The federal government has released the findings of its recent review into the 457 visa scheme. The Robust New Foundations report makes 22 recommendations; all are intended to further deregulate the employer-sponsored migration scheme.

“We want [457 visas] to be more flexible”, said Tony Abbott. “We want these to be a way of helping business to grow.” New flexibility recommendations include reducing English language requirements for workers, making it easier for employers to fast-track applications without regulatory oversight and extending the period that new businesses can retain their workers on 457 visas.

But it’s what’s missing from the report that is most telling. There will be no strengthening of protections for workers and no new regulations to penalise or oversee bosses or migration agents breaking what rules there are.

This is despite unions regularly reporting evidence of rip-offs, gross underpayments and exploitative working conditions under the scheme.

The WA branch of the AMWU recently revealed that dozens of welders employed on 457 visas at a major resources project in that state are working in 52-day stretches. Local workers on the same fly-in fly-out job work 26 days at a time and are currently bargaining to reduce that to 20 days.

In August, documents leaked to the Sydney Morning Herald exposed a Perth employer who had extorted $50,000 from Indian workers in exchange for 457 sponsorship.

In April, the CFMEU notified the Immigration Department that workers employed on 457 visas at Gina Rinehart’s Roy Hill project in the Pilbara were working as many as 84 hours a week for $16 an hour. No action has been taken. “We raised these issues about one of the biggest iconic projects in the country and we hear nothing, we hear crickets”, CFMEU national secretary Michael O’Connor told the Australian months after the complaint was made.

If the latest recommendations are implemented, the situation will only get worse.