Seasonal workers from Australia: lessons from New Zealand

In August 2008, the Australian Government announced a pilot study for a seasonal workers program, to recruit Pacific islanders for temporary harvest work in the horticulture and viticulture industries. Although conditions vary in significant ways, Australian farmers, unions and government agencies can learn from New Zealand’s Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) program, which has been operating since 2007 – the New Zealand experience bringing unskilled workers from the Pacific raises issues and concerns which Australian policy makers, employers and unions should consider in implementing a similar scheme. The New Zealand Government, while acknowledging early administrative short-falls, argues that the RSE program has been a great success. But research by the ‘Pacific Labour and Australian Horticulture’ project at Swinburne University also identifies significant problems arising from a lack of engagement with unions, the community sector and Pacific diaspora communities. These difficulties cannot be dismissed as teething problems. The first year of the RSE program has highlighted the need for increased effort on labour rights, welfare services and ‘pastoral care’ for seasonal workers, and also the potential for linking seasonal work programs to broader development assistance to maximise the outcomes of increased remittance flows into Pacific villages and rural communities. In spite of employers’ preference for self-regulation, the New Zealand experience suggests that any seasonal workers scheme must involve more than monitoring of conditions for temporary workers by employers and industry groups – the scheme must be regulated by government, and there must be a system of sanctions for breaches of those regulations.