Victorian government to set up inquiry into labour exploitation
In the wake of the recent revelations about experiences of 417 visa ("working holiday”) workers, the Victorian Labor government has announced it will set up an inquiry into labour exploitation.
Victoria's Minister for Industrial Relations Natalie Hutchins said the inquiry would seek to crack down on unscrupulous labour hire practices.
"We're just in the process of putting some terms of reference together and putting a committee together to actually do the investigation," she said.
"We're hoping to get some pretty quick outcomes around how we can actually regulate probably some of the worst labour hire practices that we've seen in a long time.
"We need to get the message out loud and clear that every unethical labour contractor that's operating needs to know that these activities won't be tolerated in Victoria."
Calls for tighter regulation have also come from other states as well as from peak grower and farmer bodies. To date, however, there has been no indication that the federal government is interested in cracking down on these exploitative practices.
