Fairfax Media has spoken to one job-seeker, who does not want to be identified, but who said he received death threats from a middle-man.   

The labour hire middle-men often take a cut from three sources: the workers themselves, employers who hire the workers, and from owners of cheap hotels who house them.

In Mildura, one middle-man who hired out workers to local farmers also owned a caravan park, where he housed four workers per tiny room.

The National Union of Workers (NUW) has called for urgent action on the labour hire middle-men at the centre of many of the employment scams.

"If you sell alcohol in Victoria you need a licence , if you want to trade people you need nothing," said Tim Kennedy, the union's national secretary.

"Labour hire is completely unregulated, all you need is a phone and a spreadsheet to be a labour hire provider."

At the end of last year, there were more than 750,000 foreigners in Australia with temporary work rights, mostly on student, working holiday and 457 visas. Another 470,000 people were here on visitor visas, largely for tourism.

The number of temporary visa holders has more than doubled since 2000 and has risen sharply from negligible levels in the mid 1990s.

This is a starkly different labour market from that which greeted the surge of migrant workers after World War II. Back then, newcomers typically had permanent residency and far greater legal and work rights than today's foreign workers on visas.

In the modern era, some visas require the worker to retain the support of the employer to stay in Australia and also include, in the cases of student visas, restrictions on hours a week worked.

The abuses were graphically highlighted by the recent Fairfax Media/ABC investigation into rorts at the 7/Eleven chain as well as an earlier ABC 4 Corners program that focused on the agriculture sector.
7 Eleven multimedia

On taking over the company, Mr Smith said in a candid interview that he believed 7-Eleven was the tip of the iceberg.   

"We have a problem in this country ... This has opened my eyes, I think we're at the beginning of the revelation of something that is a very wide-spread problem. I think in this country we will find very large numbers of young and foreign workers who are not paid properly."

The latest investigation, published today, indicates he is right, and that sectors of the Australian economy are increasingly reliant on illegal underpayment.

One Mandarin-speaking middle-man from Malaysia, who recruits farm workers, openly admitted the work was "black" labour, which in the Chinese community means illegal.

When asked if he minded other job-seekers being told this, he said: "It is no problem to admit it. I don't want the job seekers [to] misunderstand the position."

Other advertised jobs demand workers pay $3.30 an hour from their wages, or several hundred dollars in up-front payments.   

In some cases workers accused the advertisers and middlemen of promoting scams and fake jobs to steal from them.

Poor English skills, a lack of local knowledge, and a fear that speaking out would result in them being forced out of Australia, contributed to the problem, foreign workers say.

Labor elder statesman, and its former national president, Greg Sword, said employers needed to be made responsible for the underpayment of workers through the use of middle-men.

"There also needs to be legislative change so that employers cannot avoid their responsibilities … even though the middle-man may be paying workers $10 an hour, if it's exposed, the employer should be held responsible."

The results of the Fairfax investigation showing 80 per cent of jobs were illegally under-paid are likely conservative.

The investigation was based largely on an analysis of websites http://www.backpackers.com.tw/ , yeeyi.com and some foreign language Facebook pages. Most of the jobs appeared temporary or casual and did not include penalties and loadings.   

It did not count jobs where no pay rates were disclosed. If such jobs jobs were included in the results it is likely the level of underpayment would be even higher.

Ms Liu, a journalism student who helped with the Fairfax investigation, said most of her friends from Taiwan and China were paid illegally, at rates below the legal minimum wage.

Some of Ms Liu's friends earn as little as $6 an hour working at Chadstone Shopping Centre. "It was quite a contrast when I went from English teacher in China to a restaurant waitress in Australia and the waitress job was paid much lower than the English speaking job."

aquascoot wrote on Oct 2^nd, 2015 at 7:20am:


Possibly the biggest pile of poo that has ever been posted in this forum.

We're not in Asia..... and we don't have their standards and values or their wage rates and costs of living.

We are all aware of the difference in pay rates - that doesn't justify ripping off a worker.

This time you've really lost my respect, Aquascoot.  Your recent posts have been way off the planet, but this?  Now you've descended into absolute trolling.

Grappler Deep State Feller wrote on Oct 2^nd, 2015 at 9:09am:


grappler, i will give you a real time example.

there are 200,000 acres of land near the bega valley over run by fireweed (toxic to cattle).
the cost of spraying it is not economically viable.
it must all be hand pulled and the follow up process will mean this needs to be done for probably 3 to 4 years.
the herbicide spray hot shot is 150dollars a litre and contaminates milk product.
hand pulling paid at $25 an hour is also not currently economically viable.
the infestation therefore continues to spread.

if we allowed foreign workers to pull this stuff at $10 an hour we create

1  200,000 acres of valuable land
2  we create very very delighted indian workers who can now send money home and put their kids through a better education
3  we do not cost one single job to any australian as no australian would do this for $10 an hour and so the jobs were never going to be created in the first place.

i honestly cant see a loser in this situation.

Johnsmith wrote on Oct 2^nd, 2015 at 9:29am:



In the presence of the free trade agreements, there is no reason why goods would be 20 to 30 times dearer.

Thoughts ??

Now for the first time, a Fairfax Media investigation can outline the extent of it – hundreds of thousands of workers across the economy, in food courts, cafes, factories, building sites, farms, hairdressers and retail – being exploited on low wages and believing they have no power to ask for their rights.         

If there's an issue that should be investigated by a Royal Commission, it's this. If the problem is as widespread as claimed, a Royal Commission must be initiated as soon as possible.

We urgently need reforms to stamp out these practices. Make employers liable for the conditions of all staff they employ, regardless of whether they are employed directly by the employer or through a third party. Mandatory licensing for labour hire companies. Mandatory registration of all employers employing foreign labour. Stiff criminal penalties for anyone found exploiting foreign workers of up to ten times the amount involved with no limit, jail terms and seizing of assets as proceeds of crime.

This is corruption on a wide scale. To stamp out corruption, we need tough action. This is no exception.