Media Release

3 March 2017: KAP Member for Kennedy, Bob Katter feels Australian’s have won part of the Section 457 Visa battle following the Immigration Minister’s announcement yesterday to ban 457 visas from the fast food industry.

Mr Katter said, “We want to put on record our gratitude to the Minister in cutting the Section 457 visas.

“But we have been bringing into Australia 650,000 people a year into an economy that is only generating 200,000 jobs. Last year in Question Time I asked the Prime Minister -- what financial arrangements is he making for the explosion in welfare payments in bringing 650,000 people into an economy only generating 200,000 jobs?

“The people coming in have no right to be in this country and they do work, they actually take jobs off the Australians.

“And for people who say ‘Australians are lazy’, well I don’t particularly like being called lazy. I’m an Australian and you won’t denigrate me or any of my fellow Australians by saying that we’re lazy. We weren’t lazy six years ago when 457 visas didn’t exist, because all those jobs were held by Australians.

“The meat works industry in Australia is almost totally manned by 457 visas. What a disgrace! What a pathetic, outrageous disgrace! They say, ‘we can’t get Australian workers,’ well I come from a little town called Charters Towers. We had the biggest meatworks in Australia, and every single meatworker was an Australian. We didn’t find any difficulty in finding those meatworkers.

“The head of Australian Meat Holdings, John Keir comes from Charters Towers, he said, 457s are working for 30 per cent under award-wage. The employers are undermining the pay. ‘We will have to bring in Section 457 workers or we will go under, our competitors will murder us,’ they say.

“So you see the race to the bottom here. And that’s what 457 visas are all about. To undermine our pay and conditions and take our jobs.”

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