SA to fly in Pacific Islands workers next week as Aussies refuse fruit picking jobs

South Australia will fly in about 100 foreign workers next week, as farmers warn it may be the only hope to stop millions of dollars of crop losses.

Irrigator Michael Trautwein on his property near Renmark. Picture: Naomi Jellicoe

South Australia will fly in about 100 seasonal workers from Vanuatu next week as farmers struggle to find Aussies willing to take on fruit-picking jobs.

It is the first flight to bring Pacific Island seasonal workers to SA during COVID-19 and there are plans for more flights in February and March. Workers will quarantine in medi-hotels.

Acting Prime Minister Michael McCormack this week urged unemployed Australians to switch “Stan and Netflix off” and head to the regions to seek a job, as a new report found farmers had lost at least $38m of crops so far due to labour shortages.

SA’s South-East will need about 10,000-15,000 workers at peak harvest season, while the rest of the state will need up to 2200 workers a month, according to an analysis by EY for Horticulture Innovation Australia.

The worker shortages comes as latest data shows there were about 13,250 South Australians receiving JobSeeker or Youth Allowance in the South-East as of October and more than 117,600 recipients statewide as of November, up from 78,400 in March.

More than 2000 seasonal workers have already been flown into other states during the pandemic to fill farm labour shortages, as backpackers can’t enter the country and jobless Australians are not taking the work despite high unemployment.

Citrus SA chairman Mark Doecke welcomed the flights, ahead of the citrus harvest starting in April. He said Australians were “largely uninterested” in regional jobs – from fruit-picking work to professions such as optometry.

“Virtually our only hope is planeloads of people coming from other countries to work, because backpackers don’t exist any more,” he said.

Stone fruit grower Michael Trautwein said there already had been Riverland crop losses from the worker shortage.

He said backpackers who had been in Australia for a long time were less reliable and absent more often because many were ready to go home.

“We do need fresh workers,” Mr Trautwein said. 

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Primary Industries Minister David Basham. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Kelly Barnes

Primary Industries Minister David Basham said there had been “significant interest” in the State Government’s $4.45m package to plug the workforce shortages.

There have been four applications from businesses to bring in seasonal workers and more than 80,000 views of the website.

The State Government is seeking Australians to fill the jobs first, including targeting older workers, international students, those on gap years, and school and university students. It is also providing businesses up to $500 per person to partially cover medi-hotel costs if they need to bring in workers from the Pacific Islands.

AUSVEG SA chief executive Jordan Brooke-Barnett said he was concerned about worker shortages but said SA was “ahead of the ball and less exposed than other states”, given major agricultural regions were not as far from the city and there was less reliance on backpacker labour. 

“Talking to a lot of my big businesses, a lot of them are 10-15 workers short,” Mr Brooke-Barnett said.

“They’re still able to get produce out to market but it’s impacting their productivity.”

An online Harvest Trail jobs board established by the Federal Government shows more than 380 positions are being advertised in SA alone.

The Liberal Member for Barker, Tony Pasin, called for on-farm quarantine to give Riverland farmers more certainty ahead of harvest.

Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud urged SA and other states to fast-track bringing in workers to help farmers, saying about 25,000 were available.

Australians can apply for relocation assistance of up to $6000 to take on short-term agricultural work, while eligible visa holders can apply for up to $2000 assistance.