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As an Approved Employer who has lost significant numbers of workers through absconding, I am dismayed at the government's approach to this problem. Despite providing information about where these absconded workers are residing and working illegally ... there has been virtually nothing done (one raid in Bundaberg) to round up the absconding workers and the contractors/employers who are illegally hiring them. This makes a mockery of all the regulation, compliance and scrutiny we as AEs have to endure ... but unlicensed and illegal contractors can openly poach our workers .... without any fear of being prosecuted. The Seasonal Workers are walking away from their commitment to us and other Approved Employers as they know the Australian Govt is not doing anything to discourage the behaviour. A crucial element to the absconding is the totally impractical introduction of the 38 hour a week (304 hours over 8 weeks) legislation. This is the most damaging, negative and unwanted piece of legislation to hit the horticulture industry. No Seasonal Worker wants to be restricted to only 38 hours a week and no growers want to have additional financial burdens of overtime. This is a LOSE/LOSE outcome ... and is the main driver of discontent amongst Seasonal Workers.

The piece is very disappointing. The call for an amnesty process well and truly pre-dates the COVID-19 pandemic, see for example https://www.farminstitute.org.au/vff-union-call-for-an-amnesty-on-workers-without-visas-as-labour-shortages-hit-home/ Undocumented workers are almost never willing to come forward and report employers engaged in illegal exploitation, as they face removal when they do so. Thus, many farm employers have an incentive to use undocumented workers over workers from the SWP limiting the penetration of the SWP into the farming sector. The ease of being able to exploit undocumented workers makes it hard for farmers complying with the law to compete on price with farmers benefiting from wage theft from undocumented workers. We have direct experience of the demand for highly exploitable, undocumented workers displacing demand for SWP workers. Any well-designed amnesty process only lasts for a limited timeframe and will simply allow workers access to an appropriate visa (which would likely be a temporary visa with work rights). That would allow workers to report employers engaged in illegal exploitation without facing the threat of immediate removal and hopefully see action to have the employers comply with Australian law into the future. Any SWP worker leaving their employer to work outside their visa is only likely to be returned to the employer and the program, in any well-designed amnesty. So there would be no incentive for a SWP worker to leave their current employer if a different visa outcome for them is not on offer.

Hi SH, Thank you for your kind comments, and cogent disagreement. All of your points make sense, but I disagree - respectfully - in a few areas. On donor national interest, there is considerable variation between donor countries in the ethos motivating their aid giving, as well as variation in individual donors over time. For this reason, alongside the consequences for developing countries, I think its always worth critiquing aid given in the national interest, and always worth pushing for a more humanitarian approach. When it comes to winning over taxpayers, our public opinion work from Australia and NZ has found most people seem to want aid given on ethical grounds or, at the very worst, for the sake of enlightened national interest (we should help other countries because it makes the world a safer place, type arguments). Being a political scientist, I'm an institutionalist. I also think institutions function the way they do because of incentives and norms, and major problems do not usually stem from low staff capacity. Having said that, I also think that aid actors may not easily be able to change incentives and norms in institutions in other countries. Given this, I appreciate that individual capacity building can, in certain instances, be useful and better than other available approaches, although we shouldn't simply assume that problems stem from low individual capacity. Aid actors should look, listen and get to know a place, or an institution, before designing projects. My guess is that this is a view you and I probably share. As I said, these are respectfully held differences, and I also see the sense in much of what you say. Thanks again for a good, interesting comment. Terence

We employ seasonal workers on our farm and we also have an Enterprise Agreement. Our team enjoy the flexibility to work more than 38 hours and are often asking for more hours - usually happy to be around 40+ hours a week. The additional pressures the SWP team face, including sending some income home to support their extended family means their demand for hours is high.

Reuben Tabel, great stuff bro. Reuben is my school mate (one era) at Malala Catholic Secondary, Bogia, Madang Province.

Terence, I've always found your work very insightful, and this is no different. However, I think we have advanced much further than government aid donors pursuing their own national interest when giving aid. Indeed, it is expected and increasingly necessary to advance national interests abroad to justify it to the weary domestic taxpayer. From my perspective, the politicalisation of aid that followed the merging of aid agencies into diplomatic agencies has had positive and negative impacts. While it is promising to see funds being directed more strategically, I fear that the sudden leap to institutional capacity building (and the associated right to imbed donors into foreign ministries) has outpaced or under-delivered in individual capacity building. The focus on economic growth must be accompanied by training and education initiatives, otherwise we truly are neocolonists perpetrating a cycle of dependency. I appreciate your work.

And also Australia share their lands for us to live in. My first time in Australia, i saw a lot of different people. And i was like 'what'? and the weirdest thing is that when i saw students in my school i always think they are samoa but they are not. So now i understand why, and it's also sad how white people force the Aboriginal people to speak in their language.

It is crazy to think that we would encourage visa holders to become illegal workers. The government has done a lot of good things and very quickly with the pandemic and I am sure they will see through this union led crap. The government seems to be pouring money into things at the moment and I know they are capable of getting the resources and the people on the ground to stop the employment of the illegal workers at the farm gate. Slam the book on those workplaces and farms who choose to look the other way when an illegal worker steps foot onto their door. At the moment there are places for these people to work and once we get rid of that the pull to abscond and do the wrong thing will not be as great. If the want to do the right thing by the worker they can focus their attention on the workplaces.

+38 hr @ pick rates vs 38hr award. Which gives the higher overall pay level?

Hi Sasha, Thank you for an interesting comment. Your and my experiences of the world of aid have been different. While I've seen, and written about, problems, in my experience aid donors are not so routinely corrupt. Local officials are not so easily swayed either -- many have, in my experience, displayed an admirable commitment to their work. However, you and I have no doubt worked in different countries and with different donors. And I my experiences are limited enough that I cannot claim with complete confidence that they are representative. I do agree, as I said in the post, that government donors to often use aid to advance their own interests. And I think your point that aid may have a multiplier attempt when targeted at elites that leads to its influence being greater than aid/GNI might suggest is a great one. However, even so, I don't think aid's influence often translates to outright exploitation and subjugation (definition 1 of neocolonial). There are two reasons why I don't think this is the case. (1) Even corrupt elites have to answer to their own populations to some extent. And selling out this much will likely cost them more than the odd bribe will gain for them; (2) the best available evidence suggests that aid in aggregate has positive effects on GDP, governance and human development in recipient countries. This seems an unlikely outcome from a consistently neocolonial enterprise in the first sense of the term. Thanks again for an interesting comment and for sharing your experiences. Terence

Hi Bill, Thank you for an excellent comment. I like how you've used the contradictory behaviour to shine a light on potential issues with aid. In a practical sense, I don't think donors manage to achieve much directly through their attempts at imposing women's empowerment on aid recipients. Or at least, I don't think their efforts in this area wouldn't get far were it not for the fact that women in the countries in question support at least some aspects of empowerment, and for the fact that there are often very committed domestic actors keen to take up the cause. Aid likely contributes to positive change on gender-related matters, and is very worthwhile in that sense, but I don't think external actors would often get far in imposing norm shifts from the outside if they had no support from within aid recipient countries. Ethically, I do not think that trying to impose change from without is wrong, or neocolonial per se. If aid actors succeeded in compelling the military in Myanmar to stop repressing their own people and introduce real democracy, this would be a good act, and would hardly seem colonial in any sense. Similarly, I don't think it's inherently wrong to work with existing social structures in a country -- hereditary chiefs for example -- if that's the best way to improve people's lives, in a rural agricultural scheme for example. As aid actors aren't omnipotent, it seems reasonable that they be pragmatic, as long as they are genuinely trying to help, and not being blinded by their own bright ideas. Thanks again for a good comment, it was great to have chance to think this one through. Terence

As one of those who says that overall, aid IS colonial, I take issue with the comment that "donors simply don’t give enough aid to gain much leverage." Granted, they don't give a lot. But much of it is thinly-disguised bribes (per-diem payments, consulting fees, electronics, motorbikes and cellphones "to help you do your job"...) to government officials, in return for permission to operate in that country. Bribes, in the cases I've been able to find, typically influence amounts roughly 10 to 100 times bigger than the bribe itself. That's considerable influence. Furthermore, officials who keep their eyes on how to get some of the money, rather than figuring out what's best for their country, represent another negative influence, even if they never get the money.