australian Senate’s Education and Employment References Committee has released its 355 page report on the impact of Australia’s temporary work visa holders on the Australian labour market and on temporary work visa holders. The report, entitled A National Disgrace: The Exploitation of Temporary Work Visa Holders, details unscrupulous and exploitative practices and makes 33 recommendations.
The recommendations cover a wide range of areas including the need for:
- TSMIT to be indexed to average full-time weekly earnings and indexed annually
- the replacement of local workers by 457 workers to be prohibited
- the removal of labour market testing exemptions
- labour market testing to be required for labour agreements and DAMAs
- one-for-one 457 (professional)/Australian tertiary graduate employment
- 457 (trade) sponsor must have 25% (or at least 4) trade workforce apprentices
- training benchmarks to be replaced with training levy of $4000 per 457 worker paid into existing government programs that specifically support sectors experiencing labour shortages as well as apprenticeships and training programs.
You can read the report at the above link. I acknowledge the information contained in MIA Notice 24 which as circulated as a service to members and which contained a very useful summary which I have used as the basis for this post.
Creative commons acknowledgement for the photograph.
