Klang MP Charles Santiago said Putrajaya should instead address the issue of low wages in Malaysia while Selayang MP William Leong warned that the ban would leave many in slave-like conditions as illegal migrants in Australia.
“Wages have to increase,” Santiago said. “If this isn’t fixed, people will be forced to go elsewhere. It is the same as what is happening with people from countries like Indonesia, Bangladesh and Nepal, too.
“They come to Malaysia because they can earn more here than they do in their home countries.”
Deputy human resources minister Awang Hashim recently announced that Malaysia would not take part in Australia’s Asean farm worker visa scheme, which would allow Asean citizens to be sponsored to work in Australia’s agriculture sector.
Santiago said the phenomenon of Malaysians becoming migrant workers should be seen as a “wake-up call” highlighting the historically low pay and poor working conditions faced by many low-skilled workers in Malaysia.
He told FMT that if wages in Malaysia didn’t increase, there would eventually be an exodus of Malaysians looking for better-paying work while migrant labour could also begin to dry up.
“Indonesia’s economy is improving, and it’s getting to a point where they don’t need to come to Malaysia to work anymore because they can get comparable salaries at home,” he said. “Eventually, the foreign workers won’t want to come here at all.”
Santiago also pointed to a lack of investment in vocational education, which if improved would provide Malaysians with the skills needed to help them find better paying jobs locally.
Leong pointed out that the visa’s creation was the result of an Australian parliamentary investigation into the links between visa conditions and labour abuses. Unscrupulous employers could exert undue control over migrant workers, many of whom are Malaysians, if they were undocumented.
“While many are responsible and fair employers, the problem of migrant labour exploitation is sufficiently serious for the Australian parliament committee to have investigated. It then recommended the introduction of the farm work visa.”
He told FMT he felt it was unfortunate that the government would reject the visa “considering that its purpose was to protect Malaysian workers from being exploited in Australian farms.”
The new visa rules compel employers to draw up contracts that meet certain standards and obligations.
Leong also said the ban was a violation of Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which says everyone should have the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
Denison Jayasooria, a sociologist and research fellow at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), said workers would ultimately gravitate to places where the price of labour is high and they should not be stopped from doing so.
“Labour, skilled or unskilled, will move with the opportunities that arise,” he said. “It’s better to be open to the world market than have Malaysians go as illegals and get detained.”