Agriculture Minister open to labour solutions beyond PALM

Federal Ag Minister Murray Watt has hinted that the Albanese Government may look into alternative solutions to solve the labour crisis.

Federal Agriculture Minister Murray Watt has hinted his government may look into other solutions to solve the $73 billion industry’s labour shortage, despite killing off hope of reviving the Agriculture Visa.

Murray Watt, the new Federal Minister for Agriculture. Picture: Supplied

At horticulture’s biggest conference Hort Connections in Brisbane yesterday, Mr Watt said there was more the Federal Government could do to tackle the massive shortage of workers than expanding the existing Pacific Australia Labour Mobility visa scheme.

“We said we would not follow through with the previous government’s plans for the Agriculture Visa, but what we did say and commitment to is we do want to expand the PALM scheme because we think there is further opportunity to make use of willing workers who have already been embedded to work in Australia,” Mr Watt said.

“But, I think if I’m being honest, what I’ve picked up over the last week or so is that it is welcomed – the expansion of PALM – but there are other issues within the sector that might also need attention, particularly semi-skilled and skilled workers. And to be frank, there’s more I think we can do to solve these challenges.”

He said the Federal Government also wanted to focus on training and encouraging Australians to work in agriculture.

“I don’t think we should only be looking overseas. We need to train Australians. I do think there is more work we can do to train our own people to take on jobs in ag, but I am very much open about what else we can do around skilled migration to meet some of the challenges we have,” Mr Watt said.

During the election campaign, Labor cruelled the hopes of many within agriculture, and horticulture in particular, when it said it would not continue with the Morrison Government’s Agriculture Visa. It has since however said it would honour the memorandum of understanding made with Vietnam, the only country to publicly signal its intention to partner in the scheme.

The Federal Government’s focus on the Pacific for defence purposes appears to cross over into other policy areas, with all commitments made to address Australian agriculture’s labour shortage tied to the existing Pacific visa schemes, and expanding them to recruit more broadly from other nations in the Pacific region.

National Farmers’ Federation chief executive Tony Mahar said he had already met frequently with the new Agriculture Minister – who was sworn in less than a week ago – and had pushed the urgency with which the industry needed the ag visa.

“There were three things we said to him yesterday that we’re a bit concerned about: the ag visa, the recovery of 450GL from the Murray-Darling Basin and live sheep exports … We did give him very clear advice and our thoughts on what we think should happen,” Mr Mahar said.