Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Chris Bowen MP, announced new legislation setting out criminal and civil penalties against employers who hire illegal workers.

The legislation’s key amendments include:

• Amending the criminal offences and creating new non-fault civil penalty provisions and an infringement notice scheme for people who allow or refer an unlawful non-citizen to work, or allow or refer a lawful non-citizen to work in breach of a work-related visa condition;
• Creating statutory defences where reasonable steps are taken at reasonable times to verify a foreign national worker’s entitlement to work;
• Broadening the application of criminal offences and civil penalty provisions to hold a person liable for participating in an arrangement, or series of arrangements, that results in a foreign national working without lawful entitlement;
• Extending both criminal and civil liability, in certain circumstances, to executive officers of bodies corporate, partners in a partnership and members of an unincorporated association’s committee of management; and
• Creating search warrant and notice to produce powers specifically to facilitate the investigation of suspected breaches of these offences and civil penalties.