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BUILDING A CASE

A follow up to the news about today's raid on a Port Melbourne construction site by armed Federal Police, Victoria Police, Taxation Office and immigration officials.

The raiders hit the building site just before 7 a.m. They detained sixty Chinese nationals.

At last count 18 of them were found to be illegal immigrants, living here illegally, working here illegally, but obviously all holding union work tickets.

And that raises a lot of questions.

The ubiquitous, dial-a-quote, union boss Martin Kingham complained that the police were armed (well, police usually are) and complained that "only luck prevented lives being lost".

He says the project manager should have been warned in advance of the raid to prevent panic. Yeah sure. And maybe organise a bus to get the illegals off the site before the raid.

Bingham also claims it is illegal for the union to demand proof of legal entry or legal status before joining a person up and issuing them a work ticket.

To me this is rubbish. If I go and try to get a job in, say, the United States I have to produce a visa, a work permit, a green card, whatever. You also have to produce a Social Security number.

The same applies in England in Ireland.

The union should make similar demands here and so should the contractor - in this case the giant construction company Thiess.

To complicate things more it seems the illegals were all working for a sub-contractor called Expoconti which provided plasterers to the construction site.

One theory is that a shortage of men to do the jobs forces building firms to turn a blind eye just to get the numbers.

Maybe if you didn't need a union ticket to work as a casual the problem would disappear. But that won't happen in a hurry despite union membership supposedly being non-compulsory in this country.

Thursday, February 20, 2003

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2002