Statewide Fuel Reduction Target Unscientific

The damage done by the Lancefield fuel reduction burn again raises the issue of whether our fuel reduction burning is scientifically based.

It should be remembered that the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission's recommendation to burn 390,000 hectares per year for fuel reduction was not supported by its own expert panel. The experts said a statewide target would encourage fuel reduction burns in the larger, more remote areas, which were not as important for public safety as smaller areas around towns.

I made two submissions to the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission and I held a Public Forum in 2012 which provided an opportunity for fire management experts to discuss the fuel reduction issue in detail. These experts didn't support a statewide target – what they proposed were local, zone-based targets for fuel reduction burns, and local, science-based prescriptions for ecological burns.

I was pleased that the Inspector General for Emergency Management recommended earlier this year that the 5 per cent prescribed burn target be replaced by a risk reduction target. I hope that the Victorian Opposition in particular will get behind a change to what has been an unsuccessful and counterproductive approach.

I also hope there is full accountability from the Northern Territory uranium mine owners ERA who allowed a "controlled" burn to become uncontrolled and enter the Kakadu National Park, threatening indigenous rock art. The Northern Territory gets far too many hot, late dry season fires, and the traditional owners and the environment deserve better.

China Free Trade Agreement – Myths and Realities

MYTH 1:

The China FTA does not change existing protocols about labour market testing. (National Farmers Federation 16 September 2015).

REALITY:

There can be no doubt that the China FTA puts a permanent end to labour market testing for all Chinese nationals in all 651 skilled occupations in the standard or ‘non-concessional’ 457 visa program.  This includes over 200 occupations which are currently subject to the 457 Labor Market Testing obligation – engineers, nurses, and Skill Level 3 jobs like electricians, motor mechanics; plus  the 450 or so other mainly graduate-level occupations where there is no testing now simply by government policy.

The Government has expressly stated that in order to implement our obligations under ChAFTA, a Migration Act Determination is required in relation to labour market testing in the 457 visa program. Clearly if nothing was changing there would be no determination.

The definition of 'contractual service suppliers' of China, in combination  with other ChAFTA provisions, means that all standard business sponsors nominating Chinese citizens for non-concessional 457 visas will no longer have to labour market test.

The definition of 'contractual service suppliers of China' is identical to that of 'contractual service suppliers of Korea' in the Korea Free Trade Agreement. It is noteworthy that the Immigration Department has advised registered migration agents that "The effect of the obligations under the KAFTA is that labour market testing will NOT be applied to Korean nationals/permanent residents or to employees of businesses in Korea transferring to an Australian branch of that business being nominated under the 457 programme".

The China FTA also removes Australia’s right to apply labour market testing in the 400 visa program, for Chinese ‘installers and services’ of machinery and equipment.

At present there is no legislated requirement for labour market testing in the 400 visa.  But by policy 400 visas are only granted to foreign workers to do ‘highly specialised work – that is, it involves skills, knowledge or experience….which cannot reasonably be found in the Australian labour market.’

The China FTA will remove the Australian government’s ability to apply this current test or indeed any form of labour market testing to Chinese ‘installers and services’ in the 400 visa program.

MYTH 2:

We need a free trade agreement with China in order to do business with China. New Zealand etc will steal a march on us if we don't.

REALITY:

Australian agricultural exports to China have trebled in the past six years, rising from $3 billion in 2007/8 to $9 billion in 2013/14.

China had $27.7 billion - $12 billion of it in Australian real estate - in investment proposals approved by the Foreign Investment Review Board in the 2014 financial year, more than from any other country. Chinese investors bought more real estate in Sydney and Melbourne combined (almost $3.5 U.S. billion) than in each of London, Paris, and New York.

Any China market access advantage for Australian exporters will only be temporary.  Nothing in the deal prevents China from giving the same access to other countries. But all Australian concessions will be permanent.

MYTH 3:

This agreement is the same as others we've done. People who oppose it are being hypocritical at best and xenophobic or racist at worse.

REALITY:

Both the words and the meaning of the China deal are different from those of previous treaties.

The definition of "contractual service suppliers" in the Chile deal refers to persons with "high-level technical or professional qualifications, skills and experience". The definition for the China, Korea and Japan deals was watered down to persons with “trade, technical or professional skills and experience", with the words "high-level" and "qualifications" being omitted.

The Department provided unequivocal advice to the Treaties Committee in 2008 that the Chile deal was limited to professional skilled business people, and people with high-level qualifications who are already employed by an enterprise of the other country. The Department said the Chile FTA would not widen the capacity for people to apply for 457 visas, and was "not about nationals seeking access to the employment market; it is about service professionals coming temporarily to Australia to deliver their particular service and then leaving".

But with the China FTA there are over 650 trades and other occupations in the 457 program (including over 200 about which the Department has said that there is labour market testing now) which can never again be subject to labour market testing if this China deal comes into force.

The Department also said the Chile deal did not limit Australia's scope to change or abolish 457 visas. This is not true of the China deal.

The ASEAN and Malaysian FTAs, which Labor signed in government, provided labour market testing exemptions in the 457 visa program for very limited categories of foreign nationals. The China deal gives labour market testing exemptions to all Chinese nationals in the 457 program.

But wait, there's more. The initial period of entry for temporary contractual service suppliers in the Japan and Korea FTAs is one year. It is four years for the China FTA, four times as long.

The China Deal also differs from other trade deals in that it has:

• No labour market testing for Chinese ‘installers and servicers’ in the 400 visa program – other deals do not.

• A Memorandum of Understanding on Investment Facilitation Arrangements – other deals do not. Workers under IFAs will be semi-skilled or substandard skilled workers. Both can have lower English skills than under the standard 457 visa, which will hamper their ability to understand their rights or complain about violation of them. Lower English skills also have worrying implications for workplace safety.

• An Investor State Dispute Settlement provision – the Chile Deal does not, and the Japan deal does not.

• No labour rights chapter.

• No environment chapter.

• A side letter that removes mandatory skills assessment for ten skilled trades, including electricians, motor mechanics, and carpenters. Mandatory skills assessment for 457 visa applicants from high risk countries including China was introduced in 2009 by the former Labor Government as part of a series of reforms designed to restore some integrity to the 457 visa program. Prior to this it was all too common for employers to nominate Chinese and other overseas workers as skilled 457 workers in trade occupations but work them as semi-skilled or unskilled workers. Some Chinese workers granted 457 visas as professional engineers were found to be working as labourers on Australian construction sites. There were also well-founded concerns about the trade training standards and the extent of qualifications and document fraud in certain countries including China. Authorities like the World Bank say those concerns are still valid.

• A Memorandum of Understanding which provides young Chinese with 5000 work and holiday visas each year, with the right to work in Australia for the full 12 months of the year. There is no reciprocal arrangement for young Australians to work and holiday in China.

UN Expert Says Trade Agreements Need to Respect Human Rights

The first Independent Expert appointed by the UN to promote a democratic and equitable international order, Mr Alfred de Zayas, says that governments across the world need to put a stop to free trade and investment agreements that conflict with human rights treaty obligations.

He says "Over the past decades free trade and investment agreements have had adverse impacts on the enjoyment of human rights by interfering with the States's fundamental functions to legislate in the public interest and regulate fiscal, budgetary, labour, health, and environmental policies".

His report deplores the paradox resulting from assuming conflicting treaty obligations, where countries ratify human rights treaties, but then enter into agreements that prevent him from fulfilling their human rights obligations.

In particular he urges the abolition of the Investor-State Dispute Settlement mechanism in Trade and Investment Agreements. He says it "encroaches on the regulatory space of States and suffers from fundamental flaws including lack of independence, transparency, accountability and predictability".

"This dispute settlement mechanism has mutated into a privatised system of 'justice', incompatible with article 14(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, whereby three arbitrators are allowed to override national legislation and the judgments of the highest national tribunals, in secret and with no possibility of appeal. This constitutes a grave challenge to the very essence of he rule of law."

Voting in Melbourne City Council Elections

A report commissioned by the Electoral Regulation Research Network recommends that only residents be allowed to vote in Melbourne City Council elections, that is to say that businesses would be banned from voting in them. Presently businesses are required to vote, and corporations operating in Melbourne are allocated two votes.

The lead author of the report, Monash University Associate Professor Ken Coghill, said giving votes to corporate entities and non-resident property owners was not democratic. He rejected the idea businesses should have a vote because they pay rates.

"The cry of 'no taxation without representation' is false: it is not accepted for voting in state or Commonwealth elections or in other democracies", Professor Coghill said.

The Municipal Association of Victoria opposes the idea. They say "a dominance of residential voters could see more focus on the amenity of living in the city, possibly at the expense of economic activity and development".

And the problem is?

Building Excavation Not Good Enough

This morning I visited John Wade at his Engine Fit business in Nicholson Street Brunswick. His workshop has collapsed due to excavations next door. The damage is so great that it will almost certainly put him out of business for a year, threatening a 40 year family business.

But it could have been worse. If his son had not alerted everyone inside when he heard the wall cracking, enabling them to flee the building, there could have been injury or deaths.

This is not the first time Melbourne has seen building excavations causing chaos for next door properties. It raises two important questions. First, whether we should continue with the privatised system of building surveying introduced by the Kennett Government in the 1990s. Are building surveyors, who nowadays work for builders and developers, doing their job properly? Secondly, in our rush to cram more people into Melbourne in general and Moreland in particular, are we permitting high rise buildings that are not suitable for the land they are being built on?

I will await the findings of WorkSafe and Moreland Council, who are investigating the collapse, with great interest. Small family businesses like John Wade's deserve better than to be the innocent victims of developer greed and inadequate regulation.

457 Visa Workers Used to Undercut Australian Workers

I received a troubling letter from Mr Geoff McMahon, a constituent of mine who lives in North Coburg. Geoff is a 61 year old highly qualified electrical engineer. He has worked on numerous Australian fly in fly out resources jobs and says proudly that he has never been on the dole.

But in the last 18 months he has seen all his engineering roles handed to 457 visa workers, and has had just three months work.

He says Julie Bishop's statement that 457 visa workers who come to Australia are paid the same as their Australian counterparts "is a lie". He says he can testify from working alongside them that migrant workers are paid less. "While on the Santos GLNG project in Queensland, of the 105 engineers on gas compression Hub 04, I was one of two Australians, the rest were 457 visa workers. The Filipino engineers were paid $8 per hour. I told the Filipino that they are entitled to better pay. They all emphatically stated that they will not rock the boat and that $8 per hour was good pay for them".

Geoff McMahon concludes his letter with the plea "Please rid this country of 457 workers. I need to work". He is right. With 800,000 people in this country out of work – and many more like Geoff who don't count as unemployed but who are underemployed – 457s are an employer rort. We should wind down the 457 program and make sure Australian workers have the opportunities, the training, and the right financial incentives to do these jobs.

Election of Malcolm Turnbull as Liberal Leader

I congratulate Malcolm Turnbull on his election as Liberal Party Leader. It is an immense honour and privilege to lead the great nation of Australia and I wish him every success in this most important responsibility.

I also congratulate Bill Shorten, who has vanquished an elected Prime Minister in his first term, a tribute to his strong and effective leadership of the past two years.

The Australian people could have been served better by their political leaders in recent years, and I urge Malcolm Turnbull as Prime Minister to do three things.

First, give us evidence based policy, not ideology and voodoo. I am particularly thinking here of climate change. The level of public leadership of this issue by Tony Abbott was just appalling. Malcolm Turnbull has the chance to make Australia a team player in the international fight to cut carbon emissions. If he will not take a stronger target to Paris, he should certainly be willing to sign up to a stronger one at Paris in return for relevant commitments by other countries, which also have a role to play. He can also put a stop to the undermining of renewable energy and help rather than hinder the transition which Australia needs to make and is making.

Second, restore trust in politicians by keeping faith with election promises. The broken promises of the 2014 Budget were disastrous for Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey. Malcolm Turnbull should jettison them. He should in particular do away with the plan to deregulate student fees. Students are already fitted up with massive HECS-HELP debts; they should not be increased.

Third, he should be prepared to compromise and negotiate, rather than continue the ruthless take no prisoners approach of Mr Abbott. The China Free Trade Agreement is a case in point. Mr Abbott lost the support of the voters in Victoria and South Australia, and as a result he lost the support of Liberal MPs in those states, who feared losing their seats. Victoria and South Australia are referred to as the AFL States, but that was not Tony Abbott's problem. His problem was that they are manufacturing states. His government was prepared to trash manufacturing in order to get an outcome for agriculture. Last week I visited the Alucoil factory, a manufacturer just north of my electorate, where unemployment is over 20 per cent, which is threatened by cheap imports as a consequence of the China Free Trade Deal.

Malcolm Turnbull should reject this winner take all approach to politics and be prepared to compromise. Labor wants to negotiate protections for Australian workers against unfair competition from easily exploited temporary foreign workers. The China Free Trade Agreement does away with labour market testing for nurses, engineers, electricians, motor mechanics, and 200 other occupations. And if the China Free Trade Agreement has such public support as the Government claims, why is it that after weeks of pushing it in the Parliament that Malcolm Turnbull could say the Liberal Party was headed for electoral oblivion and have a clear majority of his colleagues agree with him?

Finally, when Labor replaced Kevin Rudd with Julia Gillard because we were headed for defeat in 2010 the chorus of scorn and derision from the Liberal Party and the media was deafening. We were told we had no right to do this. Now that the Liberal Party has taken precisely the same action, we await the relevant apologies.