Tony Zappia
Makin · Australian Labor Party · Australia
“Based on the most recent polling, cost of living remains the most pressing issue for Australians, with around 75 per cent of people putting it at the top of the list of issues that matter to them. Another survey has 3.7 million Australians living in poverty, whilst 122,000 are homeless.”
“However, two issues that I believe directly contribute to Australian poverty are gambling and illicit drug use. According to the most recent figures, $32 billion is spent annually on gambling in Australia, with Australians rated as the biggest gamblers in the world per capita.”
“Some 3.9 million Australians recently used an illicit drug, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Both gambling losses and illicit drug use are increasing. In particular, online gambling has increased by over 60 per cent in recent years and cocaine use has surged by 69 per cent in a single 12-month period.”
“Gambling and drug addiction are both, and often together, directly the cause of poverty, homelessness, suicide, divorce, financial stress, crime and other social problems. I welcome the Albanese government's latest gambling reforms, which I believe will make a difference to Australian gambling rates.”
“Every day there is new technology out there—and, yes, sometimes it's expensive—that allows for much more efficient procedures. As a result of that, you would think that perhaps the costs of those procedures would come down. But that hasn't always necessarily been the case.”
“The referral is to a specialist that they don't question, and they have no idea whether they could possibly get the same treatment at a much better rate using another surgeon. It's not often that people shop around when it comes to medical treatment.”
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“Having listened to so many fine tributes to Ljupco Jonceski—or, as we all knew him, Luch—it's hard to add much more to what has already been said. I begin by making this observation: it was absolutely wonderful to see Luch's family on the floor of Parliament House yesterday when the Prime Minister moved the condolence motion. For someone who had been so much a part of this House, who had spent so much of his life in this building—and, in particular, on the floor of parliament where few people ever get to step—I think it was not only appropriate but so good to see his family share in the space that took up so much of Luch's life. To them I extend my sincere condolences. Luch died too young, and I'm sure that the heartache of knowing that he died too young is something that they will have to try to work through over the years ahead.”
“I'll finish with this observation about Nick: I knew him for most of my life, and in all that time I can never once recall him raising his voice—not once; not within the chamber and not outside of the chamber. He was always quietly spoken, very placid and very considered in everything he said. So to Nick I say: Nick, thank you for your leadership. Thank you for your friendship. Thank you for what you did for the people of Australia. May you rest in peace. Debate adjourned.”
“But I say this about him: he was a person who, like all of us, came into this place wanting to make a difference, and he did. He made a difference in this place. He made a difference back in South Australia in particular, where he was an influential leader within the Labor Party. He made a difference within his own Greek community; the member for Adelaide referred to his international contacts and so on. And he made a difference to people's lives, including people overseas—and again there were examples given of that. He did so always committed to, and always being a true believer and a faithful member of, the Labor Party. Even when he left this place—and he didn't leave under his own decision—he never turned his back on the Labor Party or the people that he had got to know over the years.”
“In his time here, at this place, I know that he developed friendships with a lot of MPs—I'm talking about friendships that were life lasting—and it was so good to see people, at the memorial service, like Laurie Brereton, Warren Snowdon and Brendan O'Connor come along. Nick, when he was reminiscing about his time in this place with me, would often mention them as being partners in whatever else he was doing. The late Simon Crean was another person—and I know Simon would've been there had it not been for the fact that he couldn't be there, because he had passed away—that I know Nick would speak so highly of. Everything's been said about his contribution to public life and the examples of the people that he has helped, and I'm not going to go over all of that.”
“Subsequent to that, as I said, I'd kept in touch with him, but, in later years, Nick's health started to decline. When he went into the nursing home in 2019, I would visit him. Regrettably, because of COVID, the visits had to be stopped for a while. But, once the restrictions were lifted, I'd still go back and visit him, and I watched him deteriorate physically over that time. I'd take him outside of the centre, and we'd go down to the local shopping centre nearby. I'd take him down there for a coffee, and we would again talk politics. And, even though he was physically almost unable to feed himself or drink his coffee, his mind was as sharp as it was the day I met him. Again, he was someone that you could ask for advice about what was likely to happen. He could read the political winds, as I said earlier, and that never left him.”
“It was always a pleasure to catch up with him to hear his insights into what might lie ahead, and we would do that quite regularly. In fact, when I had Lindsay Tanner, who was the finance minister after my election to this place in 2007, come out to my electorate to do a community forum, I had Nick as the emcee—again, because of his interest in politics, his ability to perhaps elicit the right questions that the public might want to hear and the people that were attending might want to hear and also his ability to be able to contribute to the forum responses that there might be. Lindsay was so well known and it was great to have the two of them there together, because they had both worked with each other and knew each other, and it was an asset for me to have both of them there.”
“Whilst we talk about multiculturalism and his contribution to that, which I entirely agree with and I concur with all the remarks that have been made about that, he also contributed immensely to the Indigenous land rights issues in this country, and that shouldn't be overlooked, because it did set a precedent and a pathway for Indigenous land ownership that we still have to this day. When he left politics, I would occasionally catch up with Nick, and, again, his interest in politics never waned—not only his interest, but, quite frankly, he was someone who could read the political winds so well. He was someone that you would take advice from because you knew that he understood politics and he understood what the likely consequences of different decisions were.”
“As someone who had taken an interest in land rights—because former senator Jim Cavanagh, who I worked for, was in fact the first minister to bring legislation relating to land rights into this parliament—I listened with interest to the very long debate that took place when Labor was in opposition and there were amendments to the land rights act. Yes, it was a long debate, but, again, Nick Bolkus played a leading role in that debate—as he did in the debate under Paul Keating when Labor introduced legislation following the Mabo decision. It's one of the achievements of Nick that has not been given, I believe, sufficient airing or sufficient credit for.”
“The interesting thing about Nick's career is that he went on to be a minister and—again, as the member for Adelaide pointed out—the first Greek person to become a cabinet minister, which, in its own right, was a huge achievement. But he was someone who was absolutely committed to policy work. I'm pleased that the Minister for Home Affairs, in his remarks before they were cut short, touched on his contribution to Indigenous land rights and, in particular, the debate that took place after the Mabo decision in the High Court where legislation was brought into the parliament, and, subsequently, the debate in terms of amendments to land rights when the Howard government took office.”
“My view is that they embraced him because they saw the qualities in him that would make him a future leader, and they were absolutely right. They backed him, and he ended up as a senator in this place in 1981, after having been elected in the 1980 election. In 1981 Senator Jim Cavanagh, who I worked for, retired, so my connection with Nick became somewhat more distant after that. He was elected to the Senate. I went back into my own private life and so on. But we always kept in touch. It wasn't until pretty much the time that I got elected to this place that we once again came together, you might say, and regularly contacted each other over a whole range of matters.”
“At the time, whilst he was a young person, every Friday the MPs would come back from Canberra—people like Reg Bishop, Jim Toohey, Mick Young and, sometimes, Senator Don Cameron, Clyde's brother, and state members Jack Wright and Geoff Virgo, who were considered to be some of the more influential MPs of the day, and my friend the member for Adelaide would probably remember many of those MPs—and would gather for lunch at one place or another, and I'm pretty sure that, at those lunch meetings, they would try to sort out the issues of the country and the internal issues of the Labor Party. Chinatown and Hindley Street were popular venues. It was interesting that Nick was already embraced by that group so early in the piece.”
“Unsurprisingly, Nick Bolkus took the private office—he was the most senior of all of us at the time. He took the office, and I'd still see him every day as we worked, effectively, alongside each other. What was noticeable was that Nick didn't seem to do a lot of work as a research officer but, in fact, spent most of his time networking with people within the political system and outside of it—building relationships with MPs, community leaders and business people and with whomever else he was able to. In fact, it would be fair to say that I can rarely recall Nick without the phone glued to his ear, such was his interest in trying to make connections with people in and around the state, and interstate as well.”
“I first met Nick Bolkus shortly after the dismissal of the Whitlam government, when I took a job working as research officer to Senator Jim Cavanagh. Nick was then working for Clyde Cameron. The federal MPs and senators at the time predominantly worked on the 15th floor of the AMP building, which was located directly across the road from the state parliament house. The senators and members had their offices up there, but the staff of the federal representatives were located in a shared room where I, Nick, Paul Holloway and Malcolm Dixon also worked—Paul working for Ralph Jacobi, the then member for Hawker, Malcolm Dixon working for Senator Reg Bishop and Nick, as I said, working for Clyde Cameron. Within that shared space there was a private office.”
“Again, the collective contributions there on the day, beginning with Daniela Ritorto, Premier Peter Malinauskas, former deputy premier John Rau, Mary, Aria and Mikayla, and the Minister for Health, Disability and Ageing's contribution in this chamber yesterday, I believe perfectly encapsulate the life of Nick Bolkus and the person he was—the husband, the father, the friend, the politician and the community man that so many others have spoken about in their contributions about him. The number of people who were at the Allan Scott Auditorium state memorial service also provided a glimpse of the respect that Nick was held in by people from across the country. The number and diversity of people who had come to know him and the impact that he had had on their lives were well displayed on the day by the presence of those people.”
“I'll begin my remarks by extending my condolences to Nick Bolkus's wife, Mary; to his children Aria, Mikayla and Nicholas; and to his sister, Anna. When you're speaking last on a condolence motion, there's not much left to be said, especially having listened to the contributions of all my colleagues here in this place over the last day or two, where I believe that they all have beautifully summed up Nick's life. I wasn't able to get to the funeral service for Nick at the Greek Orthodox Church, otherwise known as the Cathedral of Archangels Michael and Gabriel, in Adelaide on 21 January, because parliament here was sitting, but I was able to get to the state memorial on 22 January at the Allan Scott Auditorium in the Hawke Building at the University of Adelaide.”
“Whilst some will dispute those statistics, credible reports, including from aid workers and UN observers on the ground, who have addressed MPs in this place, confirm that the situation for Palestinians is horrific and their ongoing oppression and the widespread loss of life is very real. Yet the world turns a blind eye whilst Palestinians lose their lives, their homes, their lands and their rights. Accusations of war crimes, ethnic cleansing, apartheid and genocide against the Netanyahu government are now regularly raised with me. History will judge this period harshly, but that will be of no use to the desperate Palestinian people, who, right now, are pleading for help as they struggle to survive. For them, peace is an elusive dream.”
“Aid workers who risked their lives to save people are pleading for international intervention to force the Netanyahu government to ease their restrictions over Palestinian people, and now the Jewish Independent reports that the Israeli Knesset is considering legislation that would make the death sentence mandatory for intentional killing by Palestinians, but not by Israelis. Since October 2023, around 72,000 Palestinians, including over 20,000 children, 1,700 health workers and 259 journalists and media workers, have been killed; 182,000 people have been wounded; 870,000 have been displaced; and 10,000 Palestinians have been taken prisoner.”
“Yet the shootings, the bombings, the air strikes and the suffering did not stop with the announced ceasefire. Credible sources report that, since the ceasefire, over 500 Palestinians, including innocent women and children, have been violently killed. The Israeli land grab continues. Journalists are barred from the region in an attempt to prevent the truth from being reported. International aid to desperate and starving Palestinians is restricted by the Israeli military. And even with the recent opening of the Rafah crossing to Egypt, on-the-ground reports claim that very little aid is now getting through.”
“At the ecumenical worship service for the opening of the 2026 federal parliamentary year, there was a call for peace throughout the world. Every day, billions of people struggle through life living in extreme poverty, violent conflict, war and oppression, none more so than the Palestinians, who have never known peace in their lifetime and who only know a life of daily survival and misery. With so much else going on in people's lives here in Australia and overseas, and with people tiring of the decades-old Palestine-Israel conflict, the daily sufferings endured by Palestinians hardly rate a mention in mainstream media here in Australia. That has been even more noticeable since the announcement of a ceasefire in October, when, for most outsiders, the conflict was supposedly settled.”
“I close with this comment: there's probably nothing more important to families than good health. Particularly when someone is unwell, there is nothing else that matters in their life other than their health because, without their health, they literally have nothing, so the health system does matter to people. We have a good health system. This is going to make it better. I commend this legislation to the House.”
“We are slowly getting more doctors into the system. I understand that some 17,000 have been added in the last two years. We've tripled the GP bulk-billing incentive for pensioners, concession cardholders and kids, and since November that has been expanded to all Australians. The proportion of bulk-billing has risen from around 20 per cent in 2025 to now 40 per cent. We have literally doubled the number of GP practices that are now bulk-billing. That's all because we've tripled the incentive. As has been said time and time again, the price of PBS medicines has been reduced to $25. For concession card holders, the price will be $7.70 right through to the end of this century. The most recent hospital agreement means record funding for our hospitals.”
“The nurses themselves, even before they get to this step, have had to show a level of experience within the workforce. I think they have had to have been a registered nurse for at least three years. So they're already experienced people, but that additional training and oversight ensures that there aren't any risks being taken. I'm going to close with perhaps what all other speakers on this side of the House have closed with. This is another step in trying to reform our health system in this country. It is a health system that—as I have said from the outset—is good but can be better. We are getting there one step at a time. The 122 urgent Medicare clinics that have been opened across the country and the 15 clinics that are about to open will make a difference as well. The workforce is growing thanks to this government.”
“Apart from the fact that there are no doctors, the reality is that, for many of those people, travelling to the nearest centre where there is a GP practice or a hospital is sometimes impossible. In remote areas, travel isn't easy, and, even if people can get to a centre, it is costly. So this will save people both money and time. That is indeed a good thing. As I said earlier, these decisions are not made flippantly. There is a process in place whereby nurses will get additional training. I understand that the first cohort of nurses providing prescriptions will be able to do so from 1 July. There is oversight. As I said earlier, they are working in partnership with an authorised health professional. These are some of the security measures that have been implemented as part of this legislation, and they are responsible measures.”
“Having a nurse able to prescribe the medication that the patient needs will relieve an enormous amount of pressure on a whole range of different people within the health network more broadly. It also means that, for people in remote and rural areas—which is where nurses play a particularly important role—there will be additional services. When you go into remote and rural areas, the chances of finding a doctor are very, very difficult; in fact, those are some of the areas where we have the least number of doctors. What we do have across the country is nurses in those places. Those nurses provide literally all the medical care that people need because there's no-one else. Again, enabling them to be able to prescribe medications is critical to them being able to do their job and to do it well for the patient.”
“Firstly, the patient benefits because the patient gets immediate access to what they need. Secondly, it takes pressure off the health system because the patient doesn't have to wait for a doctor to come in—a doctor who may also be working long hours and unable to get there when the patient does. So it takes pressure off the doctor or the GP or whatever other health professional might have been called in. It also takes pressure off our emergency departments in our hospitals. For example, quite often people in aged care, where we now have registered nurses on duty 24 hours a day, need medical assistance. If the aged care premises can't get a doctor—and many doctors are not able to attend—then people are simply sent to the nearest hospital. That ties up medical staff at the hospital, and it ties up hospital beds as well.”
“It's sometimes the experience of being in the job that teaches you more than any academic training you get in universities. Whilst they are out there every day doing the work they do, they're learning on the job each and every day, which, in my view, makes them thoroughly accredited to prescribe and give medications to their patients. They know what will work as well as anybody else. They know what a patient needs when they see a patient as well as anybody else. Whilst this legislation does bring in some additional appropriate safeguards to ensure that nurses get additional training and oversight by a health professional working with them, it enables them to do what they know needs to be done—that is, when a patient needs certain medication, they are able to prescribe it for them. In doing that, there are an enormous number of benefits.”
“The Minister for Health and Ageing, since his appointment as health minister, has been methodically working through the steps we need to take in order to bring the health system back to the level at which we would all like to see it. Empowering nurses to prescribe medications is one of those things we can do right now and are doing right now; I commend everyone who was involved in that decision and, having made that decision, bringing it to the House in the form of this legislation. Not only do nurses have, in my view, the professional qualifications and, as I said earlier on, the confidence of the community to do what they do; their daily experience in dealing with the patients they deal with each and every day matters.”
“Trying to fix that is not something we can do overnight, because, in each case, health professionals need years of training in order to do the work they do. The fact the sector is under stress is not good for patients, because at times they can't get in to see their GP or the health professional they need. Nor is it good for the health workforce themselves, who are put under incredible pressure and often have to work long hours in order to try and fit in demands from the patients that want to see them. Neither side wins unless we can fix the system. Whilst it is something that will take time to fix, there are things we can do right now that will make a difference.”
“I note that this year marks the 10th anniversary of the murder of South Australian nurse Gayle Woodford, in the outback in South Australia. I well remember that incident. That highlights the work nurses do and the risks they often take. I'm pleased to say that, as a result of what happened to Gayle, the laws were changed to try and provide a little bit more support and security for our nurses at the time. Australia's health system is indeed one of the best in the world; again, we can attribute much of that to the work of the nurses and what they do. But even though it is a good health system here in Australia—and I think that would be widely accepted and recognised—the reality is it is under stress. We have an ageing population and a shortage of health professionals right across the health profession spectrum.”
“It's not surprising that, given the work they do, they are probably rated as the most trusted profession across all professions in the country. That says a lot about the confidence the community has in nurses. That is not surprising when you think about the work they do, dealing each and every day with sometimes incredibly difficult situations—dealing with patients that have got very serious injuries, horrific injuries at times. They have to face that on a regular basis, whether it's drug-affected people or people with serious disability or even dementia; they're dealing with people who don't know what they're doing, and it's incredibly difficult and draining work. In particular, it can also be very risky work.”
“It's a pleasure to follow the member for Richmond. Having heard her contribution and how well she summarised the importance of this legislation, the Health Legislation Amendment (Prescribing of Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2025, I feel she's left me with very little else to say! I commence my own remarks by thanking the nurses in our health workforce—over 400,000 of them across the country, and, as the member for Richmond quite rightly pointed out, the most evenly spread and the largest health force sector we have in the country. Every day they provide patient care that is second to none in terms of the relationships they build with patients, the confidence they give them, and the counselling and support they give them to get through, in many cases, very difficult health issues.”
“We must not let the Bondi killings slowly fade into the past. We owe it to the Jewish community, who have already endured so much, and we owe it to the 15 people killed and to their families to do all that is possible to prevent another tragedy. May the loss of their lives not be in vain but become a time of reflection and a turning point for the better for our nation.”
“Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer … He goes on: If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? That passage reminds us all that we all have much more in common than that which divides us, yet, 400 years later, nothing has changed. Every life is precious, every life is sacred and every life matters. Laws may constrain behaviour, but they will not restrain a crazed person who is prepared to die for their cause. It is only when people overcome hatred and bigotry that others will feel safe. And people are not born with hate in their mind. It is taught to them. And, just as hate is taught to them, so can love be.”
“Today there is too much hate throughout the world—too many innocent lives lost every day because of hate, bigotry, greed, and racial and religious intolerance. Hate and bigotry are used by evil people to indoctrinate others, who then commit vile atrocities even at the cost of their own lives. Jewish people know hate and bigotry only too well, having experienced antisemitism for centuries. The Bard, William Shakespeare, wrote about it over 400 years ago in his play The Merchant of Venice . In act 3, scene 1, Shylock, a hated Jewish moneylender and a victim of antisemitism, when questioning why Jewish people were so despised, exclaims: I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?”
“On 14 December our nation was left shocked, angry, saddened and grieving in a way I have never seen before: angry at those who committed such a cowardly and heartless act; shocked that such an event could happen in Australia, where the principle of a fair go is ingrained in our identity and where we pride ourselves on multicultural success; saddened and grieving that 15 defenceless people—including 10-year-old Matilda—who had done no harm to their killers and were going about their lives as we all do could be mercilessly gunned down. We cannot turn back time, we cannot bring back the lives of those killed and we cannot restore the lives of their loved ones. But we can, and we do, thank those who in any way assisted on the day—some risking or losing their own lives, as so many other speakers have noted.”
“To the families and loved ones of the people killed at Bondi on 14 December, I extend my profound condolences. I can only try to understand their grief and their loss. It has now been over a month since the Bondi Beach shootings. Time moves on so quickly, and, for most people, normal life resumes. But it doesn't for those killed at Bondi, nor for their families and close friends—15 people that were celebrating life, probably looking forward to the summer holidays and Christmas plans that never came to pass. For their families and close friends, and for those wounded, their lives were changed forever, left with heartache and memories that will never leave them.”
“I have heard the concerns from members opposite that this legislation goes too far and that too much information is going to have to be provided to authorities with respect to employers who take on migrant workers. I say to members opposite that those employers who are doing the right thing have nothing to fear. This legislation is no different to any other piece of legislation which regulates activities in this country or provides laws. Laws are always provided only in order to control the minority who do the wrong thing. If it weren't for the minority who do the wrong thing, we probably wouldn't need any laws whatsoever. This is simply another example of where the government need to act to protect vulnerable people as we have done in so many other areas of government policy. I commend this legislation to the House.”
“Imagine someone fleeing a war-torn country under circumstances in which they risk their lives and then reaching Australia. They would do anything they need to do in order to stay here, not only to protect their own life but also to be able to earn a few dollars so they can then send that back to family members who they left in their home country. These are vulnerable people who are at the mercy of unscrupulous operators, and we have seen example after example of that here in Australia. It is not to say that all employers are unscrupulous, but we need to ensure that those who are unscrupulous are no longer able to do what they are doing.”
“On one hand we have a real need that must be met, and on the other hand we have a shortage of the skills that are required to provide the services that people need. We need to find a way of fixing that that is appropriate in terms of both meeting our migration statistics and our migration intake and ensuring that those people who come into this country are then given work and paid accordingly and are not in any way abused as people have been on so many occasions. In concluding my remarks, I'll make this point. Worker exploitation is, as I said earlier, not just isolated to migrant workers; it occurs across the board. There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that migrant workers who come here are exploited much more so than others. I used some examples earlier on of why that is the case, but I'll simply make this point.”
“If we don't bring in skilled tradespeople, we can't build the very houses that everybody is screaming out for at the rate at which they need to be built. If we don't bring in skilled tradespeople or skilled professionals from overseas we won't be able to fill the health and medical workforce shortages that we're seeing right around the country, particularly in the country regions, where, I understand, that, if it weren't for the skilled professionals that we are bringing in from overseas, there would be communities without doctors and nurses. Look at the aged-care sector. Again, if it weren't for the skilled people coming in from overseas, it is very likely that many of those centres would be unable to operate and the vulnerable older people that we have in this country who are looking for aged care would not be able to get it.”
“We face skilled workforce shortages again because the last coalition government did nothing about training up Australians. Instead, they decimated TAFE while simultaneously paying huge sums to shonky training organisations. The Albanese Labor government is fixing that as well, with free TAFE training. But, logically, it will take some time before those trainees are work ready. I understand that, to date, over 725,000 people have enrolled in free TAFE courses. I commend them for doing so, and I look forward to them filling those skill shortages for which we're currently having to find people from overseas. In the interim, however, we do have a skilled workforce shortage, which must be met. If it's not met, then the whole community will suffer.”
“And, as other speakers have made absolutely clear, this legislation arises after extensive consultation—consultation by the previous coalition government and then by the Albanese Labor government; consultation that went far and wide throughout the community and included community groups, business, and so on. This legislation goes a long way towards stamping out some of the problems I referred to earlier. It may not fix every problem, but it's a start in the right direction. I have no doubt that worker exploitation will continue. In fact, worker exploitation isn't simply limited to skilled migrants who come from overseas; it occurs on a regular basis in many other sectors. However, the fact remains that skilled migrants make up the largest cohort of migrants to Australia.”
“It seems that the last coalition government was very good at kicking the can down the road on these important issues by commissioning reports that would obviously delay any response from the government, and then, once they'd received them, did nothing. Once again, it is up to Labor to fix the problem, and that is what this legislation does. This legislation sets up a register of approved work sponsors. In doing so, it will provide transparency, accountability, and enhanced protections for temporary skilled migrants. It will also support temporary skilled migrant workers who need to find a new sponsor if that need arises.”
“The taskforce I referred to earlier, commissioned by the last coalition government, found issues that I believe were widely known throughout the community—issues that I think everyone in the chamber would have come across at some stage or another. The number of worker exploitation cases that have been exposed over the years is a matter that should be of concern to this parliament. The taskforce provided 22 recommendations in their report; yet, three years later, the last coalition government had done nothing with them. It commissioned a report and then just sat on it, as it did with Graeme Samuel's review into the EPBC Act.”
“That exploitation can take the form of underpaying wages; forcing workers to work extended unpaid hours; threatening to cancel a worker's visa if they complain or raise concerns about their work conditions; coercing workers to hand over their passport, as the member for Adelaide referred to earlier; forcing workers to work in unsafe or poor health and safety conditions; cramming workers into inadequate housing; and even physical threats. In June, a parliamentary inquiry in New South Wales heard from a GP in Wagga Wagga that hundreds of women were 'seeking abortions that they would not normally want' in order to keep their work visas. That is the extent to which the exploitation seems to have manifested itself. It is because of those concerns that we have this legislation.”
“… … … Migrant workers who are in Australia on a temporary basis may have poor knowledge of their workplace rights, are young and inexperienced, may have low English language proficiency and try to fit in with cultural norms and expectations of other people from their home countries. These factors combine to make them particularly vulnerable to unscrupulous practices at work … Fears about the consequences of approaching government agencies are common among migrants from less democratic countries than our own. The paper says a lot more, of course, but I think those sentiments sum up what the issue is and what we are responding to today—that people have indeed been exploited for much too long.”
“The findings of that inquiry were released in the Report of the Migrant Workers' Taskforce in March 2019. A paper released by Australia Policy Online, which I believe articulates what the real issue was so well, had this to say in comment on the taskforce report: Wage exploitation is of great concern to the Australian community. It is damaging to Australia's reputation and may lead to negative flow-on effects to the proper functioning of the labour market and the economy. It is unfair not only to migrant workers, but also to other employees who are undercut on wages and job opportunities, and law abiding employers trying to compete on price. Australia prides itself on being a country where the principle of fairness underpins our economic and social relationships. However, migrant worker exploitation is a direct repudiation of this.”
“These are, indeed, vulnerable people who are then taken advantage of by, sometimes, people smugglers who put them through life-threatening journeys, and if they do manage to reach Australia, they then are often taken advantage of by employers or job recruiters. Often people of their own culture are those very job recruiters—people who promise them work on the basis that they can secure employment for them but who then exploit them in the process. If I get time, I'll talk a bit more about that later on. In 2016, the coalition government established the Migrant Workers' Taskforce, and I commend them for doing so. They established that taskforce in response to revelations of serious migrant worker exploitation. An inquiry was then held, chaired by Professor Alan Fels AO, with Deputy Chair David Cousins AM.”
“The reality is that today we often speak of Australia as being a successful multicultural country, with, indeed, almost every country in the world being represented by people who now live here. In the past four decades, under Labor and coalition governments, we have seen, I understand, some seven million or more people come and permanently settle in Australia. Yet I accept that Australians want a controlled immigration program. They want an immigration program that serves Australia's needs and that they can have confidence in. Importantly, they want an immigration program that is not rorted, yet that is what has been happening over recent years, during which, because of widespread conflict overseas, desperate people fleeing war or persecution have been prepared to do whatever it takes to come to Australia.”
“I speak in support of the Migration Amendment (Combatting Migrant Exploitation) Bill 2025. Over recent years there's been a lot of misinformation about migration. Some of it has just been through misunderstandings, but much of it has been deliberate, intended to sow division within communities, to score cheap political points or to divert attention away from the real issues that are causing social struggles. The fact is that migration has been critical to Australia's development, and this has been particularly so since World War II. In the years since then, there has been an influx of migrants. Immediately after World War II, we saw a huge number of British and European migrants come to this country. In the decades that followed, that changed, with people coming here from many other parts of the world.”