Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

One Nation will be supporting the Treasury Laws Amendment (Working Holiday Maker Employer Register) Bill 2017. I'm well aware of the Labor Party's position on this bill. They won't be supporting it because they're intent on harassing and victimising businesses who register as working holiday-makers' employers, particularly in the farming sector, which utilises backpackers for seasonal work.

Once upon a time Aussies would flock to picking jobs throughout the country. They would work in the strawberry fields on the Sunshine Coast for four months, or a bit longer if they were there for the planting of runners. Once that season had ended, they'd head off in different directions for other crops across the country. Some would head off to Darwin and pick mangoes. Others would go and do watermelons or pick tomatoes in Bundaberg. Some would go and pick blueberries in Coffs Harbour. But the Australian workforce that once travelled the country fruit picking have inevitably grown a bit older, and they're more focused on the grey nomad lifestyle. They haven't given up the travel, just the need to work.

Unfortunately, the generations of Aussies haven't kept up those traditions of fruit picking, and it's left growers in all fruit and vegetable industries short on farmhands. Call it generational change or call it a change in work ethic, but the reality is that Aussies are less interested in farm work, leaving farmers short on staff. That's why this government, and previous Labor governments, have allowed seasonal fruit picking to be done by backpackers.

I just ask why Labor would want to leave a loophole in our system for these farmers or seasonal work providers to be named and shamed. I find it ironic that the Labor Party are quite supportive of the Pacific Labour Scheme, which allows 2,000 workers from Pacific island nations like Nauru and Tuvalu to fill labour gaps in rural and regional Australia. The Pacific Labour Scheme isn't a short employment period either; it's for up to three years. So what's the difference between supporting the Pacific Labour Scheme, where employers' details aren't plastered online for Labor and their goons to name and shame, versus working holiday-makers?

Let's also point out a few other facts with these backpackers and the short stints they do to make sure our farming sector doesn't collapse. They pay tax from the very first dollar earned. We passed the backpacker tax in 2016, where backpackers pay 15 per cent on every dollar paid to them. As part of that legislative change, employers of working holiday-makers were required to be registered with the Commissioner of Taxation, which allowed employers to withhold the applicable tax. But it's in this very change that we find ourselves fixing up the problem.

Aussies won't do this sort of work, because it has unpredictable hours and the farmer doesn't know how long his season will last. The strawberry industry is a classic example of the uncertainty that farming work offers. It takes a few criminals to sabotage perfectly good fruit and scare the hell out of consumers, and, before you know it, their season has ended prematurely. Almost every single worker in the strawberry industry in Queensland has lost their job today. I think everyone in this country knows my stance on jobs for Australians, but work in certain industries like farming just doesn't appeal to Australians anymore.

You're lucky I'm not the Prime Minister, because I'd be a hard taskmaster. I'd force some of these dole bludgers, who haven't worked a day in their lives, to go out and pick fruit or cut their Centrelink payments. Could you imagine it if I managed to pull that off? I'd have the Greens all over me like a filthy rash because I dared make some of these bludgers work. Let's be honest, though. If you put some of these people on a farm, it would be a punishment to our farmers and an embarrassment to humanity. So in these circumstances I don't mind supporting backpackers working on farms, if Australians don't want to take up the jobs.

I can't let this time go by without responding to Senator Cameron, with his comments about the workers and the ABCC bill, the ROC bill and what's happened with workers in this country. What an absolutely hypocritical comment that was, because the ABCC bill was actually looking after those employers, who employ people. They were actually controlled by thuggery, mainly by the CFMEU and the unions, to shut them down. These building sites were costing the taxpayer an estimated 30 per cent more because of the thuggery from the unions, who would just go in there and shut them down and destroy small businesses. Or—the fact is—they'd say to the businesses, 'If you want the job, we want a cheque from you,' so they could be handing over a cheque for $5,000 or more to the unions to get the jobs. Sabotage was happening on these sites. It was about control and bullying, and that's all they're used to.

On jobs: he talks about the penalty rates. What about the unions and their EBA agreements? What about those? Your agreements were paying a lot of these workers in the smaller hotel and motel chains $10 less an hour. What about those in the supermarkets—again, $8 to $10 less an hour, and you talk about your enterprise agreement bargaining and what you've done. What about the 457 workers? You're actually talking about jobs here in Australia. Under Labor, wasn't it the highest 457 number—130,000, plus the families? What about all that? And you talk about workers!

What happened to the TAFE colleges when Labor were in? Labor are in Queensland as well and across the country. Where are all the TAFE colleges? You've shut them down. Now, as rhetoric, the same old rhetoric, you'll drag it out: 'Labor are going to open up the TAFE colleges, and we're going to do all this.' It's all lip-service again, as usual, from the Labor Party. Your words are a pittance to me because I don't believe a word that you say about looking after the workers in this country, which you haven't done.