A recent report from the National Agricultural Labour Advisory Committee admitted that Australian farmers’ extreme reliance on cheap migrant labour is having detrimental productivity impacts by preventing farms from adopting new methods and investing in automation:
In many ways, Australia is at a crossroads. Either its enterprises go all out to modernise by learning and adopting new methods, or they fall behind the others, occupying increasingly uncomfortable niches, relying on inadequately trained, low productivity workers, using the same old approaches that worked yesterday, and then finding themselves in a situation where business as usual has suddenly turned into business in decline…
The report was delivered against the backdrop of farmers complaining of labour shortages and wanting governments to facilitate the entry of low-paid foreign workers.
