{"id":"BILL-r7401","name":"Migration Amendment (Combatting Migrant Exploitation) Bill 2025","slug":"migration-amendment-combatting-migrant-exploitation-bill-2025","collection":"bill","jurisdiction":"commonwealth","status":"in_force","isInForce":true,"actNumber":null,"makingDate":null,"administeringDepartment":null,"currentVersion":{"id":446047,"registerId":"commonwealth-BILL-r7401-current","compilationNumber":null,"startDate":"2026-05-05","status":"royal_assent","reasons":null,"registeredAt":null},"sections":[],"analysis":{"summary":{"status_summary":"The bill received royal assent on 8 April 2026 and became Act No. 39 of 2026.","complexity_score":2,"likely_questions":["Which specific details about sponsors will appear on the register?","When will the Department publish the first information about approved work sponsors?"],"complexity_factors":["Relies on regulations for detailed implementation","Introduces new publication powers under the Migration Act"],"plain_english_summary":"The Act creates a public register on the Department’s website listing approved work sponsors who nominate skilled migrants, publishing prescribed details (eg type, name, ABN, postcode, nomination counts and occupations) while prohibiting personal identifiers and allowing regulations to limit disclosure in certain cases. \n\nIt affects approved sponsors (by increased transparency), the Department (by managing publication), and prospective workers or the public who can review sponsor records; it does not change sponsorship approval or nomination rules."},"flash_summary":{"complexity_score":4,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"This Act remains narrowly focused on enabling publication of information about approved work sponsors. It does not materially expand the Migration Act’s substantive sponsor or visa rules; rather it creates a disclosure power and leaves the detailed scope to regulations. Any significant expansion of scope would depend on later regulations or administrative practice rather than this Act itself."},"complexity_factors":["Very short amendment: single new subsection (140GD) and one definition insertion (ABN).","Key substantive details delegated to regulations (creates dependence on later subordinate legislation).","Cross-reference to subsection 140GB(1) (nominations) requiring familiarity with existing sponsor/nominations provisions.","Privacy interplay: authorisation note referencing the Privacy Act 1988 and a prohibition on regulations prescribing 'personal identifiers' creates a partial but not exhaustive privacy constraint.","Discretionary executive power: Secretary may publish and regulations may create exceptions; implementation depends on administrative policy.","Commencement by proclamation (or six months after assent) adds a timing contingency."],"plain_english_summary":"**What this law does (mechanically)\n\n- Inserts a new power into the Migration Act 1958 (new section 140GD) allowing the Department of Home Affairs (the Secretary) to publish information on the Department's website about \"approved work sponsors\" (businesses that are authorised to sponsor temporary skilled migrants).\n- The law also adds a definition reference for \"ABN\" (Australian Business Number) so the Act can use ABNs when identifying sponsors.\n- The details of what is published are left to regulations. The regulations may, for example, list the sponsor’s kind, name, ABN, ABN postcode, the number of nominations they have made, and the occupations they have nominated. Regulations may also set circumstances when the Secretary must not publish information.\n- The regulations are explicitly barred from prescribing any information that is a \"personal identifier\" (for example, items that would uniquely identify an individual).\n- The new subsection carries a note that it is an authorisation for the purposes of the Privacy Act 1988 (that is, it provides a legal basis for the Department to disclose certain information that might otherwise be constrained by privacy law).\n\nWho is affected\n\n- Approved work sponsors (businesses that sponsor skilled temporary migrants): their identity and limited business-level details may be published publicly.\n- Prospective migrant workers, the public, industry bodies, compliance and enforcement agencies, and recruiters: they gain access to a government-published register or list about sponsors.\n- The Department of Home Affairs: gains a discretionary publishing power and responsibility to implement and administer the register in accordance with regulations.\n\nWhy it matters (purpose claims and a quick test)\n\n- Official purpose claim: increase transparency about businesses that sponsor skilled migrants to help combat exploitation and to inform migrants, enforcement agencies and the public.\n\nTesting that claim against practical effects, incentives and trade-offs:\n\n- Information flow and enforcement: Publishing sponsor identities and aggregate nomination data makes it easier for workers, regulators and third parties to identify and scrutinise sponsoring businesses (mechanism: public visibility of sponsor activity; see new s.140GD(2)(e)-(f)). This can aid enforcement and worker choice.\n- Privacy trade-offs: The Act allows publication of \"personal information\" but forbids \"personal identifiers\" being prescribed in regulations. That leaves a gap: some personal information could still be published (s.140GD(1) and (3)). The authorising note ties the power to the Privacy Act but implementation choices will determine actual privacy risk.\n- Business and market effects: Public listing can create reputational incentives for businesses to comply with workplace laws. It can also impose reputational costs on sponsors (who may face customer, supplier or market reaction), potentially changing firms' willingness to sponsor if they fear public exposure.\n- Bureaucratic discretion and regulatory detail: The Secretary has discretion to publish and the regulations determine the substantive scope. Important decisions — exactly what fields are published and when publication is withheld — are pushed to subordinate legislation and administrative practice, which concentrates decision-making power in the executive.\n- Compliance and administrative burden: The Department already collects sponsorship and nomination data. Publishing that data is not likely to create large new reporting burdens on sponsors, but it does create monitoring and potential reputational compliance costs for sponsors.\n- Risks of incomplete information and substitution: If the register publishes limited or aggregate data only, the public signal may be noisy. Sponsors might respond by changing sponsorship practices (e.g., use accredited sponsors, restructure arrangements), with possible substitution effects that are not addressed by the Act itself.\n\nConcrete mechanics to watch\n\n- The scope of what is actually published depends on later regulations: the Act sets a power but delegates substantive content and exceptions to regulation-making.\n- The Act forbids regulations that prescribe personal identifiers, but does allow other personal information to be published under the authorising subsection; the Privacy Act interplay will matter in practice (see the authorisation note).\n- The Secretary may be required by regulations not to publish some information in particular circumstances; those carve-outs will determine where transparency stops and confidentiality begins.\n\nNet effect in plain terms\n\n- The law creates a statutory power to run a public register of approved work sponsors, defined by regulations, and permits publication of sponsor names, ABNs and limited nomination data while placing a specific prohibition on publishing personal identifiers. Who pays: sponsors bear reputational and monitoring costs; the Department runs the register. Who decides: the Secretary (subject to regulations). What changes in behaviour: sponsors may alter sponsorship practices because of public visibility; migrants and enforcement actors gain more publicly accessible information to inform decisions and investigations.\n\n(Primary provision: new subsection 140GD in the Migration Act 1958; ABN meaning inserted into s.5(1).)\n"}},"importantCases":[],"_links":{"self":"/api/acts/migration-amendment-combatting-migrant-exploitation-bill-2025","history":"/api/acts/migration-amendment-combatting-migrant-exploitation-bill-2025/history","analysis":"/api/acts/migration-amendment-combatting-migrant-exploitation-bill-2025/analysis","conflicts":"/api/acts/migration-amendment-combatting-migrant-exploitation-bill-2025/conflicts","importantCases":"/api/acts/migration-amendment-combatting-migrant-exploitation-bill-2025/important-cases","documents":"/api/acts/migration-amendment-combatting-migrant-exploitation-bill-2025/documents"}}