Lies lies and more lies.

There are many reasons for food shortages and consequential price gouging riding on its back.

Rural industries have consistently relied on wage theft and under payments of its itinerant work force.

Rural industries are generally a lazy mob of exploitive bludgers and thieves.
Nothing has changed much in two hundred years.

Dan

Labour shortages my eye! There are over a million Australians on the dole and job keeper. Get them out into the healthy fresh air working instead of sitting about getting handouts.

I don't have statistics but have observed several times that taxpayers massively subsidise foreign agricultural workers. Governments pay for charter planes, quarantine then ongoing accommodation in four star hotels and airconditioned coaches to and from the hotel and the farm. The farmer has to pay some modest wages and perhaps a pittance in taxes. There seems to be no end to the largesse of conservative governments who need to 'prove' how well the market system works.

Like foreign students the use of foreign farm labour seems to be a back door way of increasing permanent population in the absence of a population policy. Add to that absconders and sponsored relatives. If locals won't do the jobs I suggest we need more automation such as fruit picking machinery.

ttbn has got it right, no if's no but's !
Even better start a non-military National Service for all 18-20 year old unemployed !
Problem solved.

According to Senator Ruston, people might very well be required to work for the dole during the current labour crisis caused by hysterical state governments.

labour crisis caused by hysterical state governments.
ttbn,
I'm inclined to blame the hangers-on in the opposition for that ! They bleat about Dole bludgers whilst bludging within the Public Service themselves and, at far greater expense to all !

Half a dozen comments on a thread of such importance ? Goes to show that the majority of voters couldn't exist without the handful who care. Appalling !

I believe I agree with Dan. And if we can just limit the flow of foreign workers? This should change.

And force more and more automation in the industry. Like the recently revealed driverless tractor and or, totally automated milking. those unable to adapt need as they must, go the way of the Dodo! farms made more sense when they were small and inexpensive self sufficiency strategies that sold or traded modest surpluses.

And could be again if we had a viable manufacturing sector, exporting to the world. And that's very doable with the right visionary policies and the right visionary leaders to implement them. Time that the cow cocky/wrangler/row cropper, stopped being a protected species propped up continually by the taxpayer's dollar!

That said, they'd be far better served by big drought proofing projects that must include monumentally massive desalination projects that make irrigation volumetric water a financially viable option, even in former arid desert wasteland! As opposed to pouring public money down a black hole forever, just to buy votes!
Alan B.

big drought proofing projects
Alan B,
yes and, such projects wouldn't require huge outlay up front. All that needs to be done is to start & before long it'd become just about self-funding by way of services & waterfront real estate. The flooding of Lake Eyre would be a huge economic, ecological & social benefit to Australia.

Exploiting the cheap labour from pacific islands isn't going to work as well as it did in the past.
Some of these people have actually become a lot smarter than us.
In the Philippines I hear they've become really big on play2earn games.
- And they all work together on this to better themselves.

Let me give you an idea of the money were talking here.
I invested about 10k into a game on the wax blockchain about a month ago,
I didn't invest it all at once, I slowly added and built up game assets, before the price quadrupled.
I've probably gotten about half of what I spent back, just from selling the tokens I earned in the game.
Its a reasonably simple game.
http://dragonsvalley.io/

The price has pulled back a little after a big week last week.
But there were a few days there last week, where I was making US$700 - $800 a day.
Give it another week or 2, and I'll likely have back all I spent
- and everything from there on will be free money.
Maybe US $250 - $300 a day.

Think about how much money this is to someone who lives in one of those places.
- And they're all working together.

You buy gaming assets - look at the prices of this stuff.
http://wax.atomichub.io/market?collection_name=warspacegame&order=desc&schema_name=packs&sort=created&symbol=WAX

You can buy into things cheap when they are getting started and sell them for 5 times the price later
and be left with free assets that make money every day.
http://warspace.io/

http://wax.atomichub.io/market?collection_name=warspacegame&order=asc&schema_name=passes&sort=price&symbol=WAX
- These passes (above) for example sold for US$50 a month ago.
- Lowest price right now, US$1450

I'm using money gained from the game above to put into other games/staking which also have good returns,
a few of these dice I have here staked make US$80 every 3 days,
and a whole lot more when the token price goes up.
http://play.gamexchange.app/staking

Take a look at this:
These will go up a lot in value I think, backed by Ubisoft.
Selling new puppies that you breed and earn with could be lucrative.
http://dogami.com/

Armchair Critic,
Computer games vs national infrastructure ? Video games are merely a quick buck for a handful
of emotionless humanoids devoid of any feelings for humanity.
What we are in desperate need of isn't insane wealth for a few at the expense of the mentality of the young, what we need is a functioning society with reward for effort, not Jackpots for freaks of the digital realm.
We need to plan for our grandchildren instead of not even planning for our own old age.
Only national infrastructure & its maintenance can provide the security for all that comes with such a system & mentality ! To keep pushing for growth is as stupid as the people who suggest it.

Lets be honest here.
This whole scheme to get foreigners to come to Australia to work, is nothing more than a scheme to get labour at a cost below what would be legal to pay our own citizens to do.

It may be a win-win where the foreigner benefits from working here.
- But if we expected our own citizens to do it for the same money it would be illegal.
Basically is just exploiting poorer foreigners for a cheaper wage base on jobs that CANNOT BE EXPORTED.

I'm sick of all this foreign bs.
I had a pc monitor pack up a month back.
The crap I went through, they just wouldn't do if support were based in Australia.
All these multinationals want to suck the money from countries abroad, but cant even pay an Australian a wage.
I'm ready to boycott any company that has an overseas call centre.
They want to take our money, but they wont give anyone a job, and I'm sick of dealing with foreign call centre staff for whom English is not their first language.

I agree with much of what you say but not all of it.
All this country does is indoctrinate its kids with total crap.
And they all end up drug-using houso derros with the iq of a retard
- but they all think they're as smart as Steven Hawking.
The country has had it, it's passed it's best before date.
- But this is happening the whole world over.
You granddaughter will probably be so entitled after a good dose of current curriculum, that she'll take you to get euthanasied herself to get whatever you have.
I'm done caring about this country, I'm not giving any of the useless politicians or stupid ideas any more concessions.
The whole reason for ALL OF THIS, is government failure in quarantine.

I've given good ideas before relating to solving many of Australias problems, but the world doesn't want good ideas, it wants to maintain a global status qao for the worlds elites.

Where nations no longer belong to its citizens.
Where all citizens are considered foreigners and all nations muticultural.
Who wins out of all this.
Big business, multinationals that put their call centres in some foreign country, and put messages on the 15 minutes you're on hold telling us not to be racist.

That aside.
Were not a country any more because we do'nt agree on anything.
All we do is argue and disagree over everything, there's no unity.
Furthermore -
How are you going to convince anyone that it would be better for them to bust arse in the Aussie sun building roads and infrastructure or being indoctrinated into slaves by our curriculum when they can sit in aircon and make US$150k year playing a game that fit in the 8-12 yrs age bracket.

Is that what you want your grandaughter doing?
Did you ever in your life recognise a difference between working harder and working smarter?
The nation creates the derros for a purpose.
So that they will do the crap jobs that others wont.

You have 20,000 people in Philippines making this much from play2earn games, that's probably a bigger export (bring foreign money) than anything they ever had before.

I'll tell you something else too play2earn games are a universal basic income. If you live in Venezeula and can make 1 or 2 US dollars a day
- Then you don't have to eat your neighbours dog or cat.

You see over on the general forum 'What is an Australian'
That's a symptom of whatever Australia once was IS NOW PAST..
By design, dictated to by non-Australians with global ideas and agendas.

If these things don't set alarm bells ringing..
Australians asking - 'What is an Australian?'
- Then nothing ever will.

None of you want to acknowledge the elephant in the room.
Australia as we all once knew it, no longer exists.