Australia need not fear foreign workers: we remain in control

In Singapore, with many low-skilled foreign workers (domestic workers and labourers) also needing to pay off their debt through recruitment processes which can take two years, they have little real capacity to report workplace abuse as their residency status is also directly tied to a single employer.

Of Singapore's 300,000 plus domestic workers, a 2017 paper by Research Across Borders titled "Bonded to the System" of 800 domestic workers and 80 employers found that 60 per cent of foreign workers employed as housekeepers and child minders were exploited through low pay, long daily work hours, little time off work and verbal and physical abuse.

During June 2021, Gaiyathiri Murugayan was sentenced to a record 30 years in prison after the death of the 24 year old Piang Ngaih Don from Myanmar who had been tied to window grills, starved, punched, burnt, and strangled while losing half of her body weight.

Gaiyathiri's mother Prema S. Naraynasamy received 17 years jail, often staying in the flat and regularly joining in on the assaults, while Gaiyathiri's former husband Kevin Chelvam (a suspended police officer) was sentenced to 10 years prison for also abusing the victim and concealing evidence.

Despite the obvious need for any country to prevent the exploitation of foreign workers in terms of decency and reputation, can Australia learn from the Singaporean experience?

While Singapore's low-skilled labourers are typically housed in licensed workers' dormitories in commercial areas heavily segregated from local residential zones, Australia could follow Singapore's strict requirement that limits any charged housing costs for certain visa schemes does not exceed 25 per cent of a worker's total salary, or 50 per cent when also taking account of food and transport.

Australia may also consider Singapore's use of cheaper foreign labour for large infrastructure projects given that Australia currently has some of the highest costs for rail and road projects on a per kilometre basis as costs often blow out, albeit Australia should never emulate Singapore's propensity to pay very low wages given foreign-sourced labourers there typically earn a monthly salary of S$1,200 to S$2,500, even when including overtime and bonuses.

Of concerns by both Singapore and Australia about cultural differences and integration, in line with the realty that most people still marry within their own ethnicity due to ingrained factors such as shared background, family expectations and traditions, both approaches have proven somewhat progressive.

Singapore, despite having an electoral system and public housing quotas that prevents ethnic enclaves in line with its population being defined as roughly 75 per cent Chinese, 15 per cent Malay and 7 per cent Indian, now has an estimated 21-23 per cent of all marriages being inter-ethnic after being just 7.6 per cent in 1990.

In Australia, while marriage between those with a British background and other Europeans has been evident for several decades, it is now estimated that Australians with mixed European and non-European heritage represents around 7 to 9 per cent of the population.

While Singapore maintains its population makeup by granting permanent residency primarily to Malays, Chinese and Indian nationals, Australia has increased its diversity with the largest sources of permanent immigrants to Australia in recent decades being from India, China and the Philippines.

Nevertheless, despite a recent ABS social wellbeing survey finding that 75 per cent of Australians agreed that having different cultures is good for society, further integration must still overcome the reality that the dominant Anglo-Celtic majority often experience limited sustained interaction with visible minority groups, and that first-generation migrants from non-English speaking backgrounds are clustered in specific suburbs for support, familiar services, and perceived or real safety concerns.