13th Nov 2019, 5:17 PM – Senate Motions - Employment - Migrant workers

The majority voted in favour of a motion introduced by NSW Senator Tony Sheldon (Labor), which means it passed. Motions like these don't make any legal changes on their own but are politically influential because they represent the will of the Senate.

Motion text

That the Senate—

(a) recognises there is a crisis in Australia in the exploitation of migrant workers;

(b) notes the findings in a report, dated November 2017, Wage theft in Australia: Findings of the National Temporary Migrant Work Survey, authored by Migrant Worker Justice Initiative, UNSW and UTS, that include:

(i) two-thirds of migrant workers reporting that their employer, at one point or another, failed to provide a payslip – with 44% reporting they had never received a payslip for their work,

(ii) 28% of workers in the hospitality industry experiencing their employer confiscating their passport,

(iii) 30% of survey participants earning $12 per hour or less – this is approximately half the minimum wage for a casual employee in many of the jobs in which temporary migrants work, and

(iv) 46% of participants earning $15 per hour or less;

(c) notes an October 2018 report, by the Migrant Worker Justice Initiative which found that fewer than one in 10 (9%) of migrant workers took action to recover unpaid wages, even though most know they were being underpaid;

(d) commends UnionsNSW and the Immigration Advice and Rights Centre for their Visa Assist program which provides free legal advice and assistance to migrant union members; and

(e) notes that, despite accepting all the recommendations contained in the report of the Migrant Workers' Taskforce, released on 7 March 2019, the Federal Government has failed to act on recommendations 3 to 9, 11 to 13 and 18 to 22.