Chesters: “shocking” lack of workforce planning for farm sector

With federal parliament set to resume this week for the first time in 2017, the Victorian rural MP and rising voice in Labor’s rural ranks, says her party will strive throughout the year to keep the agricultural work-force issues, on the political agenda.

She has also warned that despite the tax rate on working holidaymakers being set at 15 per cent in the final sitting week of federal parliament last year - to avoid it hitting 32.5pc on January 1 and cruelling seasonal workforces - the critical underlying farm labour supply issue remained unresolved.

“What I hear coming back time and time again form regional Australia is a fear of this government because everything they touch just turns to crap,” she said.

“Even when they don’t try to, and when the government comes in with best intentions, everything they touch just turns to crap.

“For example, the obvious one that everyone has talked about is the backpacker tax.

“It was a debacle from the start – it was their tax – they introduced the 32pc tax and then left it for too long before they finally brought it down to 19pc and then 15pc and we all know the story.”

Ms Chesters said the Coalition was “so fixated” on the backpacker tax rate, as the issue became an ongoing distraction during the 2016 election campaign and made national headlines in the final sitting week of the year after legislation was anxiously waylaid due to a crossbench ambush, they failed to address work-culture issues caused by some “rogue subcontractors”.

She said while the backpacker tax debate was occurring, a Fair Work ombudsman’s report was released looking into the treatment of backpackers, particularly those working in agriculture on-farms.

The report “exposed” that about a third of backpackers, especially those working in the farm-sector, were being underpaid, by “ruthless” labour hire firms, she said.

Ms Chesters said the report also talked about incidents of sexual assault, bullying and harassment and people actually being physically threatened in the workplace.

“There’s some shocking work place culture occurring and there’s been very little effort by the government to clean that up,” she said.

“My fear is, and what I’m hearing from people in the sector, is that the backpacker tax was going to make it hard to attract backpackers but until we clean up what’s going on with the labour hire firms, the shonky providers in this space, it’s going to be very hard to get backpackers back on farms,” she said.

“Why would you work in a place where you’re being treated appallingly?”

Mr Chesters said in order to extend a 417 working holiday visa into a second year, backpackers had to complete 88 days of paid work in regional Australia but a new study showed that agriculture was missing out on those jobs.

“You can forgive Australians for thinking backpackers only work in agriculture given the backpacker debate was largely focussed on what was happening in farming,” she said.

“But a Monash University study said one in five backpackers work on-farms so four in five backpackers never step foot onto a farm.

“So where are they working?

“The government doesn’t track that.”

Ms Chesters said unlike a 457 visa that’s used for skilled overseas workers, 417 visa holders don’t have to register the place where they’re working.

“The four out of five backpackers are literally taking jobs from young Australians or other Australians,” she said.

“In my part of the world, a lot of people in Bendigo don’t like backpackers because they’ve taken jobs at (processing plants).

“They’ve come in with labour hire firms and taken jobs away from locals.

“Locals say they don’t have a problem with backpackers working on-farms but reality is four out of five of them don’t do that.”

Ms Chesters said the backpacker tax rate issue was resolved – after the government did a deal with the Greens in the final sitting week of 2016 that included an additional $100 million Landcare funding.

But she said the issue of where it was appropriate and suitable for backpackers to be working remained unresolved and needed fixing.

She highlighted the example of recent changes to the 462 visa program where backpackers can work anywhere in the agriculture, tourism and hospitality industries in northern Australia, for three months, to then become eligible to apply for a second work and holiday visa.

But she said, “If you’re a backpacker and you have a choice between working in a pub in Cairns or a farm in Mildura, what would you choose?”

“The government kind of changed and expanded the work opportunity for backpackers to get the extension without doing any modelling,” she said.

“What the backpacker tax debate exposed is the shocking lack of workforce planning for the ag sector and how reliant the ag sector is on foreign labour.

“The challenge now, and this is an area I hope to work on this year with (Shadow Agriculture Minister) Joel Fitzgibbon and Labor, is to work out how we can develop an ag workforce.

“At harvest time, how can we help our farmers; not just in those lower skilled picking jobs, but also in the higher skilled jobs?

“There’s a shortage in the ag workface – from the high skilled to the lower skilled jobs.”

Ms Chesters said at the same time that the agriculture sector faced work-force deficiencies, regional Australia was at “crisis point when it comes to unemployment”.

She said youth unemployment was at crisis point and many men over the age of 55 were also unemployed.

“There are spikes in unemployment in our regional areas yet we have an ag workforce issue,” she said.

“What’s going on and what’s wrong in terms of the government policy settings?

“That’s a challenge.”

Ms Chesters is also Labor’s Shadow Assistant Minster for Rural and Regional Australia and Shadow Minister for Workplace Relations.