CORONAVIRUS —
METROPOLITAN HORTICULTURE WORKERS
659. Mrs L.M. HARVEY to the Premier:
I
have a supplementary question. I thank the Premier and note his answer. This is
a local, Western Australian labour shortage issue. What is the Premier
going to do to assist metropolitan fruit and vegetable growers who are facing
financial ruin this year because they cannot get workers?
Mr M.
McGOWAN replied:
It
is not only a Western Australian issue; it is also a national issue. It is
happening across Australia. The Joint Standing Committee on Migration
handed down its report on the working holiday maker program either yesterday or
today. It has recommended —
� for the next 12 months, the
Government —
That is, the federal government —
enable
workers to stay on JobSeeker payments while undertaking low paid agricultural
and horticultural work.
It also recommended —
� for the next 12 months the
Government —
Again, federal —
establish a one-off payment to help
with the travel and accommodation costs incurred, to be paid after a certain
period of time working in regional, rural and remote areas.
We have already done that in Western
Australia. It also recommended that the federal government —
� urgently develop and implement a 'Have
a Gap Year at Home Campaign' to attract young Australians, particularly
the current cohort of Year 12s and university graduates, to undertake regional
work.
In terms of people in the city, if
there are market gardens within the metropolitan boundaries, the clear way to
deal with that is by allowing people on
JobSeeker to keep their JobSeeker payments and get some additional payments on
top. That does not accord with our
traditional understanding of welfare, whereby if somebody undertakes paid work,
their welfare payments will naturally diminish, but these are extraordinary
circumstances. We work cooperatively with the commonwealth, but the state
government has done its bit. We ask the commonwealth government to help us with
this problem.