Kristina Keneally ‘a union foghorn’ over attack on temporary visas

Kristina Keneally’s attacks on the use of temporary visa holders have sparked accusations of her being a ‘foghorn for the unions’.

Labor’s home affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally.

Kristina Keneally’s attacks on the use of temporary visa holders have sparked accusations of her being a “foghorn for the unions” who have “long detested the working holidaymaker program”.

In her first major policy speech since taking on the home affairs portfolio, Senator Keneally last week stepped up her attack on the Morrison government’s reliance on temporary migration, declaring current trends could see as many as three million people — or 12 per cent of the population — living in Australia on a temporary basis.

“This is the big, corrosive change occurring under the surface of this government’s immigration policies,” she said at Melbourne’s Curtin Research Centre last Thursday.

She also repeated earlier warnings that people-smugglers had switched their business model from boats to planes, with 100,000 asylum-seekers arriving by air over the past six years.

“They use online tourist visa systems, now available to Malaysia and China, where most of these airplane arrivals come from,” Senator Keneally said. “Once the trafficked worker is here, the smugglers instruct them to apply for asylum, knowing the worker will be put on a bridging visa for at least three years before their application is determined.”

But her views drew the ire of Migration Alliance, which has more than 4000 members and represents registered migration agents in Australia, with the group telling the senator to “stop playing dirty politics”.

“Effectively what Senator Keneally is trying to do is rob New Zealanders, international students, and working holidaymakers from countries such as Canada, the UK, Ireland, France, South Korea and Japan of the opportunity to live and work in Australia,” Migration Alliance said.

“It is abundantly clear that Senator Keneally is the foghorn for the unions. The unions have long detested the working holiday­maker program, and have been pushing to have it abandoned for years.”

Population Minister Alan Tudge accused Senator Keneally of “pushing false information to suit her own political agenda”.

However, Senator Keneally was defiant on Tuesday, quoting a long extract from her speech in which she praised the long working relationship between Australia and New Zealand.

“Nobody is suggesting that our New Zealand brothers and sisters shouldn’t have work rights in Australia,” she said.

“We have a long history of Australians and New Zealanders working in each other’s countries. Both our countries have benefited extraordinarily from this kinship, and that should never change.”

A spokesman for Senator Keneally said the founder of Migration Alliance was a Liberal and thanked them for raising the profile of her speech.