The Labor Party election win and Australian Immigration

The Australian Labor Party has won the 2022 Federal Election with a campaign promising to deliver a better future for all Australians. The newly elected Labor Government led by Anthony Albanese has pledged a commitment to strengthening Medicare, creating secure local jobs, making childcare cheaper and investing in the manufacture of more things in Australia.

The new Minister for Immigration will be confirmed when a full ministry for the Department of Home Affairs portfolio is sworn in. This is expected to occur on 1 June 2022. While we wait for the new Minister for Immigration to be appointed, let’s take a moment to review the key goals of Labor’s skilled immigration policy articulated in the November 2021 ALP National Platform.

Favouring permanent over temporary migrants

Labour recognises that migration plays a fundamental role in building prosperity for all Australians. To create a nation of people with equal rights and a shared interest in Australia’s national success, Labor will ensure that Australia’s migration favours permanent over temporary migration.

Labor has voiced its aim to align the permanent and temporary migration programs to ensure that, where appropriate, migrants have pathways to permanent visas and citizenship. They will encourage temporary visa holders working under successful arrangements and with priority skills that are in shortage in Australia, to consider permanent residency.

Labor will also consider the permanent residency status and potential citizenship arrangements for New Zealand citizens living in Australia under the terms of the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangements.

Preventing exploitation of temporary workers

Labor will ensure that measures are implemented to protect all migrants from exploitation, including:

• requiring temporary migrants to be paid in accordance with Australian awards or enterprise agreements and to have their wages paid into an Australian bank account;
• ensuring temporary migrants are protected by Australian workplace law and are not exploited through sham contracting or unethical labour hire practices give them; and
• offering them ‘whistle-blower’ status if they are providing evidence of exploitation.

Labor will also act to eradicate the exploitation and wage theft experienced by temporary migrant workers by working closely with trade unions to introduce a range of measures that deliver increased protection.

Labor will increase the Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold (TSMIT) (currently AUD53,900) and enforce an approval process that requires the Department of Home Affairs to consult with trade unions and apply greater scrutiny and compliance measures against employers. The TSMIT increased annually during the first four years after its introduction, however, has remained at AUD53,900 since 2014.

Australian citizenship

Labor will continue to encourage all permanent residents to become Australian citizens, remarking that Australian citizenship is an important part of acknowledging and promoting participation in the Australian community.

“Labor will remove unnecessary Labor will remove unnecessary and unintended barriers to citizenship, providing a clear and efficient pathway to citizenship, particularly for vulnerable groups of migrants and permanent protection visa holders, and prioritise the processing of applications by families, partners and children to ensure families are kept together.”

Labour Market Testing

To protect the legitimate interests of Australian workers, Labor will retain and improve labour market testing through developing a tripartite process with unions, businesses and the Government.

“Labor will ensure genuine testing of the Australian labour market before temporary overseas labour is engaged. Labour market testing requirements will not be waived in any future trade agreements. Temporary overseas workers are vulnerable to exploitation and this exploitation affects those workers and all Australian workers by undermining their wages and conditions.”

Labor has also signaled that they will legislate to prohibit further trade agreements that waive labour market testing.

Labour Agreements

Labor has reinforced that any process to obtain a Labour Agreement must be thorough, genuine, with effective consultation with trade unions and have a rigorous oversight applied to its operation. Labour Agreements are to be used only to address acute and temporary skill shortages across regional Australia. Importantly, overseas workers should only be a temporary need, not part of a permanent business model.