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Issue No. 309 | 02 June 2006 |
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When the Truth Hurts
Interview: Rock Solid Industrial: Eight Simple Rules for Employing My Teenage Daughter Politics: The Johnnie Code Energy: Fission Fantasies History: All The Way With Clarrie O'Shea International: Closer to Home Economics: Taking the Fizz Unions: Stronger Together Review: Montezuma's Revenge Poetry: Fair Go Gone
The Soapbox The Locker Room Parliament Education
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News Sutton Wants Middle Men Probed
CFMEU Construction secretary John Sutton says the explosion in workers entering Australia on short term visas - up from 100,000 in 1996 to more than 700,000 today - had created a growing and largely unregulated industry. Sutton says the inquiry needed to look at the following issues: - reports that agents were charging fees of up to $15,000 to recruit foreign workers, with these fees being passed directly onto the workers. This is a form of indentured labour not seen in this country for more than 100 years. - the prevalence of former Department of Immigration officials working as immigration agents. While former public servants should be entitled to earn a living, there should be clear and transparent processes in place to ensure they do not abuse information gained in their public employment. - whether legal requirements that Australian workers are not available for a job are actually being met before workers are bought in from overseas. - the responsibility of immigration agents to ensure that workers bought into the country are employed on legal wages and conditions and not some of the exploitative arrangements that have come to public attention in recent months. Mr Sutton says that the federal government, having opened the floodgates to guest workers, had a responsibility that the system is not corrupted. "Where there is a legitimate skills shortage in some sections of the economy we need to have a fair and transparent system in place," Sutton says. "Proper controls would make it harder for employers to set up 'sham' shortages merely to bring in temporary foreign workers who are having the effect of undercutting local wages and conditions."
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