Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Hunter does a pretty good impersonation of the walking dead in politics! He's been languishing over there for I don't know how long. He's tougher than he looks! The seriousness of the question goes to this issue: the challenge facing Australia at the moment, as we go into the harvest season, is to ensure that we have the workers on the farms and in the orchards—whether it is in hydroponic or horticultural areas or wherever it needs to be—to work with the farm producers to ensure we get the fruit off the vine, we can get it produced and we can get it to market or we can get it offshore. That is the challenge that the government is currently facing. That is the challenge that the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources has brought to the government, working together with colleagues across the cabinet. The plan that I outlined on the weekend was fairly straightforward: advise where the jobs are, when they're available, what they're being paid and for how long they're there. That is a very important piece of information, because what we don't want to see, and I would hope the Labor Party wouldn't want to see, is foreign workers or others being exploited on farms through cash payments or illegal working arrangements. I'm sure the Labor Party would not want to support those sorts of arrangements. I'm sure they would want to support a proper process where we can work out where the need for farm labourers is.

Where there is a job in Australia, our view is that an Australian should do that job where an Australian is available and fit and ready to do that job. Where an Australian is fit and ready to do that job and they receive an offer to do that job and they walk away, they shouldn't be getting the dole. That's what we think. Where there are genuine shortages in particular areas, on particular farms, we will ensure that we match those jobs up with other workers who can come through the Working Holiday Maker visa program, the Seasonal Worker Program or the Pacific islands labour program, and we will meet that need. With longer term issues around the types of visas which the member has referred to, absolutely: the government has made no decision about not having such a visa in the future.

What we need to do right now is ensure that we get those workers onto the farms to ensure that the farmers have the workers that they need. But Australian jobs should go to Australian workers first, and we need to ensure that all those who are working on farms have the appropriate protections and are paid properly and that we're not having illegal workers working on our farms in Australia.

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