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Parliamentary Questions


Question Without Notice No. 1140 asked in the Legislative Council on 21 October 2020 by Hon Peter Collier

Parliament: 40 Session: 1

AGRICULTURE — PACIFIC LABOUR SCHEME AND SEASONAL WORKER PROGRAMME

1140. Hon PETER COLLIER to the Minister for Regional Development:

I ask this question on behalf of Hon Dr Steve Thomas, who is on urgent parliamentary business.

I refer to the minister's backflip on the need to import farm labour to ensure that this year's crops can be harvested, which is more than two months after my first call for this to occur.

(1) On what date did the state begin discussions with the Northern Territory and federal governments to bring new Seasonal Worker Programme and Pacific Labour Scheme workers into the country, as per the minister's media release?

(2) When does the government expect to complete those discussions and reach an agreement?

(3) By what date can producers expect to see workers under either of these schemes on their farms in Western Australia?

(4) Does the minister stand by her comments to the Albany Advertiser on 13 August, reported in an article on my call to import Pacific labour, when she was quoted as saying, ''We've had to be very clear with industry—they cannot rely on a hope that international labour will be available this year''?

(5) What has been the Northern Territory government's response to the minister's suggestion that the Western Australian government would seek to steal the workers the Northern Territory has already imported?

Hon ALANNAH MacTIERNAN replied:

I thank the member for asking questions on behalf of Hon Dr Steve Thomas. I think that we have addressed these questions at length. Given the highly political and egocentric nature of the question, I will give an appropriate reply.

(1)–(5) We reject totally, of course, the idea that there has been a backflip. I have said, and I have been saying since March, and I still say that we cannot just rely on the opening of borders and the availability of international workers. That is still the case. The first thing we had to do, our first range of endeavours, was to keep as many backpackers and seasonal workers as we possibly could in place. That was certainly our focus over those first few months of the pandemic. Then we started to prepare for the harvest. How would we do that? How would we continue to build on our work to bring on more Western Australians who had not previously done this sort of work, whether it was in grain harvesting or fruit picking, and encourage and entice them in? That is what we have been doing with a series of measures, including an advertising campaign. Today, I read that detail. There are physicists, therapists, dance instructors and airline pilots—an array of people—who have gone into harvester training and are now out working. We have never said that there would be a single answer. As time has gone on, we have developed more and more strategies.

We started conversations with the Northern Territory government through the Agriculture Ministers' Forums and outside those meetings. In fact, in August this year, I wrote to Hon David Littleproud to say that we will be watching the trial to bring in seasonal workers that would start in September, which we did. We were then able to make an announcement that we would embrace the scheme and work—as we had discussed with both Hon Paul Kirby and the current minister, Hon Nicole Manison—to use the Howard Springs facility to bring in workers. The approved employers, the labour hire firms, that bring in these people, are more than happy to have those workers who finish their duties in the Northern Territory to then come over to WA. We are now looking at a new plan. We answered these questions at length in the debate today.

Several members interjected.

The PRESIDENT: Order! Leader of the Opposition, I will say that when members ask long, detailed questions, sometimes they might get a long, detailed answer.

Hon Peter Collier: Thank you, Madam President, but not War and Peace!

The PRESIDENT: You never know, Leader of the Opposition.