Subjects: Aged care homes, overseas workers, Migrant Worker Exploitation Bill, housing crisis.
HAMISH MACDONALD: Well, we all know Australia has a rapidly ageing population. It may surprise you though to learn that aged care homes are growing slower now than they have over the past five years. That's according to the largest not‑for‑profit provider.
Aged care provider Bolton Clarke has told The Australian today that homes are growing beds are half the rate they had been, blaming inflation and new federal government regulations around staffing.
To combat the 24/7 nursing rule introduced by this government, they introduced earlier this year new arrangements to get workers from overseas. Four months on though there are concerns that agreement is failing to deliver.
Andrew Giles is the Minister for Immigration in charge of bringing those overseas workers in. He's in our Parliament House studio this morning. Good morning to you.
ANDREW GILES, MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION, CITIZENSHIP AND MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS: Good morning to you, Hamish, and to your listeners.
HAMISH MACDONALD: How many providers have actually signed up to your agreement to access workers from overseas?
ANDREW GILES, MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION, CITIZENSHIP AND MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS: Eight providers have signed up so far covering 2,000 temporary visa places and 4,000 permanent places. We're in discussions, or we're aware, rather, of discussions involving many other providers because there is real interest in this as one part of obviously a wider range of solutions to ensure that we're doing everything we can to support older Australians.
HAMISH MACDONALD: But eight providers of something like 800 across the country, nearly all of these homes and facilities need more workers. Why are so few signed up so far?
ANDREW GILES, MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION, CITIZENSHIP AND MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS: Well it's a scheme that's still very much in its infancy. People are having a close look at it, working with their workforces and their relevant unions to ensure that it's working for them.
I'm aware of, as I said, many other discussions. I'm looking forward tomorrow to be visiting a facility down the road from here in Canberra with Minister Wells to talk about the difference this is making and the opportunities to attract the workers. We know right across the board, Hamish ‑‑
HAMISH MACDONALD: Does that explanation quite cut it given the acute shortages that exist in homes right across the country? I mean it doesn't seem to stack up.
ANDREW GILES, MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION, CITIZENSHIP AND MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS: Well I say again that the work that Minister Wells in particular has been doing to respond to what was a crisis in aged care, I mean every Australian I think was confronted by the Royal Commission report that highlighted neglect, and we took very significant commitments to the last election 15 or 16 months ago and are working assiduously towards them.
Now a big part of that is dealing with workforce issues and we're doing so in an environment where unemployment is obviously very low. We've got to look at innovative solutions where we have made significant steps, including of course the very significant aged care pay increase which will be another factor making a difference in enabling providers to do the right thing to attract workforce.
HAMISH MACDONALD: We've been talking to the industry over the past 24 hours to try and get a handle on why so few have signed up, and there does seem to be a concern about the unions and the level of access that they would have to these employees. To enter into the agreement the provider has to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the unions. Why do they have to do that?
ANDREW GILES, MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION, CITIZENSHIP AND MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS: Well we're very concerned about ensuring that two things happen. One, that we attract workforce and high quality workforce to ensure that our most vulnerable Australians get the care they need. But also to ensure that so many of the issues that we've seen in terms of the exploitation of migrant workers don't occur.
There's a bill before the Parliament that will be debated today that I'm very proud to have introduced that deals with many of these issues of migrant worker exploitation. But one thing that we are committed to as a government is to work together, to bring people together to work in the national interest. And that's what this Memorandum of Understanding is all about, finding an agreed way forward ‑‑
HAMISH MACDONALD: But do you think it's an impediment?
ANDREW GILES, MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION, CITIZENSHIP AND MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS: Not at all.
HAMISH MACDONALD: Do you think it may be an impediment to those signing up?
ANDREW GILES, MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION, CITIZENSHIP AND MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS: Not at all because these are ‑ this is about providing an assurance to the community that people who are coming here, people who are on temporary visas have the protection so that they can go about their work focused on care, not worried about some of the awful instances of exploitation of migrant workers, people who have been exploited because of their visa status that we've heard so much about. Issues that the former government neglected despite commissioning a report into this seven years ago.
HAMISH MACDONALD: I'm talking to the Immigration Minister Andrew Giles. You'll be aware, Minister, that there's been a fair amount of criticism of increased migration numbers given the situation with the housing crisis across the country. When you do agree on or decide on the numbers, the intake each year, do you think about where people will end up living and what the implications might be for the cost of housing, whether it's rental or purchasing?
ANDREW GILES, MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION, CITIZENSHIP AND MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS: Not just in individual years but across the board and, Hamish, that's a really key feature of the Intergenerational Report which the Treasurer released a couple of weeks ago. And indeed, the work that Minister O'Neil has been doing in terms of our response to the Migration Review that was handed to government earlier this year, to make sure that we take a longer-term view of these issues. That's something that's critically important.
At National Cabinet a few weeks ago, there was a really important agreement reached between the federal government and all states and territories to look at working more closely together to ensure that migration and infrastructure issues, including most importantly housing, are working together. Something that hasn't been happening in the past.
HAMISH MACDONALD: But that might be the longer term, what about in the immediate term when you are lifting the caps?
ANDREW GILES, MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION, CITIZENSHIP AND MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS: Well across the board we've got to do both. We've got to respond to immediate challenges. Challenges in the Labor market like the one we've just been talking about, Hamish, where we have really significant skill shortages in a range of key sectors. And we've also got enormous cost‑of‑living pressures, and of course getting our immigration settings right, a really critical response to that too.
HAMISH MACDONALD: Sure.
ANDREW GILES, MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION, CITIZENSHIP AND MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS: But we need to be able to have a short‑term response whilst planning for the future, otherwise we'll just end up reacting over and over again, which is what took place over nine years of the Coalition government that didn't take migration policy seriously.
HAMISH MACDONALD: Respectfully, Minister, I'm asking you about your government and what you're doing, and I do want to go to that short‑term solution. When you are encouraging people to come into the country, whether it is to fill those worker shortages or otherwise, do you have an idea of where they will end up living? I mean is there actually a plan in place for those people?
ANDREW GILES, MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION, CITIZENSHIP AND MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS: Well there is and one of the things that we have done, for example, is to triple the number of regional places in the intake over the two years that we have been handing down the migration program. Again, we're working with the states. And of course when it comes to housing, one thing anyone can do is to encourage members of the Opposition, members of the Greens to get behind Minister Collins' work on the Housing Affordability Future Fund, which would be delivering 30,000 houses a year, as well as the other measures that have been put in place. We've got to look at all of these things, Hamish.
HAMISH MACDONALD: But that's a long‑term or mid‑term at least solution to the housing crisis in Australia. Again, I just draw you to the immediate term.
ANDREW GILES, MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION, CITIZENSHIP AND MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS: And the immediate example ‑‑
HAMISH MACDONALD: Where would these people live?
ANDREW GILES, MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION, CITIZENSHIP AND MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS: Well in the immediate term we also need people with the skills to build houses. That's a message that has been consistently delivered to me by industry and by the states and territories. That's why we've ‑ there isn't a silver bullet to this, Hamish. It's about looking at all of these issues and in their context. There are of course fewer people in Australia today than any budget projection under the previous government, if we go back to 2019 in particular, indicated there would be.
This is a complex series of challenges where we have to look at the immediate term, as you say, but we also must plan for the future.
HAMISH MACDONALD: There was some news yesterday about the asylum seeker Neil Para, he was granted permanent residency as he neared the end of a 1,000 kilometre walk to raise awareness of thousands of asylum seekers living in limbo. There are more than 12,000 of them in Australia right now. His case appears to be resolved. But what about those other 12,000 people? I mean is there a timeline for them?
ANDREW GILES, MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION, CITIZENSHIP AND MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS: I should say a couple of things. Firstly, as you’d probably appreciate, I don't comment on individual cases for privacy reasons, and I won't ‑ I don't think the number that you're talking about is quite right but let me just say this.
In terms of that group of people who have claimed protection and are working through their issues, anyone in that category of people who would have been on the cruel limbo of temporary protection that the former government put in place, if they are ultimately found to be owed protection then they will be granted permanent visas. But obviously that's if they are found to be owed Australia's protection. And if they are not obviously people, if it's safe to do so should depart.
HAMISH MACDONALD: Andrew Giles, thank you very much. We appreciate your time this morning.
ANDREW GILES, MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION, CITIZENSHIP AND MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS: Great to be with you, Hamish.
HAMISH MACDONALD: That's the Immigration Minister Andrew Giles.
ENDS
