Coronavirus: Coalition MPs want fix for harvest worker shortfall

Coalition MPs say backpackers should be given more opportunities to remain in Australia.

SA Liberal MP Tony Pasin says the government should do all it can to place Australians in work, including in fruit-picking jobs.

Coalition MPs say backpackers should be given more opportunities to remain in Australia longer and work with multiple farmers, as pressure mounts on the Morrison government to ­release a package meant to ­address a shortage of agriculture workers.

With peak harvest season ­approaching, fruit and vegetable farmers need thousands of extra workers as domestic and international border closures wreak havoc.

There are divisions within the Coalition over how to fix the worker shortfall, with Liberal MPs pushing for Australians to fill vacant fruit-picking jobs while many Nationals MPs want seasonal workers from the ­Pacific Islands to be flown in.

“In the current economic ­environment where hundreds of thousands of Australians find themselves either unemployed or in receipt of significant wage subsidies, the government should be seeking to do all it can to place Australians in work­,” South Australian Liberal Tony Pasin said.

“Only in circumstances where the demand cannot, is not and will not be met by Australians should consideration be given to expanding foreign worker programs.”

Mr Pasin said the existing workforce, including 70,000 backpackers who remain in Australia, should be able to access flexible work rights.

“If they’re in the regions and they’re doing this work, we can’t send them away,” he said.

Victorian Nationals MP Damian Drum said restarting the seasonal worker program — after more than 160 mango pickers from Vanuatu arriving in the Northern Territory earlier this month — was the “most commonsense way of alleviating the shortage”.

He also backed extending the working holiday maker visa and incentivising backpackers to “go back out into the field even though they might have already done their 88 days”.

Agriculture Minister David Littleproud — who has warned the West Australian, Queensland and Tasmanian governments their farmers could miss out on seasonal workers from overseas if they don’t sign up to a new agriculture code designed to remove state borders — is also considering measures to encourage students and unemployed Australians into the regions.

“Australians are important, they need to be out there, ­however I wouldn’t be holding your breath and thinking there’ll be a traffic jam of people heading up the Hume Highway picking fruit,” Mr Drum said.

Anne Webster, also a Victorian Nationals MP, said extending backpackers visas by 12 months and allowing them to work with more than one employer needed to be considered.

“Ideally we want to be able to utilise the workforce that is here,” Ms Webster said. “I have not had one farmer who has contacted me and said ‘locals are stepping into the breach’, it’s just not happening. In fact their old grandfathers who have seriously retired are coming back to help on farm.”