Italy’s proposed illegal worker amnesty gives Australian farmers hope

As farmers grapple with the changes wrought on their industry by coronavirus, the time is nigh for a reworking of Australia’s immigration policies, they say.

Daniele Moschetti talks with Mercy Fred, a woman from Nigeria, in Southern Italy. The undocumented African migrants who, even before the coronavirus outbreak plunged Italy into crisis, barely scraped by as day labourers, prostitutes and seasonal farm hands. PICTURE: AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino

VICTORIAN farmers are reviving the push for an amnesty to flush out tens of thousands of illegal workers, describing coronavirus as the perfect impetus for a resetting of immigration policies to safeguard Australia’s agricultural workforce during the coronavirus pandemic.

The call follows Italy’s Agriculture Minister Teresa Bellanova’s proposal to grant working rights to as many as 600,000 illegal workers in that country to help harvest crops.

Travel restrictions imposed to stop the spread of coronavirus across Europe have meant thousands of seasonal workers, many of them from Romania and Bulgaria, have been kept at home, raising the risk that farmers’ crops will be left to rot.

Victorian Farmers Federation horticulture group president Emma Germano said the Federal Government would have to reconsider its immigration policies when looking ahead to a post-COVID-19 environment.

Migration is predicted to dive due to the closure of nat­ional borders, with the federal treasury forecasting an 85 per cent drop in migration numbers next year in the wake of the pandemic.

“It doesn’t matter where you live in the developed world, your own citizens don’t want to pick fruit and vegetables. Good on Italy, they’re working out that an amnesty is a good idea,” Ms Germano said.

The Federal Government moved last month to extend the visas of Pacific Island workers by up to 12 months, and backpackers whose visas were due to expire within six months, if they continued to work on Australian farms.

“The mechanism is already there to allow this to happen, there just has to be the political will. Now is the perfect time to give them status resolution,” Ms Germano said.

AusVeg chief executive James Whiteside said he was concerned about short and medium-term labour shortages brought on by the global pandemic, “as COVID-19 hopefully comes to an end and backpackers return home, and less backpackers are travelling to Australia”.

“We are working with government to look at options to ensure the impact on growers is limited, which includes improving the policy settings for the existing visa programs which industry relies so heavily on,” Mr Whiteside said.

Two years ago, the number of illegal farm workers was estimated to be about 60,000.

A Department of Employment spokeswoman said ensuring farmers have access to the workforce they require “is a priority of the Australian Government”.

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