MEMBER for Mallee Anne Webster has urged farmers to “step up” and register their worker needs in time for this harvest season.
Following Agriculture Minister Bridget McKenzie’s announcement on Tuesday that the government had sourced international labour for producers, Dr Webster on Friday urged Sunraysia farmers to co-operate as promptly as possible.
“What we need is for producers to get on board and start applying if they aren’t already to be registered employers, and to get their information on how many employees they need to a contract service such as MADEC,” she said.
Dr Webster said while there were already 1000 international workers “ready to go”, the administration period meant growers needed to register their interest as soon as possible.
“The process at this point in time shows that 75 per cent of visa applicants are taking 33 days to go through, which is why I am putting the pressure on now to say, ‘Producers, if you want the workers here in time for harvest, you need to get the numbers in there’.
“If we are looking at thousands of people potentially coming in, obviously that requires significant work to be done at the departmental level and we want to facilitate that.”
Tuesday’s announcement confirmed the pilot Seasonal Worker Program, scheduled to finish mid-next year, would relaunch and continue to 2022.
However, there are growing fears about Sunraysia’s accommodation crisis and the possibility of housing thousands of international workers.
“There is no point bringing thousands and thousands of people here if there is no accommodation,” Dr Webster said.
“That’s why the accommodation broker is going to be on the ground, to work with government, non-government and private enterprise to ensure the innovative solutions to this accommodation crisis will be worked through and resolved.”
Changes to the relaunched Seasonal Worker Program included an extended working period and flexibility in location, which Dr Webster said would attract international workers.
“It’s increased the period of time that they can stay in the country working from six months to nine months and it has also increased the flexibility so that workers can go between farms and regions,” she said.
“There are those four centres that people can actually work between Goulburn-Murray, Riverina, Sunraysia and Wimmera-Mallee.
“Sunraysia is a pilot for this so we really hope it works, because if it does it will be rolled out across Australia.”
