THE Federal Government has so far failed to sign up a single country to the agricultural workers visa that it heralded as a solution to crippling regional labour shortages.
Agriculture Minister David Littleproud said he had received a “strong commitment” from Minister for Foreign Affairs Marise Payne that she would be able to sign a country in January.
The Agricultural Workers Visa aims to source skilled, semi-skilled and low-skilled workers across of broad range of agricultural industries.
It was designed to supplement the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility Scheme (PALM) which remains the primary scheme for meeting agricultural workforce shortages this summer.
Mr Littleproud said initial advice had been that one prospective country would sign up by Christmas, but that did not occur.
The first workers were supposed to start arriving in December, ahead of an expansion in participating employers and workers from April.
Mr Littleproud accused the Australian Workers Union (AWU) of using “abhorrent” tactics to impede Ms Payne’s efforts.
“They actually went and met with ambassadors and lobbied embassies of these southeast Asian countries, asking them not to sign up to this visa, because they believed Australian farmers would simply exploit every worker that came through – an absolutely abhorrent situation that has cast doubt in the minds of some of these countries,” Mr Littleproud said.
“The reality is they are demonising and generalising Australian farmers for a small cohort that’s done the wrong thing. I acknowledge that, but we are weeding them out with new penalties and new regulations.”
Victorian Branch Secretary of the AWU Ben Davis said the agriculture minister was “making nonsense up on the run” and that the AWU had not been undermining the Agriculture Visa.
“Some foreign countries are very wary about the agricultural visa given the very public history of wage theft that’s occurred in the industry in recent years,” Mr Davis said.
“The fact that it’s so entrenched and widespread, would make any other country very reluctant to allow their citizens to settle up for more of the same and be exploited again.”
While he acknowledged that there was a labour shortage in agriculture, Mr Davis said an agriculture visa should address skills shortages, which in this situation was not the case.
He said the answer was to employ locals on proper wages.
“There are lots of (growers) who are paying workers above award (and) are looking after the people that work for them either short-term or long-term and managing to source workers.”
The Agriculture Visa was created in October and while expectations were high that talks with Indonesia would lead to agreement, none was made.
Phase one of the Agriculture Visa program was expected to occur between December 2021 and March 2022 with a small cohort of agriculture workers.
Phase two, scheduled to begin in April, would then see an increase in participating employers and workers.
According to Mr Littleproud, between 15,000 and 16,000 agriculture jobs would be filled by the PALM Scheme, and that another 10,000 to 20,000 workers would be required between December 2021 and February 2022.
