Taking to the floor of the Victorian Parliament, Ms Lovell criticised the practice of quarantining overseas pickers in Tasmania under the Pacific Islander Labour Scheme.
“Last year the Andrews Labor Government ignored warning from the horticulture industry of the impending labour shortage and growers lost millions of dollars’ worth of unpicked fruit as a result,” she said.
“I call on the government to act quickly by allowing overseas workers to complete their quarantine here in Victoria, so they are ready to commence work on our farms in December.”
Orchardist and member of Fruit Growers Victoria Peter Hall agreed, stating one solution was to quarantine pickers on the farms where they worked, isolated from the regional community.
“We need to follow the lead of the other state governments and provide in-state quarantine facilities, and potentially allow workers to be quarantined on farm. People who come here want to work and have a high rate of compliance,” Mr Hall said.
The past practice of quarantining in Tasmania had added between 20 to 30 per cent to the cost of labour hire for orchardists and delivered workers too late in the season, according to Mr Hall.
“After nearly two years, we should have had this sorted out. It’s completely fear driven,” he said.
While the Federal Government had been initially slow to respond when the virus outbreak struck, it implemented the right policies to supply overseas workers, according to Mr Hall, and last year’s season had proved that local unemployed workers were not willing to fill the gap.
But Victoria was an outlier, with its state government refusing to quarantine the available workforce locally, he said.
As an agricultural region, Kyabram and surrounds are important to the state’s economy, according to Ms Lovell.
“Kyabram has traditionally been a vital part of our industry. Kyabram and the Goulburn Valley are the food bowl of the nation and we need the right measures in place both now and when the pandemic is over so we can start to grow our industries again,” she said.
