Australia introduces new visa to help fill shortage of fruit and vegetable harvesters in the country
2,500 visas will be issued by the Australian government to Pacific Islanders every year over the next three years. The purpose of this new visa program is to try to fill a huge labor shortage. The people granted one of these visas will help to harvest fruit and vegetables in the country.
Tony Burke who is the Federal Agriculture Minister described the issue as “a chronic labor shortage in some parts of Australia.” Burke also said that “For too long Australian farmers have become sick to death of watching their own fruit rotting on the vine because they couldn’t get a worker there to pick the fruit.”
Burke has stated that the new visa program for Pacific Islanders is not an attempt to take advantage of cheap labor. He said “In fact, for employers it will be marginally more expensive to access this scheme than it would have been had Australian workers been available.”
Paul Howes who is the secretary for the Australian Workers Union expressed concerns that the new system would be regulated properly. ”There’s some pretty grubby and horrible things that happen out there in remote workplaces where farmers have used foreign labor. If we don’t regulate this scheme, the illegal practices will continue … a worker should not earn one dollar less than an Australian worker,” he said.
The Vice President for the National Farmers Federation which is responsible for developing the new visa program said that “The government and NFF’s shared vision for overcoming the chronic nationwide shortfall of 22,000 seasonal workers in horticulture should be widely applauded given the benefits for all concerned.”
www.immi.gov.au
Popularity: 7%
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.