CORONAVIRUS —
STATE ECONOMIC RECOVERY PLAN
614. Ms M.J. DAVIES to the Premier:
I have a supplementary question.
Premier, harvest is on our doorstep and the grape and fruit and vegetable
farmers need workers now to harvest their crops. When will the details of the
regional worker incentive scheme be released and how much is the government
contributing to it, given that it announced on 30 September that the government
will provide an incentive scheme?
Mr M.
McGOWAN replied:
The minister will announce the
details very shortly. I remind you all that this is not a situation of our
making. We have not put in place the hard border internationally, but I do
agree with it. I will not quibble about the international border. I wish people
would stop quibbling about the interstate border; the arguments are exactly the
same for both. I support the international
border and that means there are difficulties sourcing labour for these sorts of
things—there are, and we accept that. A lot of people during
this period just point out the problem, and there is a problem—we
accept that there is a problem—but the solution proposed by some people
to just open the international borders would make the problem far worse. I have
heard some industry groups say that. Just understand what would happen if we
did that without a vaccine and without a solution. Just think what would happen
if the virus came back. As the Treasurer was
just saying, the economic consequences would be shocking—catastrophic.
The arguments around the interstate and international border are exactly
the same. That is why we have been steadfast in supporting and protecting the
interstate border. In relation to the international border, we have been
steadfast in supporting the commonwealth on that, but it does pose problems,
and the member identified one, which is not having enough people out there to
do these jobs. I think this is the best solution—I genuinely do: if
people can receive JobSeeker and work on a farm and get additional pay on top,
that will incentivise people to go out there, and that is what I put to the
Prime Minister.