Comments

Thanks for this post Stephen and Richard. First and foremost, SWP is run for profit where the employer, the employee, and the labour-hire companies are all meant to gain from the scheme. SWP is no charity: food would rot if not picked in time by the workers! The divvying up of the profits generated from SWP rests on how power is distributed between these groups. My guess is that the worker has least leverage in this exchange, thus is most at risk of being short-changed from SWP. Furthermore, islanders are not known for their bargaining skills! Consequently, island governments have a role in ensuring that their workers/citizens are paid their fair dues - both in pay and with pastoral care.

Thanks for this information Soli. The challenges of delivering TVET education online is likely to remain with us even after the current lockdowns are over. While workshops and internships will require hands-on training, mentoring and demonstrations may now be delivered from a distance. Great to see APTC being agile and adaptive to the changing needs of TVET education within the Pacific islands. We must also give credit to island governments who have invested heavily in digital infrastructure.

Interesting statistics Richard. The Approved Employers of Australia have members from all size operations and Contractors. Labour Hire certainly has the most workers for the reasons you mentioned. I find the comments on the pastoral care responsibilities by AEs most interesting. I think the AEA should start telling the public some of the horrific issues they have to deal with and pay for which goes above and beyond their pastoral care responsibilities. It is about time we start putting all the facts on the table to demonstrate how committed the majority of AEs actually are to the welfare and wellbeing of workers.

I agree that we are facing a severe labour shortage going forward. Germany and Canada are excellent examples of how Government should collaborate with relevant stakeholders to introduce a more flexible working arrangement to address the labour shortage. We should be forming a working group to address this issue as well. However, Approved Employers need to play an active role instead of just being told what they can or cannot do. This is another reason why the Approved Employers of Australia have requested a workshop summit – unfortunately our request has fallen on deaf ears.

Best article. Well and clearly written for public consumption.

I would prefer if the seasonal workers in Australia and New Zealand from Fiji, Vanuatu and Timor-Leste (who are already working there from previous years) to continue work immediately while recruiting new people again later.

Thanks for keeping this discussion alive Richard. The inability to harvest crops this coming season will shortchange our farmers, pinch the budgets of consumers as prices of fruit and vegetables increase, and hurt the overall economy. Yes there are risks of spreading Covid-19, but this is from Australia to the islands. Samoa and Vanuatu are free of Covid-19, and it is them who need to make the call as to whether they want to continue with their participation. New Zealand has done better so no case for them to keep the workers from the islands out.

"with a strengthening of systems to prevent, detect, contain and treat the virus". What system? In Victoria none of these things were done. People were locked up in hotels but only casual students monitored this and they were free to do as they pleased. Then the BLM march. And the end of Ramadan and the Eid. Now Victoria has more cases than the whole of Australia did at the peak. And the borders to Victoria remained closed in both directions. Risk averse? Of course when a simple matter of monitoring hotels was done with unskilled people on casual jobs with no training at all and no supervision. The complaint now is that 40 aged care homes are infected and hundreds could die because the staff have only 7 weeks training. The staff who monitored the thousands of incoming passengers had no qualifications and no training at all. And there was no tender process and offers from the Army and the Police were refused. Why? Whatever happens in the rest of Australia, Victoria is worse off than in February and business is shut. Risk averse? Careless and utterly irresponsible government.

Once again Richard you have clearly articulated the significant issues we face in the Horticulture Industry. I've participated in three separate teleconferences in the last week with industry representatives and growers and it's clear, the imminent spring/summer harvest labour shortages is a massive and genuine concern for growers... around the country. As an Approved Employer, we are confronted by the brutal reality of what lies ahead. The actual facts of the situation are as follows; 1. Many Seasonal Workers who have had their stay in Australia extended are likely to want to leave when the borders open. They are fatigued, and want to be reunited with their families. 2. The numbers of backpackers still in the country has dropped by about 60,000 since the start of the year. 3. The Australian Government's propensity to expect Australians, who have been made redundant due to Covid-19, to travel to the regions and pick fruit is just, quite simply, totally unrealistic. In 15 years of being involved in Harvest Labour recruitment, the % of Australians who make up the seasonal harvest workforce, in the areas we operate in, is less than 10%. I cannot see this changing whilst payments are being made to people who are out of work. Financial incentives have been offered, in the past, to Australians to travel to regional areas to work in harvest and the outcomes have been completely underwhelming. In a nutshell, there are not enough Australians who want to pick fruit! 4. The most workable solution is for the government to open up the borders so we can bring in fresh Seasonal Workers ... in the same way Canada and Germany have done. This could be conducted in a very measured and safe way, ensuring the strictest Covid-19 health protocols are complied with. The horticulture workforce would be re-invigorated with fresh, experienced teams, many who have been coming to Australia for years and who are heavily relied upon by growers. What do Australian Primary Producers need to do to have our government respond appropriately? Instead, we are faced with the situation of the government hearing our concerns ... but not taking meaningful steps to remedy them?

Excellent article, thank you. Especially important to draw this all back to the way gender norms are constructed and understood by all people in society - it starts there and change needs to start there too.

What Richard could also write about is how there was an enormous covid outbreak amongst imported seasonal pickers in the UK. This was not unrelated to their living conditions. See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-53420475. Another case of interest is a huge covid outbreak in a meat processing factory in NW Germany about a month ago. The staff were mainly Bulgarians and Romanians. Although the firm was very large, the staff were employed by sub-contractors and sub-contractors of sub-contractors. This made tracing even names of workers difficult. They, too, were living in unsanitary, barrack-like conditions. see https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-outbreak-closes-german-meat-packing-plant/a-53374478 Last, do not forget what was happening to clothing workers in Leicester, England. These were not classic seasonal workers, they were poorly paid (sub-minimum) people from the Indian sub-continent, probably speaking poor English. Their sickness created a local lockdown a month ago. see https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-53100321

Some interesting points here although I think it is important to mention that at this point, Vanuatu (and I think Samoa?) has suspended its participation in labour mobility programmes as a sending country. However, this item relating to talks between Australia and Timor-Leste adds to what I have been saying for some time, which is that this needs to be a regional conversation with all participating as equals: http://www.tatoli.tl/en/2020/07/22/government-continuing-plans-to-send-600-workers-to-australia-with-the-added-cost-of-2-500-per-worker-for-quarantine-stay/