Seasonal Worker Program restart in Victoria beset by delays

December was supposed to herald the restart of Victoria’s seasonal worker program, yet the labour recruitment scheme looks no closer to delivering farmers with pickers and packers they desperately need.

Many farmers have come to rely on the Seasonal Worker Program to secure enough workers to remove their crop. Picture: Adam Head

VICTORIA’S provisional date of December 1 for the restart of the seasonal worker program has passed with no resolution of the issue.

In October, Agriculture Victoria’s acting chief executive Matt Lowe said the Victorian Government was working towards a December recommencement of the employment scheme to ensure farmers whose harvests peaked in the weeks before Christmas would have adequate labour to pick their fruit.

But there has since been little clarification from the state government about when the program would start, largely due to the uncertainty surrounding Victoria’s hotel quarantine arrangements while the state awaits the Hotel Quarantine Inquiry’s final report on December 21.

Victorian Farmers Federation vice president Emma Germano said the setback has left Victorian farmers in limbo.

“We need certainty to plan, and no excuse from the federal or state government is good enough because they didn’t find out (this would be a problem) in November, they found out in March,” Ms Germano said.

“We’re watching what’s happening in Queensland and they’re already ploughing crops in. Any later and it’s too late.”

The Australian Fresh Produce Alliance said in October that timing was critical. “Key Victorian industries such as summerfruit, table grapes and vegetables are rapidly approaching peak summer periods and without a plan to address those shortages before 2021, industry will face significant challenges,” AFPA chief executive Michael Rogers said.

Victorian Agriculture Minister Jaclyn Symes is believed to be working behind the scenes to have Pacific island workers land in the state “as soon as possible”.

The program hinges on a number government agencies working together, with the possibility of workers’ quarantine being completed at Northern Territory’s Howard Springs facility.

Meanwhile the final report of the inquiry into the Working Holiday Maker program was released on Monday by the Joint Standing Committee on Migration that wholeheartedly endorsed what is known as the “backpacker visa”.

Committee chair Julian Leeser said while the Government had already implemented key recommendations from the interim report – including introducing a “gap year” at home and relocation grants – those incentives now needed to be advertised better to both visa-holders and Australians.

Mr Leeser said the inquiry was an endorsement that the working holiday scheme should continue, and did not see it in conflict with the current push to get more Australians doing harvest work.

“Our economy is coming back and as it does, Australians will go back to their previous position of being less likely to do this work,” he said.

“Even if we get lots more Australians to do it regularly, the size of these industries are such that we will always need these (overseas) workers.”