Nats challenge to Scott Morrison: agriculture visa ‘not dead’

Nationals MPs say Scott Morrison’s proposal to get unemployed Australians working on farms does not go far enough.

Former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce. Picture Kym Smith

Nationals MPs have declared a new class of agriculture visa is “not dead” and vowed to continue pushing for the policy in the partyroom, amid warnings that Scott Morrison’s proposal to get unemployed Australians working on farms did not go far enough.

Industry stakeholders also ridiculed the suggestion that people who “don’t want to be there” would fill farming positions and said migrant workers were necessary to meet the sector’s needs, after the Prime Minister pledged to match local jobseekers on ­welfare benefits with job ­opportunities.

The Coalition’s special drought envoy, and former deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, said the agriculture visa was still Nationals policy despite Mr Morrison and key Liberal cabinet ministers dismissing it because it would undermine preferential entry for Pacific workers and threaten key strategic relationships. “There’s no such thing as dead in politics,” Mr Joyce told The Australian.

“If a farmer says ‘I cannot get a person who wants to pick mangoes, no one wants to work in 35C heat’, that person needs to get ­access to other people who are willing to earn money and send that money home to families.

“It’s a win-win situation on foreign trade.

“Priority No 1 is to get the product out of the paddock into the packing shed — it’s not the other way around, getting people into employment.”

Mr Morrison’s attempt to quell internal dissent by announcing on Saturday that the government would work with farmers to find out where vacancies were and fill the positions with Australian jobseekers, before turning to overseas workers under existing programs, has done little to ease calls for an agriculture visa.

Mr Joyce’s successor, Michael McCormack, said in August he would like the policy “sorted within weeks, not months”.

NSW Nationals MP Mark Coulton, a farmer, grazier and the Assistant Trade Minister, said he would keep advocating for a ­“regional” visa because there remained opportunities to bring in workers from around the world.

“I don’t think there’ll be enough local people to take up the slack; we’ll still need guest workers for fruit picking and the like,” Mr Coulton said.

“There are different people ­required for different skills.

“If you’re looking for someone to drive a $700,000 grain harvester, maybe people from the ­Pacific don’t have that skill set and you might have to look further afield.”

Mr Joyce, Mr Coulton and Queensland Nationals colleague Keith Pitt agreed that the message from the Coalition to Australians on welfare that they would lose their taxpayer-funded income support if they turned down a suitable job offer without a reasonable excuse was a “good” one.

Mr Pitt, however, echoed concerns from key industry representatives. “Farmers are not social workers. They’re there to grow their business, they don’t want people on their farms who don’t want to be there,” he said.

Mr Morrison urged farmers to register their job needs with the National Harvest Labour Information Service and said the government would seek assistance through the Pacific labour and working holiday schemes to fill the “gaps”.

“What I don’t want to see happen in Australia is illegal work going on farms and cash work going on farms,’’ Mr Morrison said.

“What I want to see is this to be all done in a very transparent, open way.

“You need workers; our plan will help get workers to you to pick that fruit. But you need to tell us where the jobs are, and when you need them and we will work with you to solve those problems.”