Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The plumpest, the juiciest, the reddest, the best—what am I talking about? Young cherries—cherries from Young, of course, and we all know that. Since 1847 they've been growing the plumpest, the juiciest, the reddest, the best cherries in Young. But, I have to say, unless we find 3,000 pickers very soon, when the picking season starts on 1 November the Young cherry growers could be left high and dry. It is cause for great concern in that wonderful town—a town who's rugby league team, I would almost dare to say, is the only team in Australian rugby league that has cherry pickers as its emblem! And why wouldn't it be the cherry pickers?

The concerns of the Young cherry growers about the looming harvest labour shortage was raised with me on 5 August. I appreciate that we did some work last year for this very reason, because COVID has left us short of many backpackers. Young requires about 3,000 pickers, most of whom are backpackers or professional pickers. It is a situation which caused us to have a very good teleconference. The Minister for Agriculture and Northern Australia zoomed in on the teleconference. We had Michelle Walton, Samantha Flanery, Joanne Wells, and the member for Cootamundra, who has also been very much part and parcel of this, on the teleconference. The minister understands full well that the agriculture visa, which has been put in place by the Nationals and the Liberals, is going to play its part. But we also need some of the border restrictions, some of those state-sanctioned restrictions on cherry pickers and the like, lifted so that pickers can come down from Queensland.

Of course, often the picking season starts in Queensland. They pick mandarins and other things and then come to pick the cherries in Young and in Orange as well. They also come to Griffith and then they go down to Tasmania. The pool of labour available to harvest cherries is significantly smaller, as I said, but thankfully we've got the Harvest Trail. I urge pickers to go to www.harvesttrail.gov.au. Indeed, the ag visa is also going to play a part. That's why we have put it in place: to ease the concerns of these growers and to ease the concerns of these farmers.

Finally we're going to have another good bumper season. They've gone through so much, with drought, bushfires, floods and COVID. The farmers are looking towards a bumper harvest. We need the people there. The Harvest Trail and the ag visa are going to play a part in addressing these issues.