TRANSCRIPT: INTERVIEW WITH 88.9 FM (Daniel Pizarro), 7 NOVEMBER 2024

Subjects: Pacific Labour Mobility Scheme

E&OE 

STARTS: 4:40PM

ENDS: 4:53PM

DANIEL PIZARRO:

Mr McCormack, it's great to speak to you after all these years and we're speaking, of course, about a very important aspect of the agricultural area for Northwest New England and that is the PALM Scheme. Are you surprised by hearing that the numbers of actual workers that were listed by the previous private companies have been higher than what they actually have been, and the Federal Government has had to readjust those numbers?

MICHAEL McCORMACK MP:

Well, unsurprised, very disappointed. So what we've seen with the number of Pacific Australia Labor Mobility Workers in agriculture is a fall from 21,915, call it 22,000 in July 2023 to 16,705 in September 2024. Now those numbers have been confirmed by officials in Senate Estimates this week, under questioning, what it shows is that Labor tinkered with this program.

Labor meddled with this very successful scheme, which goes right back to the Gillard Years. I mean, we've had a Pacific Worker Program, it was called the Seasonal Workers Program under Julia Gillard's Prime Ministership back in 2012 and then it became the Pacific Labor Scheme when Malcolm Turnbull was the Prime Minister in 2018. It then morphed into the scheme as it is now just before the last election under the Morrison Government. And look it worked.

So you know, if it ain't broke, why fix it? But Labor, of course, at the behest of its union mates, decided to make changes. What they did was that they tinkered around with the umber of hours they were going to force farmers to pay — a minimum of 30 hours a week, every week. Trouble is —  and you know this coming from a regional area —  and whether it's the cherry-picking area of Young, which you used to be in radio or whether it's the New England area now, there's a lot of horticulture, there's a lot of farmers who use this program, but there's not always the seasonal work.

And so when there's no work, because of weather or because of other factors, you can't have workers sitting around idle, not working. There's always going to be work for the PALM workers, they're always going to be getting paid. But you can't force at the behest of Labor's union mates, farmers to pay for workers when there's no work to be done.

Now, aren’t I jacked up about this? They've moved it and smoothed it to be over 120 hours guaranteed averaged over four weeks. But that provision is only in place until 1 July next year. But what has happened is that the farmers have left the scheme, they've lost confidence in it. What has also happened is that the workers themselves have stopped coming and then we've seen a fall in the numbers that I mentioned earlier. And what I'm worried about is that this trend may continue.

DANIEL PIZARRO:

Are you also concerned about how the private aspects of the farmer scheme, are also impacting negatively? Because in this case, we had that private company POF who was supplying this wrong data from the very, very beginning. But we also know that there have been numerous cases of private companies or private job agencies that have also been trying to skip the system or put workers into pretty much untenable situations and they have been absent, like had their lives on the board. Some of these things have been quite recent.

MICHAEL McCORMACK MP:

Well, any labour-hire company that tries to inflate figures or modify figures for their own financial gain, they're going to be found out and they're going to be punished accordingly, just the same as anybody who exploits workers. Likewise, they will find out, that there are hotlines and there are other provisions in place, and the workers are always going to be covered by Australia's workplace laws. They need to be paid obviously the right amount of money for the work that they do. I mean, that's a given. And anybody who flouts the system in this regard, whether they’re  hire companies, whether they're farmers, will be found out and will be punished accordingly.

But the PALM scheme was working. Was it perfect? No, it probably wasn't. But no scheme ever is going to be. But I tell you what, it provided a lot of remittances for Pacific workers, the wages were sent back home. This provided a lot of the GDP for their island nations, it provided our farmers with a ready, available, enthusiastic workforce to do some of the jobs that just couldn't be filled by Australians and or backpackers.

And it was a perfect niche scheme to do the work required, it was successful, it was operating and then along comes Labor and mucked it up. Typical Labor, typical anti-rural Government. What we need to see is the scheme getting back to what it was, and the Pacific workers will come, the farmers will be utilising it and just about everybody will be happy. And I'll tell you what, if we get back into Government, not only will we fix this scheme, but we'll also reinstate the agriculture visa to bring in the workers our farmers need. That in turn will increase the supply of food for families in the supermarkets and that in turn might even have an effect on prices at the checkout.

So we're doing a lot of things in this regard, whether it's workers, whether it's divestiture rules around the grocery duopoly. We're making sure that we get the right measures in the right place at the right time. And what does Labor do? Well, they just want to put these provisions in place that's going to deter workers and deter farmers from using what was a very successful scheme.

DANIEL PIZARRO:

And finally, are you aware that many of these farm workers are also silent in numbers? That's also why there might be some changes in the numbers as well.

MICHAEL McCORMACK MP:

Well, look, these sorts of things are monitored and I know I've had any number of meetings with people who are part and parcel of this scheme. What we want to make sure is that the workers are looked after, through the conditions they're working in, through the wages they're being paid. We want to make sure that they are happy so that they come back, we want to make sure that they're happy so that they tell others to come.

It's a bit like the backpacking situation. It operated largely on word of mouth. The backpackers came because I knew they'd have a good holiday in Australia, be able to earn a bit of money, be able to spend it on the way out and have a working holiday.

We want to make sure that our Pacific Island friends are very well looked after, that the food, the work that they do in horticulture, food production and farming is all done so that we don't see fruit rotting on trees, that we don't see work not being done. And, you know, a general downturn in the rural economy. And look, Labor has just mucked it up again, it's been exposed in Senate Estimates this week. Let's hope that a future Coalition Government gets in and fixes  it.

DANIEL PIZARRO:

And when would you like to be coming up to New England? It'd be good to see you.

MICHAEL McCORMACK MP:

Oh, well, I wouldn't mind that at all, Barnaby Joyce, the Member for New England and I sat together in Parliament this week and today in fact, and had a good chat about where things were headed with the rural economy.

We are both worried about where the state of the nation is, we're both worried about the fact that we do have a cost-of-living crisis for the people we represent and indeed right across the nation. And we're doing everything we can, working hard to make sure that we get things right, to make sure that we've got policies on the table. Particularly from the Nationals point of view, to make a credible alternative and hopefully form a Government after the next election. So he and I will be working very hard to do just that. But as far as a visit to New England is concerned, I've got a big new, sprawling Riverina electorate with significant boundary changes, so that will be my focus at the moment and of course, making sure in my portfolio role that I work hard to ensure that we get the right outcomes for our Pacific friends.

And there's one thing I do agree with the Prime Minister about is that the Pacific Island nations for it for them, Australia should be their first partner of choice. What Labor's done in this PALM scheme is not doing that. But I do agree with the PM that we need to do everything we can to make sure that Pacific Islanders feel welcome, to make sure there are jobs there for them, and to make sure that in this contested space at the moment Australia is their number one country of choice.

Emma Sullivan