Wool shed worker shortage drives push for visa changes

The newly formed National Wool Harvesting and Training Advisory Group recently met in Sydney for the second time and identified getting shearing on to the skilled occupation list as a key priority to open up access to the 400 and 482 visa options.

The 400 temporary work- short stay specialist visa and the 482 temporary skill shortage visa have been identified as options which could provide cheaper and more timely access to overseas workers.

WoolProducers Australia chief executive Jo Hall said they were working on getting the Department of Home Affairs to recognise that shearing was a skilled occupation.

"It's a matter of raising awareness with them and advocating for it," she said.

Ms Hall said another possibility was building on the growing relationship with India to create a labour and skills exchange scheme.

"We see India as being quite accessible as they also have a domestic sheep population so it would be seen as a skills transition arrangement where they could learn from our industry while also fitting into the seasonality of the work," she said.

Shearing Contractors Association of Australia executive officer Jason Letchford told the meeting progress had also been made with the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme for shearers, with two pathways currently being pursued - either via Palladium on behalf of the Australian Government or through an accredited labour hire company.

"We are working closely with AWI to have initial training at the Falkiner Memorial Field Station in Conargo in Southern NSW," he said.

It is expected that the pilot round of shearer training for Pacific Island workers at Falkiner Memorial Field Station could take place as soon as August.

Committee chair and AWI director Don Macdonald said while the training facility can accommodate 18 to 20 people at a time, he envisions that the initial training would be for 10-12 workers.

"Those people need to be guaranteed that there is a place for them in the workforce," he said.

"There's a lot of work to be done yet with government officers to make sure we've got everything lined up and suitable, it's not over the line yet.

"The shortage of shearers, shedhands and wool classers is not in the thousands, it's in the hundreds so any numbers we can put through will help."

The meeting also heard a proposal put forward from the WA WoolTAG to have a national campaign to promote increased recruitment of shed workers from farming families.

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WA Shearing Industry Association president Darren Spencer said it is a proposal worth pursuing.

"In the shearing periods of the seasons we used to get a lot of farmers' sons and daughters who would come into industry and work, and it used to solve a lot of our problems," he said.

"We don't get that so much anymore.

"A lot of country kids used to have a gap year and work in the sheds before they'd go off to university."

Mr Spencer said one of their members had started having teenage girls from farming families come work in shearing teams during their school holidays.

"It's created a lot of interest among their friends because they were earning a good income in between school terms... then their mates are encouraged to wanting to do it as well," he said.

Mr Spencer said improvements in facilities and conditions could only help entice more young people to work in wool harvesting teams.

Mr Macdonald said the advisory group will meet four times a year and allow the industry to take a coordinated approach to the issue of wool harvesting labour shortages.

"There's impediments around some of the visas... the government is looking at the whole visa structure for immigration, it's obviously not just about shearer shortages but about worker shortages and short-term immigration visas that lead to residency," he said.

"I think the work that we're doing is chiming in with a lot of industries that all see the immigration and visa pathways as a bit of a minefield, with so many hurdles and barriers."