Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

I am still in disbelief that this motion even appears on the Notice Paper. Here again is the federal government trying to walk away from its responsibilities like it does all of the time. I mean, really: what is the point of you being in government? You're responsible for quarantine, you're responsible for the Seasonal Worker Program and you haven't done either in this case. Yes, there's fruit rotting—absolutely. There has been at least $45 million to date. I've been up to see some farmers in my home state, and they're having the same issue. They have dumped fruit because they haven't been able to get workers. It is happening all over the country because your government didn't do its job, because the minister didn't do his job.

The National Agricultural Workforce Strategy has been sitting on the minister's desk since October. What has he done? Absolutely nothing. That's what he's done. It's disgraceful that the farmers, after what they went through last year with droughts and fires, now have got the good weather and a bumper crop but now can't pick it, because your government didn't do its job. And you want to come in here and blame premiers? That is just outrageous. It is outrageous that you are trying to blame state premiers when you didn't do your job as a government, because that's exactly what's happened here.

The federal government is responsible for quarantine. The federal government is responsible for seasonal workers. Queensland is going to be in a similar position in weeks because they still don't have enough workers either. This is your government that hasn't done its job. The minister came out and he said he had all these workers lined up and he was going to do this workforce strategy, and we have nothing. We have nothing because your government didn't do its job in quarantine and still isn't doing its job in quarantine. Your government hasn't done its job in terms of the Seasonal Worker Program. You have not done your job.

We have farmers who are just beside themselves with their bumper crop that they thought would turn it around after everything that's happened to them. After everything they've been through, finally they get a bumper crop and they don't have the workers to get it off, and that is your government's fault. It is not the state and territory governments' fault.

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