The bill, coined Protecting Local Jobs (Regulating Enterprise Migration Agreements) Bill 2012, would regulate EMAs by forcing employers seeking an EMA to advertise jobs locally before accessing overseas workers.

It also prompts employers to create a local jobs board to source local employment.

The bill also allows requirements to be placed on employers to train locals and prioritise employment for locals, recently retrenched workers and other groups with high unemployment.

“The Greens want to put local jobs first,” Bandt said.

“A toothless Labour caucus sub-committee will do nothing to properly regulate EMAs.

“Protections need to be legislated and that is what my bill will do.”

Bandt said the secrecy surrounding EMAs also needed to be lifted and under the bill and EMAs would be required to be made public and tabled in parliament.

He said the EMA deal with Gina Rinehart was the first of many such projects in the pipeline, and if action wasn’t taken, “thousands of locals may miss out on jobs.”

In May, Immigration Minister Chris Bowen announced that Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting would be the first company permitted to use an EMA on its Roy Hill mining project.

About 8000 workers are required for the project’s three-year construction phase, and the EMA allowed Hancock Prospecting to engage 1175 foreign workers on temporary visas to fill the skilled requirements not currently available in Australia.

Under the regulation bill, the Workplace Relations Minister could include a condition that an EMA participant provide, or contribute to, training for Australian residents other than those employed under the EMA.

The Workplace Relations Minister must also be satisfied that the EMA participant concerned had complied, and will continue to comply, with workplace laws.

Senator Richard Di Natale is moving a motion in the senate, calling on the government to back the international convention.