- The China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA) allows unlimited Chinese workers to be imported into Australia without labour market testing, potentially displacing Australian jobs. - ChAFTA provisions are unequal, favoring China, such as longer access periods for Chinese executives and contractual service suppliers in Australia compared to Australians in China. - The agreement's vagueness around "concessions" means Chinese companies can negotiate directly with immigration to import unskilled, underqualified workers, increasing risks of exploitation and lowering work quality standards. - Less than 6 months since implementation, a case was found where 7 Chinese workers were paid half the legal minimum wage with no proper visas or protections, indicating ChAFTA

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Risks of ChAFTA Coming to Reality
In February 2016, only three months after the China – Australia Free Trade Agreement
(ChAFTA) has entered into force, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said in the Parliament, “the
Free Trade Agreement with China is already bringing benefits in terms of more sales for goods
and services and that means more jobs”. The economic opportunities China – Australia Free
Trade Agreement (ChAFTA) produced for Australia are undeniable, with much of the local
agribusiness already showing increase in export sales to China. Wine exports to China has
increased more than 60 percent and seafood exports to China has tripled since last year. But
how does more sales directly means more jobs for Australians when the agreement allows
Chinese companies to import unlimited Chinese workers, bypassing any requirements for
labour market testing?
When the draft of ChAFTA was proposed, it was heavily criticised by worker unions and
academics, and one of the heavily criticized area was the exclusion of labour market testing on
imported Chinese national workers for “particular service sectors” (which includes food and
agribusiness, resources and energy, transport, telecommunications, power supply and
generation, environment, and tourism sector). Quoted from Chapter 10 of the Free Trade
Agreement Between The Government Of Australia And The Government Of The People’s
Republic Of China,
“This Chapter shall not apply to measures affecting natural persons of a Party seeking access
to the employment market of the other Party, nor shall it apply to measures regarding
citizenship, nationality, or residence or employment on a permanent basis.”
As Dr Joanna Howe, a law professor from the University of Adelaide, explained in her paper,
The Impacts of China – Australia Free Trade Agreement on Australian Job Opportunities,
Wages and Conditions: “This means even if the Australian Government wished to constrain
the number of 457 visa holders more generally because local unemployment was high or to
reflect the economic circumstances, it could not do so with respect to Chinese citizens.”
While the agreement does not place any limitations for the number of workers moving between
China and Australia, there are still parts of the agreement that seems unequal and one-sided, in
favours of China.
Most of the categories grants Chinese citizen entering Australia longer period of access in
comparison to Australian citizens entering China. ChAFTA allows Australian business

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executives to transfer to China within the same multinational company for up to 3 years, but
Chinese executives are guaranteed access to Australia for up to 4 years. Contractual service
suppliers (which includes trade, technical and professional skills) of Chinese citizens are
guaranteed access to Australia for up to 4 years while China will guarantee access to Australian
contractual service suppliers only up to one year. The only category which attempts to make
up for the imbalance is the installers and maintainers, where Australian installers are given
access to China for 180 days while Chinese installers are guaranteed access for 3 months.
The agreement allows unlimited Chinese workers to be imported into Australia, but the laws
and regulations of Australia is applicable to the imported workers, which means the Chinese
workers must still fulfil certain skill sets and requirements for certain jobs. This still sounds
fair for both parties, except that the agreement also introduced the concept of concession
through the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in the Investment Facilitation
Arrangement (IFA). “One of the most serious features is this reference to the possibility of
further concessions, the agreement is very loose, very weak, and far too liberal in its treatment
of Chinese, supposing temporary, immigrant workers, than it should have been,” said Professor
Peter Lloyd, an emeritus professor of Economy in the University of Melbourne. The concept
of concession allows Chinese project companies to negotiate directly with the Department of
Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) in the terms of importing workers, as long as the
Chinese enterprise holds a substantial interest or owns 50 percent or more of the infrastructure
development project and the project has a capital expenditure of more than A$150 million.
“There’s no discussion of concession except it says here (in the Memorandum of
Understanding), ‘the project may be asked to provide additional information in respect for a
request for concessions’. That’s the first and only mention of them. So what’s those concession
are, whether it will apply to only workers other than the skilled workers or only the job list I
don’t know.” Professor Lloyd said.
Provisions of increased accessibility for international labourers is not uncommon. “It’s
common for a free trade agreement to have a labour mobility provision which government’s
regulation and the movement of workers between jurisdictions. For example, the Trans-Pacific
Partnership agreement had a whole lot of allegement that individual countries signed up to.”
Dr Howe said through a phone interview, “Because different countries felt that could liquid
certain things to do with labour market testing which they couldn’t.” But in the case of the
Memorandum of Understanding, it had placed Australia at a vulnerable position. “The
Memorandum of Understanding only applies to Chinese investment in Australia. There’s no

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such memorandum for the reverse flow.” Professor Lloyd said, “This feature by the way is very
uncommon, I don’t know of any other trade agreement which has a provision like this.”
Multinational Chinese companies are already looking to employ workers from China to
Australia. Through a telephone conversation with Dong Heng Lao Wu Pai Qian Gong Xi, a
multinational Chinese company with branches in Europe, America, New Zealand and
Australia, it is confirmed that they have started hiring workers in China with basic secondary
education and no experiences for jobs like waitressing and factory works for Australia. But
Australia currently has an unemployment rate of 6%, how hard could it be to find worker with
basic secondary school education in the Australia labour market? “10% of the entire Australian
workforce are all these workers (imported workers). As the unemployment rate among natural
Australian citizen goes up, there’s more and more of these workers coming in.” Steve Diston,
an organiser from the Electrical Trades Union (ETU) said, “It’s basically offshoring offshores.”
Such one sided agreement will and has been seriously criticized. “The trouble is we have a
coalition government that is very keen to demonstrate that it is pro-business and pro-
development and so forth.” Professor Lloyd explained.
However, having Australian workers being locked out is not the workers union’s only main
concern of ChAFTA. The agreement, including the introduction of ‘concession’, also increase
the possibility of exploitation of workers. The provisions in the IFA have given rise to a level
of opacity in the government processes, whereby the Chinese companies can negotiate directly
with the Department of Immigration. The ambiguity of ‘concessions’ may allow companies in
Australia to import unskilled or underqualified Chinese workers for huge infrastructure
projects. “When you look at it (ChAFTA), you see that there’s no qualification (for skilled
workers) needed, it’s just a fast tracked treatment from the free trade agreement”, Mr Diston
said. Looking back at incidents of exploitations like 7-Eleven and Baiada Chicken, ChAFTA
will not be improving the situation in the country. “We have a lot of these exploited workers
in Australia, often you cannot talk to them because of language barrier. And they don’t want
to talk, they are afraid they will be sent home, they are afraid of punishment, and all of that.”
Mr Diston said, “Now that the China free trade agreement took place, you got a whole structure
build up around the exploitation. There’s over a million people there that can easily utilise
them.” Strictly speaking in terms of business profits, importing cheap Chinese workers sounds
attractive not only to Chinese companies, but Australian companies as well. “It’s much more
profitable for them to employ cheap Chinese labour than it is to employ expensive unionised

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Australian labour. So Australian companies who are participants in these infrastructure
projects, will also benefits by increase Chinese labour. But the one group who will miss out
obviously are the Australian workers who might not get the job which they would have got
otherwise.” Professor Lloyd said.
“When more and more employers figure out this nasty loophole on imported labour, I think
then it will become more of an issue.” Mr Diston said. Less than half a year into the
implementation of ChAFTA, Mr Diston is already witnessing the negative impacts first hand.
Just last month, Mr Diston received a case about 7 Chinese nationalities working at an
apartment block for A$9.37 per hour, almost half of the legal minimum wage in Australia.
“What we found was their subclass 400 class visa the workers had was granted on the basis on
one letter to the immigration department, basically saying that these skills weren’t available in
Australia, and it was a template letter, all 7 of them had identical ones.” The workers were
found to have no insurance, no superannuation, no benefits and no tax, but most of all, Mr
Diston found that their visas were approved in a period of only one day. “As soon as I saw this
was a one day turnaround, and there was no skills assessment or anything required, just one
letter. That to me looks like it has to be due to the free trade agreement. I can’t imagine how
you would process a visa in one day.”
The lack of skills and qualification can be extremely dangerous for both the workers and
residents around the work space. “I was watching them (the Chinese nationality workers) work
when I first got there, it was really dangerous, they could hurt themselves or somehow. The
level of skill and the level of safety awareness was well not on par. I was just watching and
just going ‘oh my god, what’s going on?’” We are looking to not only an increase of exploited
workers in Australia, but also a possible decrease in the quality of work done in Australia.
This case remains under the investigation of Electrical Trades Union. This could be the first
case that may be associated with ChAFTA, and it will not be the last.
“The main responsibility lies with the Department of Immigration and Border Control. And
this is the department that has failed seriously to enforce provisions relating to 457 visas”
Professor Lloyd commented, “We are now finding there are a large number of companies in
the service sector and the fruit picking and so forth, who exploit these workers… and the
Department of Immigration are supposed to police this. It has done next to nothing. And this
is now the department who is enforcing the Chinese regulations. Although it’s possible that

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China has negotiated similar provision with some of the African countries. And so forth. And
you know, anything that goes there…”
China – Australia Free Trade Agreement has entered into force since December 2015. While
the vagueness of the term ‘concession’ in the agreement has much negative possibilities, the
vagueness could also grant the Australian Government more power. “If it was really
determined to monitor this and to control it and to avoid any use of Chinese labour when
Australian workers could do the job, it could actually achieve that,” Professor Lloyd said,
“They (Australian parliament) can say well no more concession and they can say we don’t
approve the request for visa applications which one of the companies has forwarded. They can
refuse to approve it on some grounds.” However, if the Australian government decides to have
a hands-off approach, it risks Australia a downwards spiral.
“If our government lacks and doesn’t endeavour to test whether Australian workers could do
the jobs that the Australian companies as well as Chinese companies want to bring in, then
there’s a serious possibility of substantial displacement of Australian labours by temporary
Chinese workers.”
Words: 1945
China and Australia

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Transcript with Professor Peter Lloyd
Email: pjlloyd@unimelb.edu.au
University of Melbourne, 111 Barry Street, Carlton.
Q: Now that we are a few months into ChAFTA, is the government exercising its powers in
areas it can to protect the local labour market force?
A: It’s far too early to tell exactly what will happen. My view is it’s a very bad agreement. We
should have never agreed. I think our minister Andrew Robb, who was responsible for this,
had a very naïve view of the way in which these things might work out. And quite a number of
people are highly critical of these provisions, it’s not just me. One of the most serious features
is this reference to the possibility of further concessions, the agreement is very loose, very
weak, and far too liberal in its treatment of Chinese, supposing temporary, immigrant workers,
than it should have been. And there’s a discussion of further concession. We have no idea what
they are. So I am very fearful that this will end up with a very large number of Chinese,
supposingly skilled, workers engaged in our infrastructure investment projects. And seems to
me especially as there’s no general provision for labour market testing and other safeguard,
there’s no limit on the number of Chinese workers. If our government lacks and doesn’t
endeavour to test whether Australian workers could do the jobs that the Australian companies
as well as Chinese companies want to bring in, then there’s a serious possibility of substantial
displacement of Australian labours by temporary Chinese workers. This feature by the way is
very uncommon, I don’t know of any other trade agreement which has a provision like this.
Although it’s possible that China has negotiated similar provision with some of the African
countries. And so forth. And you know, anything that goes there…
Q: In the agreement, is it equal for both China and Australian immigration flow?
A: The main problem is this separate agreement for infrastructure, the memorandum of
understanding. That specifically relates to Australian infrastructure. Doesn’t cover Chinese
infrastructure. So it’s a one sided proposal. There are other provision relating to business
visitors, cultural specialist and so forth. They seems more standard. A lot of trade agreement
have those and they are not controversial. The really dangerous provision from an Australian
point of view is the memorandum of understand relating to infrastructure investment in
Australia, not china, Australia.

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The memorandum of understanding only applies to Chinese investment in Australia. There’s
no such memorandum for the reverse flow. Doesn’t apply to Australian investment in China.
Do you think the Chinese government would have agreed for Australian companies to import
skilled workers to work in the ports of china? No, I’m absolutely sure. It wasn’t even
considered.
Q: recently, the Prime Minister Turnbull introduced visa application in Mandarin. How will
that further impact Australia?
A: It’s just another indication how far Australia is willing to go to accommodate mainland
Chinese. I don’t know if we have any other such provision for any other country.
Q: Why do you think did Australia go so far to accommodate China?
A: You have to distinguish between the interests of the Australian skilled workers. The
plumbers and the engineers, all these people who will work on infrastructure projects, they are
one group; but the companies, Australian companies as well as Chinese companies, and they
have different interests. There are a lot of Australia companies who will be joint partners in
these infrastructure projects. As far as they are concern, all they want to do is make the most
profits. It’s much more profitable for them to employ cheap Chinese labour than it is to employ
expensive unionised Australian labour. So Australian companies who are participants in these
infrastructure projects, will also benefits by increase Chinese labour. But the one group who
will miss out obviously are the Australian workers who might not get the job which they would
have got otherwise.
Q: do you think the whole agreement might allow corruption to happen?
A: whether theres going to be any corruption in the form of bribery payment, I don’t think so
it’s going to be necessary. The chinese companies will be able to do what they wanted to do
without having to pay any bribery to the Australian department officials or state officials. It’s
a very open and loose agreement, very bad piece of legislations in the way it’s drafted and
written. Mainly because we had a minister who had a very naïve view of these things and he
thinks the companies are going to be honest and I am not so optimistic.
Q: how far do you think the government can and will interfere without breaching the
agreement?

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A: As I said in my piece, I think the government still has some residue power. If it was really
determined to monitor this and to control it and to avoid any use of Chinese labour when
Australian workers could do the job, it could actually achieve that. But I don’t trust my own
government. They have got very bad record. The main responsibility lies with the Department
of immigration and Border Control. And this is the department that has failed seriously to
enforce provisions relating to 457 visas, foreign student and the employment of foreign
students and other temporary workers, 7-11 and so forth. We have slowly realised there are a
large number of people coming on 457 visa and visas for students and visas for working
holidays, they are different categories of visas, those people can work, student are not supposed
to work 20 hours a week or something. Some of them work 40 hours a week. We are now
finding there are a large number of companies in the service sector and the fruit picking and so
forth, who exploit these workers. Who don’t pay them the wages they are supposed to pay,
who don’t pay them the benefits they are supposed to pay, and the Department of Immigration
are supposed to police this. It has done next to nothing. And this is now the department who is
enforcing the Chinese regulations.
Q: in the investment chapter in the agreement, investors of China are to be allowed as much as
Australian investors the establishment and acquisition of investment in Australia, but it was
not so for Australian in China. Why did Australia agree?
A: that’s the kind of one sided provision which we should have never agreed to. The trouble is
we have a coalition government that is very keen to demonstrate that it is pro-business and pro-
development and so forth. And we had a minister, he’s now resigned, Andrew Robb, who
negotiated this and other free trade agreement, who went about his job very naïvely and
uncritically. I think the Chinese agreement and the same applies to some of the agreement
which was recently signed, weren’t drawn up very carefully, from our point of view. In my
view is we should have demanded both sides be treated equally.
Q: So Australia is not allowed to carry out labour market testing for Chinese workers coming
in under 457 visa?
A: for 457, they can engage in labour market testing. This memorandum doesn’t rule out labour
market testing, but it isn’t compulsory. It says there will be no requirement for labour market
testing. Then down here, when they talk about the issues of visa they say once the IFA is
executed a labour agreement will be entered into and it may include labour market testing. So
it doesn’t rule it out, but it doesn’t required it. And it says ‘where labour market testing is

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require’, well it’s contradictory, it is very unclear how that could be applied. It was very badly
written.
Q: And the whole concept of concession was never specified?
A: Terrible, terrible drafting. There’s no discussion of concession except it says here ‘the
project may be asked to provide additional information in respect for a request for concessions’.
That’s the first and only mention of them. So what’s those concession are, whether it will apply
to only workers other than the skilled workers or only the job list I don’t know. It’s a ridiculous
thing to write into an agreement. It’s so vague and so open. When I read this it was just
shocking, we should have never agreed to it.
Q: could this give rise to illegal immigrants?
A: I suppose that is a possibility but I am not too fearful of that. After all they are contracted
by Chinese companies, and Chinese companies won’t be very happy if their workers disappear
and somebody says oh they’ve skipped and gone to Sydney. I think we can be pretty sure that
the Chinese departments and corporations and the Chinese embassy will follow up such actions
very vigorously. That would be my expectation.
Q: Do you believe that the Australian labours will be pressured to accept worse working
conditions and poorer wages due to the pressure from Chinese workers?
A: They won’t be pressured directly but what will happened is those workers who previously
poised for offshore rigs, railways, meat works and other infrastructures. If a lot of Chinese
workers come in, there will be less jobs available. So market pressure for other jobs will go
downwards. Overtime, there will be less likely for wages increases, new awards and so forth.
Some of these workers like plumbers and fitter and turners, they have lots of other jobs. But
some of these workers are very specialise they have skills that are particular like offshore rigs
and things like that, and they are most at risk.
Q: In the case of worker union, how much power do you think they have in influencing the
agreement?
A: If we have a labour government in power, they will be much keener to enforce this
regulations than the present coalition government. It will all depend on which party is the party
in government at the time the agreement is approved. If we have a coalition government I think

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you can be very sure that the enforcement will be lacks, if we have a labour government in the
next election in July, the situation might be very different.
Q: Is it possible for the government to re-negotiate the agreement?
A: They can’t re-negotiate them. The legalities of the agreement is quite complicated and is
something I’m not expert on. It’s too late to re-negotiate these provision. The Greens Party and
the Labour Party, when I wrote my piece, before it was approved by the Parliament, they
wanted to re-negotiate it. That was not possible. The Chinese government would have refuse
to re-negotiate. Just as we would have refuse if the Chinese come along and then say we had
second thoughts, we want to change some parts of the tariff concessions or some other part of
the agreement. Once we have signed the agreement, it is effectively too late. Technically not
too late, the government could always change its mind. The government could always
reintroduce legislation next year and saying we are scrapping the agreement. That’s possible.
But such actions are very difficult from a practical point of view.
Q: What do you think will happen if the government actually does abandon the agreement?
A: The Chinese will be extremely annoyed, not only will they revoked all the provisions which
apply to Australia, the improved access to Chinese market, but they will probably take other
actions as well, I don’t know what will happen, it’s just not going to happen. The only
government who does this is the American government. The American government commonly
agrees to sign an agreement and when it comes to congress, Congress say we do not like this,
we want it to be renegotiated. And they have done that. Currently in congress, there’s a big
debate about one trade agreement, the pacific area agreement, which Donald Trump and Cruz
and even Hillary Clinton want to re-negotiate it. But the US government agreed to it as recent
as 2 months ago. But it is one thing for the US government to turn around and say, congress
has said we are not going to accept this. That course of action is not open to a small country
like Australia. We can’t tell china or the US or the EU that we want to go back on these things,
once you negotiated for several years and signed on the bottom line, it’s too late to change the
terms of the agreement. The only possibility is to revoke it completely which will be an
international incident and that is not going to happen. Even the labour party won’t. The only
thing the labour party can do is to enforce these agreement quite strictly. They can say well no
more concession and they can say we don’t approve the request for visa applications which one
of the companies has forwarded. They can refuse to approve it on some grounds, but they can’t
change the legislation under these circumstances.

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Transcript with Miss Liu (Translated)
(I called to the company without stating myself as a journalist from Monash University, I just
wanted to find out if their recruitment process has been influenced by the China-Australia Free
Trade Agreement)
Me: I saw your job advertisement, I was just wondering if the job is targeted only for people in
China or can people in Australia apply as well?
Liu: those in Australia can as well.
ME: what kind of work is it?
LIU: Australia has 30 type of jobs available. All of which requires skills. Do you have any
skills?
ME: No.
LIU: Are you in Australia?
ME: Yes.
LIU: which part of Australia?
ME: Victoria.
LIU: are you studying in university?
ME: I finished university a while ago.
LIU: what type of visa are you holding now?
ME: Student visa.
LIU: how long more can you stay there?
ME: a year and a half.
LIU: why aren’t you looking for jobs in Australia then?
ME: couldn’t find any.
LIU: why not? It should be easy to find jobs there.
ME: I don’t know. They didn’t want to.

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LIU: they just didn’t want to I see
ME: Is the company already in Australia?
LIU: We are in China.
ME: I saw your jobs ad saying the job will be in Victoria? As a forest ranger?
LIU: Oh yes. Forest rangers, cattle farms are all in Victoria state.
ME: So can I apply for this job?
LIU: Your visa has only a year and a half left right? What jobs are you looking for?
ME: Any jobs.
LIU: How old are you?
ME:I am 21 years old.
LIU: Please call back after 1, our principal is currently not around.
ME:I would just like to ask if there’s really no need for experience and only secondary school
education required?
LIU: Some requires experiences, some does not.
ME: Which kind of jobs does not require experiences?
LIU: There’s waitressing, and factory works. They all do not need experiences.
ME: Just one last question, is visa easy to obtain now?
LIU: don’t you have a visa now?
ME:I want to apply for 457 visa.
LIU: Do you have IELTS?
ME: No.
LIU: Then how are you planning to apply? 457 visas requires IELTS results.
ME: Okay.
LIU: Call back after 1 and the principal will talk to you.

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Transcript with Steve Diston
Phone: 0400938980
Email: steven@etu.asn.au
Electrical Trades Union, 200 Arden Street, North Melbourne.
Q: now that ChAFTA has come into force, what is the situation of the local market now?
A: Recently, I’ve beginning to look on some construction jobs with a bunch of Chinese workers
on subclass 400 visas. There are 7 of them. We got a tip off from some members of these guys
were being exploited. So we went out there and we ended up talking to these guys and their
translator and turns out they are on $9.37 per hour. They are not covered by work cover, they
are not getting paid superannuation and haven’t been issued fair work information statement.
They are not paying any tax in Australia. Upon further questioning, we talked to their boss,
well not their boss but the Australian company that had engage their services through an
external China provider, and what we found was their subclass 400 class visa the workers had
was granted on the basis on one letter to the immigration department, basically saying that
these skills weren’t available in Australia, and it was a template letter, all 7 of them had
identical ones. But to put to you bluntly, the letter was crap. We know that because these jobs
was in the local waiver. These guys, it was a one day turn around through the embassy in china.
So we looked at it and we said, hang on these guys get paid less than half of the minimum wage
or around half the minimum wage. They are not getting goods or not protected by any
Australian work place force. And somehow this got through the system and we looked at it, the
one day visa turnaround, and said no wonder it gone through the system, because there is no
checking.
Q: And this happened after the China Australia Free Trade Agreement was signed?
A: Yes, this was only a few weeks ago. Around 3, 4 weeks ago.
Q: So would you directly link it to the agreement?
A: Well, I questioned the employer about it. And the employer claimed he never heard the
franchised agreement. So I say, look this got anything to do with the free trade agreement? But
when I looked at the subclass 400 visa, and I looked at these guys, the installers. And when
you look at the China free trade agreement and I imagine you would be familiar with it, there
is no requirements for any of the skills assessment, and it is fast tracked. As soon as I saw this

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was a one day turnaround, and there was no skills assessment or anything required, just one
letter. That to me looks like it has to be due to the free trade agreement. I can’t imagine how
you would process a visa in one day. An example, I got a partner visa with my partner, and it
took us nearly a year and a half for the department of immigration to even pick up the visa.
Whereas for the working visas, they turn around in one day. To me that’s crazy. It has to be
through the fast tracking, through the free trade agreement.
Q: and the department of immigration just processed it in one day without any checking?
A: Yeah, I got these paperwork, these paperwork had the date it was granted. We got the
consular number, the employee number, the passport number, everything.
Q: these workers came through the complete process, but they were completely exploited?
A: Yes. Only $9.37 per hour. The thing that gets me is that these jobs, there is no labour market
testing required or anything. You probably aware by now that 10% of the entire Australian
workforce are all these workers. So we got a rising unemployment and there’s no linkage
between our unemployment rate and the amount of these workers getting our work. As the
natural Australian citizen unemployment goes up, there’s more and more of these workers
coming in. When you look at it, you see that there’s no qualification needed, it’s just a fast
tracked treatment from the free trade agreement. It’s basically offshoring offshores.
Q: these exploited Chinese workers, were they working in the infrastructure sector?
A: No. Just an apartment block. I am not exactly clear what they are working as, they were
doing wiring work, fitting work, that sort of stuff. I was watching them work when I first got
there, it was really dangerous, they could hurt themselves or somehow. The level of skill and
the level of safety awareness was well not on par. I was just watching and just going ‘oh my
god, what’s going on?’. When more and more employers figure out this nasty loophole on
imported labour, I think then it will become more of an issue. We are still at the early stages of
the free trade agreement, I think the real impacts on quality of work and dangerous jobs and all
the rest of it, workplace security and that sort of stuff, I think see it on a later time, I think you
will soon see a lot of it until it’s widespread, I think 12 months or almost. I think then you will
start seeing it more.
Q: So there’s no doubt that the negative impacts of the free trade agreement are already taking
place?

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A: Well in this line of work definitely. Generally we have a lot of these exploited workers in
Australia, often you cannot talk to them because of language barrier. And they don’t want to
talk, they are afraid they will be sent home, they are afraid of punishment, and all of that. So
most of these we do come across, all you can do is try to ensure that what is taking place is
safe, because generally we can never find out how much they are getting paid and there’s no
obligations upon them. Now the China free trade agreement take place, you got a whole
structure build up around the exploitation. There’s over a million people there that can easily
utilise them.
Q: How about Australian workers? Do you think they might try to accommodate such kind of
working conditions to compete with the Chinese workers?
A: If you can find a local based worker that can live off $9.37 an hour with no cert regulation,
I’ll be very surprised. Because it’s the cost of living, you cannot do it. You cannot actually
compete with someone who is on that sort of wages. You probably come across the pay
requirement for subclass visas, what’s the current amount? Was it 4K? The 4K is minimum
amount you need to pay to get into Australia. So that’s what they pay to come into Australia,
so when you take that figure, it’s actually well above the minimum wages, and that’s a scary
value. So how can people work for much less than that?

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Transcript with Dr Joanna Howe
Phone: (08) 8313 0878
Email: joanna.howe@adelaide.edu.au
Q: Now that the China – Australia Free Trade Agreement has come into force, do you have
any updates for your paper?
A: I don’t actually. I haven’t done any further research. I know that there’s been many articles
which talks about various industries like steel which have been active but I haven’t done any
further research for the info and location.
Q: Are these kinds of provisions very uncommon in countries’ trade agreement?
A: No. It’s common for a free trade agreement to have a labour mobility provision which
government’s regulation and the movement of workers between jurisdictions. For example, the
Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement had a whole lot of allegement that individual countries
signed up to. And there were sections that were placed in that. Because different countries felt
that could liquid certain things to do with labour market testing which they couldn’t. So it is
quite common for labour mobility provisions to exist.

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References
Australian Government: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade,
http://dfat.gov.au/trade/agreements/chafta/fact-sheets/Pages/fact-sheet-movement-of-natural-
persons.aspx
Howe, J. (2015) The Impacts of China – Australia Free Trade Agreement on Australian Job
Opportunities, Wages and Conditions, University of Adelaide,
http://www.asu.asn.au/documents/doc_download/963-the-impact-of-the-china-australia-free-
trade-agreement-on-australian-job-opportunities-wages-and-conditions-by-dr-joanna-howe-
october-2015
Electrical Trades Union (15 October 2015), China Free Trade Agreement Hidden Facts,
https://www.etuvic.com.au/content/china-free-trade-agreement-hidden-facts
Howe, Joanna (22 June 2015) ‘Fact Check: could the China-Australia FTA lock out Australian
workers?’, The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/factcheck-could-the-china-
australia-fta-lock-out-australian-workers-43470
De Campo, C. (7 September 2015) ‘China Trade Deal sells out Australian Workers’, Australian
Council of Trades Union, http://www.actu.org.au/actu-media/media-releases/2015/china-
trade-deal-sells-out-australian-workers
Dong Heng Lao Wu Pai Qian You Xian Gong Si, http://www.01pt.com/jobs/jobs-
show.php?id=434
http://www.01pt.com/jobs/jobs-show.php?id=218#navcontact
http://www.01pt.com/jobs/jobs-show.php?id=219
Melissa Price MP (2016) ChAFTA will deliver, online video, viewed on 24 January 2016,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-A9llVGJE1U
Worthington, B. (21 January 2016) ‘Growth in China drives Australian wine exports to highest
value in almost a decade’, ABC Rural, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-21/australian-
wine-exports-2015/7104022

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Self – Reflection
Investigative journalism is no doubt one of the hardest journalism unit I have taken
throughout my degree. When completing my Task 2, I have understood that government
officials will not respond to a journalism student, especially if it is looking on an area that
was previously heavily criticized. This time around, I have mainly focused on getting
interviews with academics.
I managed to get a phone interview with Dr Joanna Howe, who wrote the paper about The
Impacts of China – Australia Free Trade Agreement on Australian Job Opportunities, Wages
and Conditions. However, it turns out that she did not follow up with the events of China –
Australia Free Trade Agreement. As I had previously thought, since ChAFTA came into
force, many people chose not to follow up anymore as it is now out of their power for any
changes. Even with Professor Peter Lloyd, he gave his opinions without knowing that
ChAFTA had actually came into force already, and I had to break it to him at the end of the
interview.
I managed to clear up the question of whether such grant of access to China was uncommon,
and it was not. The Trans-Pacific Partnership also grants more access to certain nationalities
than the others. However, the Memorandum of Understanding was considered uncommon,
especially when it involved only Australia and not China. She was not able to comment on a
lot on my article, but she gave me a contact for someone who might be able to give me more
professional views, a political economy professor in University of Sydney, Dr Stuart
Rosewarne. I tried getting hold of him for two weeks, but he was on leave. I had to make use
of the little information and opinion Dr Howe gave me.
The story of the seven exploited Chinese workers from Electrical Trades Union was not
published. I managed to contact Steve Diston, and he told me the deadline for the story to
publish is on 5th June. And as far as it goes, it seems like the story will not published anytime
within the week. So I got permission to quote his words and mention the story briefly,
without any detailed names or address. Although the lack of names and address might reduce
the credibility of the story, I felt that a timely case study will be more appropriate, especially
since it is dependent on the signing of ChAFTA. However, I still chose to briefly mention the
7-Eleven and Baiada Chicken scandal as a basis that the case Mr Diston will not be the last. I
maximized the use of the interviews I got in my previous assignment.

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Overall, it was a real challenge for me and this unit really gave me an insight into the works
of an investigative journalist. When I first decided to pick up the topic of ChAFTA, I had
underestimated the obstacles. It was an ambitious topic and most officials could not be
bothered to respond to a student. But the way I see, if I can maximize the use of a few
interviews, it can also produce reliable articles that questions authority as the fifth estate.
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