On Monday I reported that the Morrison Government will on 30 September launch its Agricultural Visa, which will allow regional businesses across the horticultural, meat processing, fisheries and forestry sectors to hire indentured migrant labour from 10 South-East Asian nations with the promise of permanent residency if they commit to working beyond three years.
Yesterday, The ABC provided further details on the visa scheme, which will subsidise an uncapped number of migrant workers to enter Australia at the same time as tens-of-thousands of Australians are still stranded overseas and facing punitive costs to travel home [my emphasis]:
New South Wales’s hotel quarantine system is still processing Australians returning home from overseas, along with workers included in the Pacific Labour Scheme, who are only asked to pay half the price.
On top of that, Agriculture Minister David Littleproud said there would not be a limit on the number of overseas workers coming into the country.
“It’ll be demand-driven, so there are no caps on this,” he said. “It’ll come down to the bilateral negotiations that will take place now.
“We’re trying to accelerate those [agreements] with countries that we have longstanding immigration relationships with, such as [the] Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam”…
State Agriculture Minister Adam Marshall previously said the government was committed to subsidising quarantine costs for workers.
About 2,000 workers have already been processed under the scheme, at a cost of $3 million, and there is another $6 million available to continue.
There is also concern that Australians wanting to return home will be displaced by foreign workers under this new scheme.
That would not happen, Mr Littleproud said.
“They aren’t getting priority [over returning citizens]. They will be coming in the same way as our Pacific Scheme workers have been, in an addition to the caps,” he said.
Stranded Aussies took to Reddit lambasting our governments for prioritising cheap exploitative imported labour over actual Australian citizens:
What is crystal clear is that our treasonous politicians – both federal and state – have abandoned Australian citizens in favour of the business lobby and foreign nationals. Accordingly, they have abandoned their most sacred duty to look after the welfare of Australians.
Ultimately, our whole political system cares more about providing industry with cheap foreign slaves, and undercutting Australian workers’ pay and conditions, than looking after actual Australians abandoned to their pandemic fates.
It’s a bloody disgrace.
