Australian farmers welcome move on guest workers
Updated
In Australia farming groups have welcomed the news that the government is now considering allowing Pacific Islanders to come to Australia as guest workers.
presenter: Pacific Correspondent Campbell Cooney
Speaker: Chairman of the Marray Valley Citrus Board, Robert Mansell;
COONEY: For Australian farmers who rely on seasonal labour, Duncan Kerr's comments that the Rudd Labor Government's considering a seasonal migrant worker scheme is welcome news.
Annually Australia's table grape growers inject 330 million dollars into their country's economy, but they struggle to get the staff needed to pick that fruit.
The chief executive of the industry's representative group, the Australian Table Grape Association is Jeff Scott.
SCOTT: We've certainly been pushing the Federal Government for quite awhile that we would need seasonal labour. It's very, very difficult to get the labour that is needed to grow, or to actually harvest table grapes, because it is very much hands on and every grower, particularly in the Sunraysia region, in the northern regions in Queensland and Western Australia always struggle.
COONEY: Another group of farmers glad to hear access to workers from Pacific Island nations may seem be a reality are citrus fruit growers.
Nandulok grower, Robert Mansell's the chairman of the Murray Valley Citrus Board.
MANSELL: Welll, I think the industry could handle more workers, particularly in our peak season from May, June, July and August we're usually have a bit of difficulty getting pickings at that stage and we would certainly welcome the opportunity to be able to get more pickers in our region.
COONEY: And if the seasonal labour requirements Jeff Scott outlines for table grape growers are the same as other industries, seasonal workers will have no trouble getting any work.
SCOTT: We have approximately 11-hundred table grape growers throughout Australia and at the peak of our times, some organisations could employ up to may be 100 to 200 people. The average size farmer could employ may be 15 to 20 people.
COONEY: Unemployment rates on many Pacific Island nations range from 15 per cent up to 90 per cent and since it came to power last November, every Pacific leader whose met Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has raised the prospect of his government allowing their unskilled and unemployed labour force to come to Australia and do the jobs on farms and elsewhere Australians don't want to do.
But it's not just Pacific politicians who are suggesting it. In every village I've visited in Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Fiji, the people I have spoken to see the opportunity to work for part of the year on a farm in Australia as the chance to break free of the poverty cycle.
New Zealand's Governments also been pushing the idea to Australia as a way of providing aid and assistance to Pacific nations that is virtually cost neutral and its advice is based on its experience with its own scheme.
To many in Australia, a few months picking fruit looks like hard work for little pay. Australian growers want to assure anyone who wants to work on their farms and anyone whose involved in making a guest worker scheme a reality, that they are not looking for slave labour.
Chairman of the Murray Valley Citrus Board, Robert Mansell.
MANSELL: Oh well, not having anything to do with paying people under the rate, I believe that people who are out there working. It doesn't matter where they come from, they should be paid the same rate as everyone else in the field. So I believe that there's certainly an opportunity for us to get some extra labour. It's really the numbers that are the issue. It's not the monetary value that is really stopping it.
