I live in NQ and I don't know of anyone getting $20 ph picking fruit!

I have worked picking/packing and the money is not there. Usually it is around $13-14, some can even get $15, and the hours can be sporadic. Sometimes from 6am to 12 with no break or unpaid hours of standing around due to weather, breakdowns etc. Days of no work or only an our or so for the day.

Another issue is accomadation - farmers no longer have barracks etc for workers. Workers don't miraculously appear for work and disappear at the end of the day. They need somewhere to eat, shower and sleep.

If the farmers could guarantee 40 hours per week min. at $20 per hour there would be a queue of workers. Black and white Australians would be there.

Leigh - I challenge you to come north and see how many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders work in the banana farms. The work is hard, heavy and dirty. How dare you assume that Aboriginal people will not work. I would like to see you having a 70-80 kg bunch of bananas dropped on your shoulder and see you carry it out through the mud, in the tropical heat, to the trailer. Or spend all day working in the paddock in the heat and humidity.

Your redneck would be glowing!!

I agree with Aka, there are a number of disincentives that are not appreciated. One he has not mentioned is travel cost. You can drive 60 - 80km for a start only to have the weather prevent any work. It used to be that if you had worked 2 hours before rain, you were paid a minimum 4 hours if you were unable to work more that day. Travel costs at today's gas prices add to the gamble. Farmers are now very wary of allowing workers to camp on the property. I don't know where Dr Hughes gets her $20 an hour figure. The award is approx $17.50.

LEIGH , if you can't treat people as equals you will always have trouble .
Help our own people to get ahead .[kartiya]

The lack of fruit pickers also applies to grape pickers, as the vineyard owners complain they cannot get pickers.
As Aka puts it, there are costs involved for the picker.

My experience as a grape picker six years ago: Early start 530am, own transport (petrol), Wait at centrol point until allocated a vineyard, drive to vineyard (petrol), work ( with own secateurs) till 10.00 am 15 minute smokoe, work through till 1.00pm lunch break ( supply your own food) 30 minutes, work through till 4.00pm.

Monetary return for the picker, one dollar per bucket picked, temperatures in the 30c, hands and arms cut with the vines, Water available from tank attached to grape loader from communal cup and constant harrasment from vineyard supervisor to pick everything. It was not uncommon to do half a day and be told "No more work".

My average daily return 80 buckets then to add insult to personal injury, When paid at the end of the week, Tax deducted.

It was then that I realised, I was being exploited.

Luckily I could go home to my own bed, exhausted, a number of pickers had to sleep in their own vehicles.

I am all for doing a good days hard work, but not when treated as a serf!

Kipp, thanks for the insights. Like most season work fruit picking has its problems.

While the author of the article has good intentions, surely our young people should be given choices like other Australian kids have – choices like access to a good education and other choices that let them decide what they want to do with their lives.

Yes fruit picking may provide access to a labour market, provide work experience and develop some fundamental life skills - where none exists in many remote (and urban) areas for Aboriginal youth and older workers.

But I don't think it should be a substitute for access into other professional and/or skilled labour markets.

The shortage of apprentices for instance.

I was a labourer for the first two decades of my working life and now work in a completely different environment. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't change this for the world as labouring taught me heaps, but it was also a dead end, at least I thought it was, others may not - which is absolutely fine by me.

Yes, the provision of jobs would be good for those who have no opportunities at all. Certainly better than import substitutions.

But I don’t think it should not be promoted as a panacea.

[Great posts kartiya jim, aka, jup! - seems like we are destined to waste our time sorting out their 'head' problems first before we get down to the topic at hand. ]

Rainier,
I agree with what you said in your last post. Seasonal work has its problems and should not replace more skilled jobs with better and permanent prospects.

However few opportunities come to those sitting at home. Lots have to leave home to find work and seasonal work does get people out and about and more likely to find other opportunities.

Many seasonal workers I came across, in my younger days, made good money and worked hard while they were young and fit, then used saved money to pay deposit on a business of some sort. Maybe retail, a truck, backhoe, taxi or into something else. Some made a success of their enterprize and others did not. Thats life.

The point is that one has to get out and about to find or make the opportunities. Not everyone can be a professional or tradesman.
Doing seasonal work may give some the contacts required and certainly finance one while away from home.

From the countries point of view, it seems to me far better to keep the wages paid within Australia than have it go overseas to China or other places.

This is why I say Governments should give generous incentives to those willing to work hard. Maybe I was lucky, but the harder I worked the luckier I became.