Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also would like to make a few comments on the report, Perspectives on the future of the harvest labour force. I will also commence by thanking the other members of the Senate Employment, Workplace Relations and Education Committee for their exemplary work on this, including Senator George Campbell, Senator Gavin Marshall, Senator Troeth and Senator Barnett. I note that Senator Gavin Marshall was the chair of this committee when it started life as a references committee and I am sure he would have wished to speak about this report had he been here today. I would also like to apologise to Senator Marshall that I was unable to convince the other members of the committee to call this report ‘The Marshall Plan’. I would also like to thank the committee secretariat, who assisted the committee with the inquiry, especially Mr John Carter and Mr David Sullivan, who accompanied us on several flights in very small planes to far-flung regions and who stoically stood with us in many packing sheds and orchards.

As our committee chair, Senator Troeth, has indicated, this was an inquiry that resulted in a unanimous report with some additional comments by Senator Barnett. The committee’s inquiry was prompted by calls from some grower organisations for the contracting of unskilled labour from abroad, at least on a trial basis. That would probably have involved the establishment of a new visa category for unskilled workers separate from the now controversial 457 visa category.

Committee members listened carefully to growers and grower organisations from around the country as they described the circumstances in which they found themselves at harvest time. We agreed that the shortage of labour in the horticultural industry was evident in some places at particular times. Nevertheless, the committee concluded overall that in current circumstances there was no need to implement any radical solution to the seasonal labour scarcity. The government’s strong opposition to the type of unskilled contract labour scheme proposed by some in the horticultural industry has been made clear, and I have to say our side of politics is no more enthusiastic. That said, I believe the committee did look objectively at the evidence, as Senator Troeth said, particularly in relation to labour needs at a time of considerable expansion in the industry.

The committee is also far less inclined to the dogmatism expressed by some other government members and the dogmatism that the government appears to have about foreign contract unskilled labour. As this report indicates, circumstances may require a policy change in that regard. There may in future be a strong case for implementing a foreign contract labour scheme for horticulture. The declining numbers in the current harvest labour force, the precariousness of the backpacker labour supply, which is very vulnerable to external factors, and the rising levels of agribusiness investment all point to the likelihood of increased labour pressures in future years.

The period when the committee was conducting visits and taking evidence coincided with increasing evidence that some employers are abusing the 457 visa scheme and that the government’s lack of oversight of the scheme is allowing that abuse to occur. The problems encountered with 457 visas in the meat industry, the building and construction industry and other areas of skill shortages certainly sharpened the sensitivities of the committee with regard to what contractual arrangements must apply in the event that there is any kind of harvest labour scheme as envisaged in the committee report. The committee has dealt with those issues substantially in chapter 4 of its report, and I urge senators to have a look at that chapter in particular.

Growers were clear about the current difficulties they faced. The committee accepts the validity of some claims that labour was not always available at times which were most advantageous in achieving the highest possible return on produce. On the other hand, the committee was unconvinced of claims that crops were lost because there was no-one to harvest them. Such isolated occasions when this might have occurred are suspected by the committee to have been more the result of mismanagement than anything else.

Mismanagement in this industry occurs at two levels: first, with horticultural practices which result in substandard crops—which are, incidentally, often hard to pick and bring low returns to fruit pickers, who are paid on a piecework basis—and, second, with regard to mismanagement of labour that was indicated by the very poor pay and conditions and the scant regard for the welfare of employees by many employers in this industry.

In a free labour market, as we have, where pickers have an effective grapevine of their own and can avoid working for bad employers because of the shortage of labour, it is not surprising that some growers would be attracted to the use of what they perceive to be docile foreign labour, which they imagine would be much cheaper as well. As the report states, committee members held a number of informal meetings with growers which in some cases indicated that labour costs, as much as timely availability, were factors in their support for foreign labour. Some growers unashamedly extolled the virtues of using labour hire firms to bring in workers from China and Korea. Some growers made outrageous claims about what kind of incomes people could make from fruit picking, but all the concrete evidence was that for most Australians this is a very low-income industry to work in.

The committee did not see too many wealthy fruit-pickers, I have to say. The award rate, including a casual loading, for this work is currently in the order of $15.38 per hour, and we found that, to keep their expenses low, pickers sometimes sleep in their cars or in very rough campgrounds near to orchards and occasionally in onsite accommodation that, in the committee’s view, might just be okay for a holidaying backpacker for a couple of weeks but was nowhere near the standard acceptable for either Australian or imported contract labour. To give the industry its due, however, many grower organisations were conscious of the need to maintain proper employment standards in the industry and realised that this was a factor in the lack of people willing to come and work in the horticultural industry.

Some other observations arising from the evidence to the committee may be of interest. First, the committee was rather surprised—dismayed, even—to find that even large agribusinesses have apparently failed to factor into their business plans the increasing labour scarcity. This is all the more remarkable given that this is such a labour intensive industry, particularly in the premium produce end of the market. But from many management people in the newly planted and planned large orchards, which are often funded by managed investment schemes, we got a shrug of the shoulders when we asked: ‘Where are you actually going to source the labour to work this orchard?’ It was a somewhat disturbing response.

Second, the issue of using welfare recipients in orchards and vineyards was again kicked about by the committee. Growers were, to say the least, unenthusiastic about relying on people currently in receipt of welfare benefits to fill labour shortages. Some growers were totally unsympathetic to the unemployed; others acknowledged that people who had been unemployed for a long period of time often had physical impediments, disabilities or other responsibilities that would anyway prevent them from doing the long days and the very hard and very physical work that is the lot of most fruit-pickers.

Third, the committee was concerned with the overdependence on backpacker labour. Not only is this a precarious and unreliable source of labour, it is also discouraging improved working conditions for traditional seasonal labourers. Young backpackers are highly prized workers who stay only until they hear that the surf is up at Byron Bay or Bells Beach, and then they are off. While they are staying in the orchard they do not complain about the pay or living conditions in remote areas, and that sets the tone for ongoing fairly poor employment conditions.

Finally, the committee agreed that any future imported labour should be sourced from Pacific Islands Forum nations and be based on agreements with each of those countries. It must be properly regulated with regard to wages and working conditions, so as to eliminate any likelihood of exploitation. The committee received a number of submissions regarding the importance of Pacific nation participation in regional economic growth and we accepted the thrust of those arguments, particularly with regard to the value of overseas remittances to the economies of our near neighbours. While Pacific Islands Forum nations will undoubtedly be disappointed in the findings of this report, I note that the committee’s brief was substantially to address employment issues in Australian horticulture and not Australia’s foreign policy.

It may appear unusual to table a report without formal recommendations, but I think the position of the committee on a number of key issues is clear and unambiguous. The government should note the committee’s advice in any future policy development relating to the matter of contracting harvest labour from the South Pacific.