Mark Dodd & Paul Maley; 19/8/08
Potential employers in the Pacific guest worker scheme will be strictly monitored to ensure short-term visa holders are not ripped off or exploited. Under the pilot program, details of which will be outlined by Kevin Rudd at the Pacific Islands Forum in Niue, 2500 short-stay visas will be issued to Pacific islanders. The first workers will start arriving before the end of the year to pick fruit and vegetables, jobs farmers claim they cannot fill. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said yesterday that the program demonstrated Australia’s new partnership with its Pacific neighbours. “Pacific island countries have been very enthusiastic about inclusion in a pilot scheme of this sort and the Prime Minister has indicated this is something he wishes to discuss at the Pacific Islands Forum,” he said.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24203844-5013404,00.html
More fruitful to pick Aborigines: Mundine
Patricia Karvelas; 19/8/08
Ndigenous leader and ALP powerbroker Warren Mundine has called on the Rudd Government to get unemployed Aborigines jobs picking fruit rather than bringing in Pacific islanders to do the job. Mr Mundine said that allowing Pacific islanders to take part in a three-year pilot seasonal workers’ scheme was “bizarre” when there were thousands of indigenous people out of work. “It’s quite bizarre that we are short of these workers,” he said. “It seems to me craziness when we’ve got 83,000 Aboriginal people sitting in the Job Network system without a job.” The pilot program will allow up to 2500 workers from Kiribati, Tonga, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea to work in the horticultural sector in Australia.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24203845-5013404,00.html
