Ken O'Dowd (Flynn, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I would like to talk about backpackers but, more importantly, the workforce in rural areas of the country such as in my electorate of Flynn. This comes under quite a few headings. We need a workforce on a temporary basis, a casual basis and a seasonal basis, whether it be on farms and in tourism or, more permanently, in the health and aged-care areas. Backpackers fill a vital role in the bush, where we cannot get Australian workers.

Everyone's priority in this House, first and foremost, is to employ Australian workers, but sometimes in the bush we just cannot get the staff to fill these holes when we need them. The work does come under 'seasonal'. Cotton-picking comes on in the early part of the year in Central Queensland. Mango season is on now and we need mango pickers. Citrus is from April through to September. It is hard to get permanent people in those jobs because it is only part-time work; it is casual.

What backpackers do to fill this void—they do work seasonally, but in the lag time they do play an important role and the farmers play of important role. In that slack time, the women of the house or the farmers' wives will take the backpackers in and do cooking lessons and all those things that make it a family operation and the backpackers learn. Backpackers might never have seen a tractor before when they come to places like Biloela and Goovigen, and by the time they leave they can drive those great big machines. It is a learning process for them. They can take their skills back home, back to where they came from, and they know they have got the extra skills that they learnt while backpacking and working on farms in Central Queensland and across Australia.

They also play a vital role in aged care, where a lot of Aussies will not do that sort of work. Backpackers also pick up skills there that they take back with them. It is a real two-way thing, where farmers and aged-care facilities and the backpackers work together for a good outcome.

Flynn horticulture would not survive without them. We have some of the biggest mandarin plantations in the Southern Hemisphere. We have mandarins, limes, navel oranges, table grapes, blueberries— (Time expired)