Shop Steward rolls Immigration Minister

A committee of federal Labor MPs likely to include former union leader Doug Cameron will scrutinise applications from resource companies for foreign workers, but the government has stopped short of giving it a veto. The whole point of the exercise by caucus is they are afraid unions will lose power if foreign workers are employed in the mining industry.

The 12-point resolution creating the committee, which was moved by Left faction figure Doug Cameron and seconded by Victorian Right faction MP Kelvin Thomson, gives the committee the power to monitor and improve EMAs.

That’s it then. It’s now official. We have the unions running our nation with Shop Steward Cameron in the chair. Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie said Labor wanted to replace Australian labour with cheap Asian workers.

“I am worried that this is a move by stealth, ultimately by the mining industry, to reduce the cost of production by bringing in foreign workers, paying them half what they pay Australian workers while we have people sitting there looking for work,” Mr Wilkie said.

Except they get paid standard Aussie award rates, you idiot. This man has a vote in the House and he can’t even get his facts right.