Mr. Liam Berney:

Our view is that it is not particularly appropriate to change this legislation as things currently stand. However, if there is a proposal to move the legislation, certainly we would be interested in the areas of fines and what employers would face if they were found to be in breach of the conditions applying to work permits.

A common methodology used is three strikes and one is out, that is, an employer is sanctioned after three offences. If an employer commits an offence in this area once, it should be precluded from having access to work permit schemes because it is just unacceptable. That would dissuade employers from abusing people, providing, of course, they can be caught. That comes back to the question of the availability of workplace inspectors and the Workplace Relations Commission.

I was encouraged to hear some committee members talking about making use of the power of the committee to ensure the correct number of inspectors are deployed to the Workplace Relations Commission.