‘Dark underbelly’: Producers renew calls for amnesty

Producers and experts have renewed calls for an amnesty for undocumented workers, but Labor is remaining silent.

The federal government has no plans to resolve the status of between 60,000 and 100,000 undocumented workers in Australia. Picture: Peter Lorimer

Labor has shown little interest in calls for a national amnesty for undocumented workers — a measure producers and experts say is urgently needed to address workforce shortages and exploitation in horticulture.

Robinvale stone fruit producer Cutri Fruit told a parliamentary inquiry last week his business had reduced the area on which it grew nectarines and peaches from 430ha five years ago to 292ha due to ongoing labour shortages and increasing costs. He called for an amnesty to address the issue.

“The easiest way to get skilled labour is just to give a bloody amnesty. They’re (the workers are) already here. Let’s be honest,” Cutri Fruit owner Gaethan Cutri said.

“Unfortunately the big farms can’t employ them because they have to do Sedex audits and we need pay slips and none of these guys want to work on pay slip.”

Cutri Fruit was the subject of a media investigation in 2016 that alleged the company had knowingly employed undocumented workers via a labour hire contractor.

Mr Cutri told the hearing the media allegations against his company were “not real”. He said he wanted an amnesty so he could employ undocumented workers legally.

It is understood that there is very little chance of an amnesty being granted under a federal Labor government.

A spokesman for Minister for Home Affairs Clare O’Neil referred questions about whether the government was considering an amnesty for undocumented workers to the Department of Home Affairs.

A spokesperson for the department referred the question back to the minister.

“Any consideration of potential mechanisms to regularise the status of unlawful non-citizens is a matter for the Government,” the spokesperson said.

National Party MP for Mildura Anne Webster told the inquiry – held by the joint standing committee on migration – that 25 per cent of students at one school in Robinvale had parents who were undocumented.

The National Farmers Federation workplace relations and legal affairs general manager Ben Rogers said there was no “uniform view” among farmers about an amnesty, but that undocumented workers were vulnerable and farmers wanted the issue of worker exploitation addressed.

In 2020, the National Agriculture Workforce Strategy, which strongly recommended a one-off amnesty, estimated there were between 60,000 and 100,000 undocumented workers in Australia with many employed in agriculture.

In towns such as Robinvale, Swan Hill Rural City Council told the hearing undocumented workers could make up more than half the area’s population.

Adelaide Law School professor Joanna Howe called on the government to address the issue.

“Unless you address the undocumented workers, you are still going to have a dark underbelly to the (horticulture) sector, because this group is not going to go away,” she said.

“Without status resolution, we can’t solve the problem of worker exploitation.”