Australian Senate Committee Pushes for Additional Statistics on Foreign Temporary Manpower

As per a Senate committee report, there’s an urgent need of new information related to the number of the impermanent employees from abroad in Australia and also the time period they have been in the nation.

The report makes as many as 33 proposals even as it reportedly favors a revamp of the Ministerial Advisory Council on Skilled Migration (MACSM). The same suggest that the MACSM ought to be more self-governing and better financed, and carry-out the much expected appraisal of the Working Holiday Visa schemes.

Individuals from out-of-the-country can do a job in Down Under, on a temporary ground, with several visa choices, and this includes the Working Holiday Visas, 457 Visa and sponsorship from a recruiter of Australia.
 
However, a great deal of apprehensions has been raised that several are oppressed, in terms of being denied the right earnings or paying charges to employment hire firms that are allegedly anything but tolerable. Among these worries was that the manpower from abroad can be pressurized into agreeing to some specific conditions and become scared to have their say.

The Senate committee report advocates that those, who approach the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP), should be engaged in such a way that they feel empowered to express their grievances.

The same also suggests improvements to the Migration Act and Fair Work Act to confirm that the employees, who flout their visa terms & conditions, do not lose their jobs by design, and guaranteeing employees can pursue claims against job-providers/recruiters or labour hire groups even after their visa has lost its validity.

The report also deals with the subject of employing overseas labor force to the disadvantage of the local manpower. It says that though both should be given the identical weight in job applications, the recruiters/firms hiring from out-of-the-country should not have dampened or discouraged local employees in any manner.

It goes as far as advocating that it should be made mandatory for the Australian recruiters/firms--which sign-up professional overseas workers on the Subcategory 457 Visas-- to also take up a local tertiary graduate in the same venture, on a one for one ground. And the firms hiring qualified trades employees on the 457s should be required to show that 25% or one-fourth of their trades’ employees are trainees/learners.

Allegedly, the proposals in question amount to a tightening of laws for the employer sponsors, which presently require just looking for workers in Oz and confirming an overseas worker has a trade or skill in scarcity.

The said committee also reportedly suggested a licencing system for the labour hire contractors so that they can demonstrate conformity with every place of work, service, tax, and superannuation laws with a view to get a licence.