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March 5th, 2013 
David Schulberg the 3rd
Updated
Immigration Minister Brendan O’Connor has responded to criticism of the Government’s crackdown on 457 visas, providing examples of how the system has been rorted.
The Prime Minister has described the 457 skilled migrant worker visa program as being “riddled with rorts”, but when pressed to quantify the problem the Government has not been able say what the level of rorting is.
Mr O’Connor told the ABC’s PM program that one of the problems with the system is that there are no mechanisms in place to measure the level of rorting.
The Government recently announced a tightening of the 457 rules to stamp out rogue employers and to make sure foreigners are not at the front of the jobs queue.
The move was criticised by industry groups and the Coalition, who challenged the Government to provide evidence of the rorts.
Mr O’Connor says the Government supports the skilled migration scheme but the 457 program needs to be strengthened.
He says there are “many different ways” businesses are rorting the system, but it is difficult to ascertain just how much rorting is taking place.
“There’s plenty of examples of rorting. There’s people dressing up jobs and pretending [they are] skilled when they’re not skilled,” he said.
“Having people come over on a $92,000 job which will allow them to get around the language requirements, and then once they get here, referring them down to a much lower paid job.
“There are many different ways you can rort. Hard to get to know exactly the number, but we know the scale is relatively significant and that’s why these reforms were put in place.”
Barred
He says more than 100 businesses have been barred from hiring workers on 457 visas after abusing the system.
“In Parramatta, we have a business who’s brought in project and program administrators who once they were in, were [then] employed as security guards,” he said.
“We have a small hospitality firm in Melbourne that says it needed to import an HR manager, [as if] to suggest there were no HR managers in the city of Melbourne.”
More than 125,000 workers were employed in 2011-12 on 457 visas.
Mr O’Connor denied the crackdown of 457 visas was part of the Government’s plans to win back voters during its push in western Sydney.
“The work that was done [on 457 visas] was done over weeks and months ago,” he said.
Both sides of politics have been accused of stoking community fears over foreign workers.
The Opposition today pointed out that the Prime Minister’s communications director John McTernan is himself on a 457 visa.
Independent MP Rob Oakeshott told PM he is less than impressed by the whole debate.
“I think on the one hand we’ve got a party that’s demonising foreign arrivals and on the other we’ve got a party that’s demonising foreign workers,” he said.
“From my perspective, I think most people will see that as a pox on both.”
Topics:
federal-government,
government-and-politics,
work,
community-and-society,
social-policy,
immigration,
australia
First posted
Source Article from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-05/o27connor-defends-457-visa-crackdown/4554490
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