The NFF hasn't improved on the industry's 19th century culture.
What they are proposing is simply 21st century Blackbirding....

Maracas,

This is absolute rubbish. Giving people the ability to earn their own money, instead of relying upon handouts, is highly beneficial.

I would like to hear your solution for the woes of the Pacific nations

Agreed. 'Guest workers' is the wrong way to go. Free trade was supposed to take care of smaller, poorer countries, but it now seems like a con trick for exporters to make more money.

With the number people on the dole in Austalia, there should be no problem with getting workers, if the Government had the guts to weed out the bludgers and put them to work.

Anyway, it looks as if South Austalian irrigators will have no water alloctions at all next season, so there might be a lot of people looking for jobs in other states.

I am a seasonal fruit picker/farm hand and I can tell you the real reason why farmers cannot find workers: it is because THEY PAY US CRAP WAGES. Yes, it is that simple!
There is no such thing as a shortage of labour. What there is, is a shortage of people who like working at $13/hr or less. There is also a shortage of people who like working 16+ hour shifts 6 days a week.
No, I'm not exaggerating here. It really is the case that many farm labourers are making less than minimum wages. It is also very common for workers not to get paid super.
The 'make-up' of the workforce has changed over the last couple of decades. Twenty years ago you if you visited a farm you would find traditional hard working 'illegals' and Australian 'gun' pickers working under piece work contract. Hard work was rewarded, gun pickers could make income comparable to tradesmen. But now a farm's labour will predominately consist of backpackers.
Backpackers are here on holiday, all they want is enough money to get to the next town and to party. So on average they will only stay a few weeks in any given rural town. But they wish to make as much money as possible during this time so they are prepared to work incredible long hours. We're talking 16+ shifts here 7 days a week. While it is possilbe to work 100 hours a week for a few weeks or so, it is almost impossible to do it continuously-- hence most Australian workers cannot work a whole season at the one fruit shed any more. The backpackers have also affected they quality of the work performed. Most backpackers are fresh out of school/uni. They have never done physical farm work previously. Consquently thier work output and quality is considerably less than an experienced picker. The farmer compensates for this by reducing wages. This collective punishment for the poor workmanship of the backpacker penalises the true gun picker-- consequently the guns have quit and left the industry.

What pcannon says is believable. Let's not fall for the 'poor old farmers' line. I certainly would not pick fruit in the heat for the wages they want to pay. Putting it over backpackers who want short term work only to finance their holiday before they return home to a well-paid career is a form of exploitation by orchardists.

There are enough Austalians who would be prepared to pick, if they were paid a decent wage to do it. Any employer using foreign labour is a bludger.

Thanks, pcannon for your input. We are hearing almost nothing these days from those directly concerned.

Whilst I have made own position against the guest Island scheme clear (See for example "Doug Cameron: Guest workers threaten Australian wages and conditions" at http://candobetter.org/node/517) I need to understand the economics of this issue better.

pcannon, I think some of what you write seems a little contradictory. On the one hand you rightly object to the way backpackers are prepared to work for 16+ hours per day 7 days per week, but on the other you say that backpackers are less productive than native Australian workers. If that is so, it would make no economic sense for farmers to favour backpackers over more traditional workers. Although I concede that not everything that happens in this country makes economic sense, it seems more likely to me that, on the whole, farmers are better able to exploit backpackers (and Pacific Island guest workers) than they are Australians.

We should ask why it seems possible for backpackers to exist on wages that you or I could not hope to live on in any dignified way over a longer period of time.

Part of the reason may be that they don't need to pay rent, car registration and other expenses. Because they are young and fit they can better endure material depredations for a year or two. Most probably plan to go back to University and have high paying careers in a few years' time. If their plans are realised, they would never again dream of working for the kind of wages they are prepared to now. However, in the meantime, they are helping to depress the wage levels of those who may have to work as fruit pickers for the rest of their lives.

Other factors to be considered is the unfair competition that Australian farmers face from fruit imparted (wastefully using the world's diminishing stocks of petroleum) from overseas slave labour economies.

I encourage anyone here concerned with this issue to also check out http://candobetter.org/immigration and to get in touch with me through http://candobetter.org/contact