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Government tightens migrant worker rules; New guidelines for PALM scheme

The Federal Government has announced a "package of measures" to target employers that seek to exploit, or have exploited, temporary visa holders. Meanwhile employers engaging labour under the PALM scheme will have new obligations from next month.

These measures represent remaining recommendations from the Migrant Worker Taskforce Review, which were not actioned by the previous Liberal Government, and they aim to:

• make it a criminal offence to coerce someone into breaching their visa conditions;
• introduce prohibition notices to stop employers from hiring temporary visa holders in cases where they have previously exploited migrants;
• increase penalties and introduce new compliance tools to deter exploitation; and
• repeal section 235 of the Migration Act (offences in relation to work by non-citizens), which the Government says actively undermines people reporting exploitative behaviour...