Advocating in our National Parliament

A team of ACRATH members are walking the halls of our National Parliament 9-13th September advocating with Members and Senators to ensure Australia’s justice frameworks address the needs of victims and survivor. During their meetings they will be raising the following issues with members and senators:

1. Australia needs a National Compensation Scheme for Victim/Survivors of Modern Slavery

ACRATH wants to ensure that any victim of modern slavery in Australia can access compensation for the crime that was committed against them in Australia. ACRATH is joining with Anti-Slavery Australia, and several other civil society groups, to call for a national compensation scheme to be developed in 2024 and implemented in 2025.

2. Australia wants the best for seasonal workers working in Australia on PALMS, the Pacific Australia
Labour Mobility Scheme

ACRATH has obtained a grant from some Catholic Sisters to support seasonal workers on the PALM Scheme. We are keen to work with the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations to improve the workers’ experience of Australia, especially by linking workers with local church and recreational communities. Issues seasonal workers have raised with us include:

• Minimum wage guarantee on piece rates
• Accessing their superannuation through the DASP, the Departing Australia Superannuation Payment
• Accessible medical care for all seasonal workers in Australia, especially for women
• Accessing enough warm clothes

In past years ACRATH has called on the Australian government to ensure federal government oversight of labour hire companies, recruiters to Australia of overseas seasonal workers. A similar recommendation was proposed by the Federal Government‘s Taskforce led by Prof Alan Fels in 2019; all recos were accepted.

3. ACRATH is calling on the federal government to improve international students’ experience of
study and life in Australia

ACRATH, in our AGD-funded Educating for Change, has become aware of the need for stronger oversight by the federal government of international students’ experience of study life in Australia.

There is solid current research which shows wage theft from international students in Australia. In their June 2020 paper International Students and Wage Theft in Australia Bassina Farbenblum and Laurie Berg wrote:

‘Wage theft is endemic among temporary migrants in a number of industries in Australia. These include international students who are entitied to work up to 40 hours per fortnight on their student visas. This report… analyses findings from a nationwide survey of over 5,000 international students undertaken in 2019…’

4. ACRATH congratulates the federal government on these recent significant changes:

• the establishment of Australia’s first federal Anti-Slavery Commissioner
• the introduction of an additional referral pathway to the STPP, the Support for Trafficked People Program
• the introduction of the Forced Marriage Specialist Support Program
• the introduction of the workplace justice visa
• the introduction of new laws and regulations to enhance the rights of seasonal workers

Download a copy of the ACRATH advocacy document here.