Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Mayo for bringing forward this private member's motion and shining a light on what is a critically important issue to regional and rural Australia. I would suggest that my seat of O'Connor, stretching across 1.1 million square kilometres, is probably as badly affected by this current labour shortage as any electorate across the country.

The regional city of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, part of the Goldfields mining industry, has been the canary in the coalmine, because we've seen unemployment rates in Kalgoorlie-Boulder sub three per cent for over five years now. So we've experienced this current skills shortage that the rest of Australia has been experiencing now for many years. I'm very proud of some of the measures that the previous government put in place, and skilled migration has been a big part of that. Unfortunately, with the COVID restrictions and border closures—many of which were necessary—some closures, particularly in the western part of the continent, were perhaps a little bit over the top.

But we have seen a rapid drying up of that skilled migration program. It is starting to be accessed again, but I'd like to make the comment that the time to process these applications is taking a minimum of 12 months and an average of 18 months. The cost to businesses sponsoring skilled migrants can be up to $20,000, with no guarantee of an outcome. This is a big issue for the businesses across my electorate, particularly in the city of Kalgoorlie-Boulder. As the member for Blair mentioned, abattoirs—meat works—are finding it very hard to find staff. I've got several large operations across my electorate, and they are accessing the expanded Pacific Islander scheme, and that's another initiative of the Morrison government which is paying dividends. We certainly need to upskill our local workers and encourage people to move to and have a wonderful lifestyle in regional Australia.

Moving on to the substance of the motion, and that is getting our pensioners, who are willing and able, to work. There are many who don't want to work full time, but they would be quite happy to contribute by doing a day or two here and there. The coalition has announced a policy, which I'm very, very supportive of, that we will double the Age and Veteran Service Pension Work Bonus Scheme, from $300 per fortnight to $600 per fortnight. The practical implication here is that a couple, who might want to hook the caravan up and head out to the Wheatbelt, in my electorate, and maybe help out through the harvest period, would be able to earn up to $1,200 per fortnight, without impacting their pension. I think that's a great incentive. A month working on a chaser bin is not physically demanding. You sit in an air-conditioned cab. It takes a bit of skill and a bit of training, but I'm sure many of the older people that I know would certainly be able to pick up that sort of job in no time.

I'm very supportive of the scheme. I see it as a great initiative to help regional Australia find the casual workers that we lost when we lost our backpackers, and, once again, that goes back to the COVID border closures. But backpackers do suit some of the work tasks in regional Australia particularly well. It's seasonal work; it might be a month or two. It doesn't suit Australian people to leave the metropolitan area to go to, for example, Manjimup, in the Southern Forests to pick apples for a couple of months. It's not something that rational people would do, but for a backpacker who's travelling around Australia, it's ideal work. Unfortunately we've lost them; they don't seem to have the confidence yet to start travelling again, particularly in Western Australia. But a pensioner and his or her partner may decide that going down to the beautiful Southern Forests for a month or two with the caravan, or to stay in a donga on a property, and help out with the apple picking, would be very much something that would suit their lifestyle and would suit them financially. Then they could continue on for a few months on their merry way with the caravan and enjoy their holiday. I absolutely support and commend this policy initiative from the coalition and I thank the member for Mayo once again for raising this issue in parliament.

See this speech in context