Fair Work gets right to probe 457 visa conditions

The highly politicised debate about the use of 457 visas for skilled temporary workers may be moving into fact from rhetoric with a government proposal to give Fair Work Ombudsman staff the ability to monitor and enforce compliance with 457 visa conditions, according to an article in brw.com.au.

Planned reforms to laws governing the labour watchdog would allow its staff to ensure foreign workers were employed in the right jobs and were receiving market salary rates, Immigration and Citizenship Minister Brendan O’Connor and Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten said in a joint statement.

“Employers who do the right thing have nothing to fear from this change and there will be no additional compliance burden or red tape for them,” they said.

The row over 457 visas has drawn a fierce response from business and migration analysts. Prime Minister Julia Gillard had likened the program – designed to meet short-term skills shortages in industries as they arise – to asylum seekers, with talk of wanting “to stop foreign workers being put at the front of the queue with Australian workers at the back”. 

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