­Pacific partners pick of the crop for Bumbak & Sons

Among the 170 plantations on the banks of the Gascoyne River north of Perth, one family business has found a way around Western Australia’s burgeoning labour crisis.

Mosese Malimal and other workers from Tonga and Vanuatu in Carnarvon. Picture: Colin Murty

Among the 170 plantations on the banks of the Gascoyne River north of Perth, one family business has found a way around Western Australia’s burgeoning labour crisis. Bumbak & Sons is among a handful of primary producers across the state to have successfully applied to host seasonal workers from the South ­Pacific.

The men at Bumbak’s – one of WA’s largest producers of table grapes and mangoes – are among 50 workers from Tonga and Vanuatu who landed in Perth on May 21. The group quarantined at the Novotel Langley before heading in different directions for picking and pruning seasons. Some went only as far as Gingin, 46km northeast of Perth, to work on berry farms. Others went to orchards or wineries in the southwest.

When 22 from the group ­arrived in Carnarvon, 900km north of Perth, on June 12, it was the culmination of months of negoti­ations and compliance work by Bumbak & Sons’ Robyn Bumbak.

She said she had “so much gratitude and respect to their families and loved ones back in Tonga for supporting their decision to be away for so long”.

The men have been pruning table vines and will rest before they head into the busiest season of leafing and harvest. They will be joined by eight more workers from Vanuatu due to arrive in Perth on September 16.

Local MP Vince Catania, whose northwest electorate takes in the Gascoyne food bowl, said it was great news for Bumbak & Sons, a company that had the right mix of agricultural and administrative skills, but their story was a bright spot in an otherwise bleak landscape for WA businesses struggling to find staff.

“The shortage is severe and it is not just in agriculture,” Mr Catania said.

“It’s also in hospitality and retail: I know of business owners having to shut down for days just to give themselves some respite.”

WA’s economy is booming again thanks to long stints without Covid-19 and record iron ore exports. The flip side of the good economic times is a housing shortage and a lack of skilled and unskilled workers.

Mr Catania said it meant tourism businesses could not take full advantage of the domestic tourism boom in which very large numbers of West Australians are buying caravans and having ­adventures in their home state.

“The problem for these hospitality businesses in regional WA is that even if they could get staff, there is nowhere to put them. There is no housing,” he said.

“We need more co-operation from our state and federal governments to solve this and get more workers in from overseas and interstate.”

The worker shortage in WA shows no signs of easing.

In resources alone, the state is predicted to need an extra 40,000 resources workers over the next two years.