skippy wrote:It all sounds great in theory mel but I just dont think it will work. Maybe in the very big farms like at Childers near Bundaberg where they grow a lot of Tomatoes but most small farms that need a bit of help would prefer to pay cash in hand to locals than have unemployed youth that are lazy little shits anyway.
Well it's worked in the past, why suddenly the need for "guest workers" now?
I understand that due to the GFC and our high dollar we aren't getting the back-packer pickers we once did, but if we are intending on immigrating unskilled migrants to give them citazinship, why the need to double up and out-source "guest workers" also, when the illegals and unskilled migrants we are granting residency cant get jobs themselves?
Even those arriving with short-stay (study and work visas) cant get work so are living in crammed boarding houses this and are leaving with their qualifications once their coarse has finished, so their skills are not being put to good use here in Australia.
Likewise with 'Guest workers' they come during the picking season, take work off locals, then leave and spend the money back in their home countries.
Australia has never been a guest worker nation, but due to UN (WTO) intrusion, this is what this current government want us to become.
Just like the WTO demanded we start allowing fire blight bitten apples from NZ (lifting a 90+ year ban) to compromise our pip industry.
It all comes down to the UN and WTO wanting us to be anything but self sufficient, preferring we become the food bowl and mining quarry of the world.
Our snap-frozen vegetables no longer hit our supermarket shelves, we are now expected to buy inferior frozen foreign produce from China and the odd frozen product from New Zealand should you be lucky enough to find a NZ bag of peas on your shelf.
Likewise with peanut butter.
Gillard spruked "Sustainability" pre-election, however her policies render us anything but self-sufficient in terms of our being able to produce enough of our own produce to feed ourselves coupled with the nations we now export much of our produce to.
Labor have sold the farm, dam and mines, this and have sold our water also, wild rivers are being sold off to foreign water investors, and scum like Wilkie ,Katter and Oakeshott are happily sitting back and letting this happen to their electorates, when they know in the long run, it will destroy them and our industry.
We need water for mining and for watering our crops, Howard was right about water being the biggest issue facing Australians and their capacity to be self sufficient, though this government is happily selling it to foreign investors.
Google "Blue Gold Australia's water market.
They have successfully blocked indigenous communities from gaining royalties from the sale of their own lands water.