Former Deputy Secretary of the Immigration Department Abul Rizvi shed vital insights in Australia's visa system for IA, with two of his articles making our top ten, this one gathering more than 30,500 unique views.
NEW MIGRATION VISAS UNFAIR AND EXPLOITATIVE
On 16 November 2019, the Government’s much-touted regional migration visas took effect.
One of these is a five year provisional visa that requires the migrant to be nominated by a state or territory government. To secure permanent residence, the provisional migrant must live and work in the relevant region and earn at least $53,900 per annum for a minimum of three financial years. If state or territory governments actively participate in this visa, they will be collaborating with the Commonwealth to set up many of these migrants for exploitation and failure.
For people living in Melbourne or Sydney, $53,900 per annum that may seem not a particularly high salary.
But getting a job that pays that much in many of our regional areas is extraordinarily difficult.
Jobs that pay $53,900 per annum to recent graduates – most of the migrants applying for this visa will be relatively recent graduates – are not common in South Australia or Tasmania or indeed in many parts of regional Australia. Average weekly earnings for all persons working in the private sector in South Australia in May 2019 was $1005.10 ($52,265 per annum). In Tasmania, this was $948.50 ($49,322) per week.
At the 2016 census, median employee income for major regional centres was substantially below $53,900 per annum, in towns like Albury, Dubbo, Geelong and Rockhampton.
While in time most skilled migrants achieve much higher salaries, to expect them to do so soon after graduation risks them being exploited and/or being put into immigration limbo.
So let’s consider some scenarios and how the Department of Home Affairs may handle these:
- Scenario 1: A former overseas student is now on a temporary entry visa but with less than three years skilled work experience has a job in a regional town with a salary just below $53,900 per annum. Migrant is nominated by their territory government. The migrant remains in that job for five years but their salary only exceeds the $53,900 level for the last two financial years. Must the migrant then leave Australia or can the migrant then nominate for the new regional employer-sponsored provisional visa to extend provisional stay in Australia?
- Scenario 2: Temporary entrant who has been nominated by their territory government works in regional Australia on a series of short-term contracts with breaks of one-to-two months. Annualised salary in each contract is greater than $53,900, but in no three financial year period does the migrant earn $53,900 per annum. Must the migrant leave Australia?
- Scenario 3: Temporary entrant nominated by a state/territory government gets a job in regional Australia that pays more than $53,900 but a substantial part of that salary is "in-kind". The migrant is egregiously exploited by their employer. The temporary entrant is desperate to secure permanent residence and does not report the exploitation to the Fair Work Commission. Home Affairs discovers the migrant has not genuinely earned $53,900 per annum for three years. Must the migrant leave Australia at the end of their provisional visa?
- Scenario 4: An overseas applicant is nominated by a state/territory government. After 12 months unsuccessfully looking for a job in regional Australia and living off their savings, moves to Sydney to take up a skilled job at a six-figure salary. Must the migrant leave Australia at the end of their five-year provisional visa because they have breached the conditions of their visa? Are they allowed to apply to return or is there a penalty?
A delegate of Minister David Coleman has argued that the $53,900 salary threshold has been:
“Carefully set to protect migrants from worker exploitation, and to ensure that migration cannot be used to undercut the wages of Australians."
This statement confuses the purpose of the minimum salary for temporary employer-sponsored migration which is indeed designed to minimise the risk of exploitation and prevent migration being used to displace Australian workers. It was introduced when labour market testing was originally abolished.
The minimum salary mechanism applying to employer-sponsored migration is an obligation on the employer and it is the employer who is subject to a penalty if they fail to pay the minimum salary, not the employee.
Use of a high minimum salary for a lengthy period under the new state or territory nominated provisional visa actually increases the risk of exploitation. This is because the minimum salary requirement applies to the employee, not the employer. The penalty for not receiving the minimum salary applies entirely to the employee. The minimum salary requirement for state or territory provisional visas puts the employer in an enormously powerful position to make onerous demands on the migrant.
How the Government came to the conclusion this protects the employee is a mystery.
At a time when migrant worker exploitation has become endemic, the Government should go back to the drawing board on these new provisional visas. If they don’t, state and territory governments must make it clear they will not use this visa because of the unacceptable risks.
If state and territory governments make only limited use of the new sub-class 491 visa, it is possible the Commonwealth will make greater use of family sponsorships. However, this risks a reduced level of occupational targeting and even greater risk the provisional migrant will be unable to secure employment over three financial years that pays $53,900 per annum.
It's time for Minister Coleman to go back to the drawing board on these regional visas.
Abul Rizvi is a former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Immigration and is currently undertaking a PhD on Australia’s immigration policies. You can follow Abul on Twitter @RizviAbul.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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