Comments

Thank you so much Mata'afa Keni Lesa for this great write up. We continue to pray for the good of our nation even though we reside outside. Prayers!!

Well said Mata'afa, You have hit the" nail on the head "with all your comments...and always have, in past Editorials Keep up the good work...

Sorry Jemma, I have not been able to report many farms to the Fair Work Ombudsman that exploit undocumented as in most cases the workers do not reveal who their employer is as they fear removal for working in breach of their visa. Most of the time I have not met workers at the farm they are working on. In other cases I have dealt with labour hire companies have been the employer and the owner has been able to use a false name so the workers have no idea who they are actually working for. The labour hire licensing laws in Victoria and Queensland have already had an impact on that situation.

It's an economist's dream, but what do these figures mean if we don't look at them together with other indicators? Nauru's infant mortality rate is 26 (Australia = 3) and its under 5 mortality rate is 31 (Australia = 3). How is revenue spent? Who are the beneficiaries? Who has wealth and who doesn't, and how big is the gap?

Hi Mark, You make some good points although I would argue that with minimal investigation, as you have done, those farms employing undocumented workers can be found. I assume you have reported the farm you talk about to authorities? I think the first step is to tackle the workplaces that everyone knows about but not much gets done. Then once those workplaces have been excluded then we can look at doing other methods. Maybe setting examples from those workplaces might be enough to get others to think long and hard about what they are doing. These workplaces that do the wrong thing are bad for all of us who are doing the correct thing. It makes us look bad and decreases our produce prices making the market harder to be in. I think an amnesty is not the right thing to do at this point in time.

As the Globe is facing the challenges caused by the covid 19, Papua New Guinea Air lines industry, especially the Air Niugini made a lot of loss when compared to other business organaisation all around the world. Therefore, it will take a quite long to recover all the loss made during the previous years.

Hi Sophie, do you recruit through the PNGSWCO? Or direct recruitment? I'm in Mount Hagen, WHP. My wife was directly involved in recruiting workers from our local communities, for a horticultural contracting company in New Zealand, the teams are still doing seasonal work as they have been for more than 5 years now. My wife is no longer involved in recruiting as she couldn't cope with ongoing violence here in our community and left to live in Australia; I'm still here in Hagen and am keen to engage more of our youth in seasonal work to get them off the streets and become productive citizens.

I completely agreed the Author if these reported but this is all came from the public, everything is achieved there is less done from the government side. International community is on the side, they are always visiting and provide what ever assistance they could to help. I would urge to continue their support in guiding these little child unborn democratic country to mature, walk freely and stand otherwise the entire region would start to flame.

Thanks Richard, but my experience with talking to undocumented workers is that one of the key things they believe that would assist them in escaping their situations of exploitation is being able to exit their illegal status without facing immediate removal. They will speak of their experiences of exploitation that has been built into the business models of farms. For example, one group of undocumented workers talked about being paid $2.25 per box of grapes picked, while people working legally on the same farm were paid $4.50 a box. The aim of any amnesty must be to clean up the exploitative employers, not reward people who knowingly entered into illegal work arrangements (although there are plenty who were deceived into working illegally without understanding that would be the situation they would be entering into). Our experience with workers leaving the SWP during the current period has very regularly been due to a lack of work being available and workers losing large amounts of their savings to accommodation and transport charges to employers. The lack of work has often not been the fault of approved employers, as the workers should have returned home but could not do so as their governments closed the borders. However, even now when so many farmers say they cannot find enough workers we are regularly encountering situations on the SWP where workers are not being given enough work. In some cases, workers are required to sit around for weeks with minimal work as the farmer does not want to risk not being able to find workers when they need them later. In other cases, farmers will bring in extra people and severely cut the hours of existing workers, with the existing workers telling us there has been no explanation for the change. The reasons why workers leave approved employers on the SWP vary and there is no simple fix, like denying overtime payments to workers on the SWP. It is the kind of problem that would benefit from all stakeholders getting together and working through workable solutions for the mutual benefit of employers and the workers

Marks Smith Thanks for your comment – please see my other blog on piecework. https://devpolicy.org/piecework-in-horticulture-should-there-be-a-floor-20210406-3/

Jemma, yes it is a good idea to focus on the unregistered labour contractors and growers who are employing workers without work rights. The absconding SWP workers affected need to know that they can return to SWP employment. This has been the case for 15 workers in Bundaberg. However, another 36 workers remain outside the SWP - we need to know more about their situation and to resolve their status so that they can return to work. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-30/vanuatu-nationals-back-working-legally-on-bundaberg-farms/100036232

Sophie, Thank you for your feedback. Enterprise agreements do offer more flexibility in terms of ordinary hours payment. However, it is not clear how long the differences between enterprise agreements and the provisions of the Horticulture Award on overtime will remain.