Solomon Airlines flies 76 workers to Cairns for farm jobs in Queensland
A large group of international workers will land in Cairns before setting out to help fill Queensland’s gaps in seasonal farm labour.
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ABOUT 80 workers from the Solomon Islands will touch down in Cairns today.
They will quarantine for two weeks before moving on to their new jobs at farming properties across Queensland
The group of 76 men and women will fly into Cairns Airport on Friday afternoon on a Solomon Airlines’ international aircraft Airbus A320.
They are travelling to the Far North as part of a Queensland government initiative to bring additional approved workers from low-risk South Pacific island nations to assist with filling in the seasonal farm labour gaps left by the loss of international backpackers during the pandemic.
Agriculture Minister Mark Furner said COVID-19 had created a difficult environment for attracting agricultural labour, with tens of thousands of backpackers leaving the country as borders closed.
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He said the industry will be boosted by the arrival of more than 550 Pacific workers over the next two months, to complement the 1223 that have already arrived.
“More than 76 new Pacific workers will arrive to start work in the Burdekin, followed by 160 in the Lockyer Valley and another 72 in the Wide Bay region in the next couple of weeks,” he said.
“Another 245 workers will arrive to work in Central, North and Far North Queensland before the end of May.
“The thousands of seasonal jobs on offer every season in Queensland have always been filled by a balance of local and overseas workers.”
A Solomon Airlines spokeswoman said the workers will enter 14 day on-farm purpose built quarantine.
All of these workers will be headed to work in the Burdekin region to work on fruit and vegetable farms.
The state government launched a campaign on Wednesday encouraging Australian jobseekers to apply for winter harvest work this year.
Originally published as Solomon Airlines flies 76 workers to Cairns for farm jobs in Queensland
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