… Now the Albanese government is acting. Today, Immigration Minister Andrew Giles announced a package of reforms to help stamp out the exploitation of migrant workers. We think it will help, but alone it’s not enough…

These reforms are a good step, but the government is yet to act on visa rules that encourage the exploitation of working holidaymakers.

We believe the rules that force working holidaymakers to work in regional areas in order to extend their stays ought to be abolished. Instead, working holidaymakers should be limited to a single one-year visa, which is what Australians are usually entitled to overseas.

And we would like the government to commission a review of international higher education in Australia, with a view to identifying ways of weeding out dodgy course providers and relax the fortnightly cap on students’ work hours…

Underpaying workers seems to have become an accepted way of doing business in Australia. Until we treat underpayment as seriously as we treat, say, tax avoidance, it is likely to continue.

Last year, the workplace cop on the beat – the Fair Work Ombudsman – hit employers who underpaid their workers with a total of just $4 million in penalties.

By contrast, the Tax Office collected $3 billion in penalties from people who didn’t pay their taxes…