Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to commend the member for Lyons on his important motion, and add my voice of support to it. The exploitation of migrant workers on short-term visas in the Australian horticultural sector is abhorrent, and it needs to stop. This is Australia, the first country on earth to elect a Labor Party—our great party. But we're now almost a quarter of the way into the 21st century, and the exploitation of workers has absolutely no place where our laws obtain. It has no place on our farms, on our ports, in our trucks, in our planes, in our factories, in our CBDs or in the Public Service down the hill from here. It has no place, whether you're an Australian, a permanent resident or a student driving for Uber Eats just to get by during COVID. It has no place in Australia, whether or not you're an Australian. That's one of the things that makes Australia such a wonderful country. It's not that we don't have abusive or corrupt individuals in business or government; it is that we don't tolerate them. We should never tolerate them, or else the rot sets in. If we lose that, then there's not much left to fight for here in our lucky country.

As the motion highlights, the Australian horticultural sector relies heavily on these overseas workers. Up to 80 per cent of the harvest workforce comes from overseas, on short-term visas. We saw the importance of that workforce, to which we owe a fair wage and a hospitable welcome, to our economy this year; it is very important to our economy. During the fires, Vanuatu seasonal workers in Wagga faced the same fight against nature as Australians. Then, in the Northern Territory, Vanuatu seasonal workers came back to help our mango farmers. Our Territory businesses have faced one of the toughest years in memory, due to the pandemic, because the pandemic sent about 50,000 backpackers home. Arriving on 3 September, 160 seasonal workers were amongst those whose hard work is getting you the beautiful Kensington Pride mangoes that you see at your local shops. Regional governments have expressed concerns about the abuse of seasonal workers' rights, for which there can be no tolerance. We need to treat these workers well. They are helping our businesses as well as feeding us. If not for them, a lot of this produce would end up on the ground.

This motion highlights the urgency of implementing measures to achieve a sustained improvement in the number of Australians who work in our horticultural sector, including as seasonal workers, going from, say, Melbourne up to the Territory. This is the most viable and sustainable long-term solution to an economic, industrial and trade problem that isn't going away any time soon. I firmly believe that young, patriotic Australians, including students, as well as international students, living in our cities can be incentivised to go and work on a farm for three to six months. There are ways for a visionary government to achieve this—a little investment, some sustained training programs, the promotion of a sense of civic service. A little national vision would be the Tassie cherry on the cake. I'm sure the member for Lyons would agree with that. All of these small steps would mean that, next time a harvest is about to rot on the ground, as it almost did on many farms in the Territory, the first line of defence against multimillion-dollar loss wouldn't be the flexibility to cobble together a deal at short notice but would be a bottom-up swell of young Australians and young people from elsewhere flocking to the country areas of Australia, particularly where there is agricultural produce, to help out. I think this can be entirely commercially viable, and I think it's a national imperative if we're to grow our horticultural sector, especially for the juicy export markets.

Australia is proud of producing more than we eat and feeding our hungry Indo-Pacific region and countries further afield, but, if we're to achieve this increased export strategy, we'll need the Australian and temporary seasonal workforce to lift productivity and avoid the risk of farmers being slammed each time there is market volatility or labour shortages.

See this speech in context