• Stephen Howells
• Department of Immigration and Citizenship

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25 July 2011According to this review, since 1998 there has been a growing number of non-citizens working in Australia without permission and that their presence is very often organised by intermediaries who abuse and exploit these workers.

Australia has a remarkably effective system of border control but since at least 1998 many of those who enter lawfully then proceed to take jobs and commence work when their visas do not permit work. It is not possible to calculate the total numbers of non- citizens working in Australia when they do not have permission but the minimum must be in the order of 50,000 and the cohort from which the maximum must be drawn is the hundreds of thousands of non-citizens who enter Australia on tourist, business, working holiday-maker and student visas.

Although the problem is of relatively recent origin it was not curbed at its commencement and there might now be in excess of 100,000 non-citizens working without permission. In simple numerical terms it is the most significant problem facing Australian migration authorities; albeit a small number when compared with the total number of non-citizens who enter as visitors.

The Government is concerned about the consequences of having significant numbers of non-citizens working without lawful permission. Those consequences include the vulnerability of such workers to severe exploitation, the distortion of the labour market and the tendency for their presence to be associated with cash industries and abuses of Australia’s taxation, employment and welfare laws.

The absence of an effective deterrent against the employment of non-citizens who do not have permission to work is an abrogation of Australian sovereignty and a contradiction of the otherwise orderly pattern of migration and the refugee and humanitarian relief programs. It sends a message that will encourage vulnerable people to take any risk and use any means to enter Australia in the belief that they will be able to work and earn good money. These conclusions were expressed in the RIWA Report in 1999.