Mr Basilio Reyes 457 Visa Employment

The Hon. IAN WEST [5.08 p.m.]: Last Friday, 29 February 2008, a community rally was held outside a restaurant in my duty electorate of Cronulla over the mistreatment of an overseas worker. Basilio Reyes came to Australia from Chile in February last year and was employed as a chef at Sombreros Mexican Restaurant under the controversial 457 visa scheme. The signs were dodgy from the beginning. Mr Reyes was required to work six days a week and was not paid for public holidays. He received only two or three payslips, despite working at the restaurant for a year, and did not receive any payment for any annual leave. It is also alleged that he was victimised after he complained about poor hygiene standards at the restaurant. This was despite the restaurant later admitting that it received an unsatisfactory rating in a council health check, after a number of customers complained about food poisoning. But worse was to come.

In December 2007 Mr Reyes was diagnosed with a serious melanoma that required surgery. He underwent the operation on 16 January 2008 and was in hospital for four days. His doctor told him that he was not fit to return to work for four weeks and provided a medical certificate, which Mr Reyes passed on to his employer at the restaurant. On 18 February Mr Reyes was fired because he was unable to work due to his ongoing cancer treatment. Mr Reyes did not receive all the sick leave he was entitled to for the period he was off work. His medical expenses to date have been more than $7,000. Despite the legal requirements under migration law that his employer either provide health insurance, or agree to pay medical expenses, Sombreros has not paid one cent. Now unemployed, Mr Reyes, his wife and son have been forced to move out of their rented apartment.

Unfortunately, Mr Reyes's story is one we have become too familiar with under the 457 visa scheme. There has been a seemingly unending supply of cases of abuse of the scheme since 2002 when the Howard Government tightened the conditions of 457 visas so that workers could not change to a different employer. Previously, changing employers had been allowed conditional on the approval of the Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs. So 457 visas became a form of indentured labour—effectively, a form of slavery—that allowed unscrupulous employers to exploit the vulnerabilities of foreign workers who might be lacking in knowledge of local laws and lacking language skills. This legacy of the Howard Government is also symptomatic of the previous Federal Government's lack of investment in skilling the local workforce.

The Rudd Government should be applauded for recognising this bottleneck in the economy and seeking to address it. It has announced that it will provide an additional 450,000 Australian training places over the next four years and 820,000 in the next decade. Some of the industries the extra places will cover include mining, construction, health and community services, and other service industries. Of course, the benefits of addressing the skills shortage through training local people will take some time to flow through. Until then, we have a duty to ensure that overseas workers coming to Australia to plug the gaps are not abused in the way that Mr Reyes and his family have been. Again, the union movement—in this case, the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union—has taken up the cause of these people. The union must be commended for bringing matters such as this particular case to public attention, and for continuing its ongoing fight for justice for the people affected by the shortcomings of these 457 visas.

The one saving grace in all this, if there is one, is that the business is a partnership and is not covered by the remnants of WorkChoices, so the union is able to run a case for unfair dismissal for Mr Reyes. Mr Reyes is also meeting with immigration authorities this week and is hoping to get an appropriate visa to allow him to stay in Australia while his cancer treatment continues and while he is unable to obtain employment in a fair and dignified way, rather than under the slavery conditions imposed by 457 visas.