THE results of last night’s census will be inaccurate for the Swan Hill area because labour hire contractors will play down numbers of seasonal workers living on their farms, a councillor has warned.
The census will record a snapshot of households across Australia as of last night for statistical purposes and will be used to determine areas most in need of government funding.
Robinvale Ward representative John Katis said the census was going to be a “bloody disaster” for the town because large-scale farming property owners wouldn’t be honest about the amount of seasonal workers residing in workers’ quarters.
“When they take the census to the properties, they go straight to the house and I believe they leave it up to the owners of the properties to say ‘yes I’ve got people working for me living here’,” he said.
“With some of these contractors who have 10 to 15 people living with them, I know for sure that their answer there would be, ‘there’s only two of us living in the house’.
“For reasons you can understand, where they’re making money off the workers illegally or charging for rent, the census doesn’t take it that far.”
For more on this story, grab a copy of Wednesday’s Guardian (August 10).
