CORONAVIRUS —
STATE ECONOMIC RECOVERY PLAN
613. Ms M.J. DAVIES to the Premier:
I refer to the Premier's
media statement dated 3 September 2020 announcing an advertising campaign to
encourage young people to work in regional Western Australia.
(1) Why did the
Premier dismiss the Nationals WA suggestion for housing and travel incentives
when answering a question in this house on 11 August 2020, only to announce
that exactly three weeks later?
(2) When will
details of the regional worker incentive scheme be released and how much is the
government contributing to it?
Mr M.
McGOWAN replied:
(1)–(2) We
understand that there is a significant issue with getting enough labour out to
deal with the agricultural sector and, indeed, some of the tourism sector
across Western Australia, particularly in the north of the state. Therefore, as I indicated some weeks ago,
we launched a major advertising campaign on the weekend to get Western Australians
out there to do this work. This is very important. I feel for those
agricultural communities that will have difficulty sourcing enough people to
undertake some of the seasonal work, particularly
the harvest, over this period. The Work and Wander out Yonder campaign is in
full flight now. That is designed to point out the appealing aspects of
doing this sort of work in regional Western Australia in those two industries
in particular, and hospitality.
We will announce shortly the details
of our support measures for people who go into agricultural work in particular. We, of course, want to see the
industries themselves, and in particular the industry organisations,
work cooperatively to come up with additional arrangements to attract people
out there. It cannot all be the role of government. That is what I was saying
to the member the last time. It cannot all be the role of government. You
cannot take a 1950s view of the world that somehow the government has to do all
of this. It has to be also the farming communities, the farmers and the
industry associations. They also need to promote the advantages of going out
there and working and seeking to attract people. They have to do that. You cannot just say that only government can
do this. I do not know why you always fall back on the view that the
government should do everything. I do not know what it is about the National
Party. That seems to be its way of thinking. We are saying that industry needs
to assist.
The other point I make is this: on
Friday, I raised with the Prime Minister that the recipients of JobSeeker in
particular, but also, potentially, JobKeeper—but especially JobSeeker—should
be able to receive their payment and also go out and work in agriculture during
the seasonal period and receive their pay on top of the JobSeeker payment. That is a departure from the normal welfare
system, if you like, in Australia, but because
of the unusual situation of not having backpackers coming in and seasonal
labour sourced from the Pacific Islands or wherever it might be, we need
to look at these alternative measures. The Prime Minister said that he would go
away and look at that issue again. Obviously, it has been talked about before.
I think that the situation we face means that the commonwealth also needs to
join the state, industry, local governments and the like, and join the farmers
and the agricultural industry itself in coming up with solutions to the
extraordinary problem that we face.